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Freedom and Creativity of Women in Virginia Woolf

The central point of Woolf's A Room of One's Own is that every woman needs freedom-something men are able to enjoy without question. To create something women must be free financially as well as from all kinds of prejudices. Therefore, the room of women stands for many larger issues, such as privacy, leisure, and financial independence. Not only economic facts but also she emphasizes on an unprejudiced state of mind of women to show creativity. A room of one's own is a mighty proposition for women's independence in creative endeavors. In the past women were not allowed into particular universities and libraries-let alone given the opportunity to creatively express themselves. We will analyze Woolf's insight towards the necessity of financial freedom of women first in the essay.

For this, Woolf gives reference to the history where women had no money of their own. She gives information how the buildings of Oxford University have been constructed. When the age of faith was over and the age of reason came in the 18th century, merchant class and manufacturer were the patrons of the universities. At that time women had no money to contribute to the Oxford and Cambridge. That time universities founded by the industrialists.

A room of one's own is a mighty proposition for women's independence in creative endeavors. In the past women were not allowed into particular universities and libraries-let alone given the opportunity to creatively express themselves.

Much of 'A Room of One's Own' is dedicated to an analysis of the patriarchal English society that has limited women's liberty. Woolf reflects upon how men, the only gender allowed to keep their own money, have historically fed resources back into the universities and like institutions. These help they gain power in the first place. In contrast, the women's university, the narrator stays at had to scrap together funds when it was chartered. Woolf presents that women are not even allowed in the library at the men's college without special permission, or to cross the lawn.

Woolf repeatedly insists upon the necessity of an inheritance that requires no obligations and of the privacy of one's own room for the promotion of creative genius. Without money, women are slavishly dependent on men; without privacy, constant interruptions block their creativity. Freedom of thought is hampered as women consume themselves with thoughts of gender. Woolf insists, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to right fiction." Especially she holds that a woman should have 500 pounds per year and a room with a lock on the door. For her own money, Woolf relied on an inheritance from her aunt; she claims it was give to her "For no other reason than that [she] share[d] her name." The sum was 500 pounds per year, for the duration of Woolf's life; the same amount she insists is vital to any woman wishing to write.

For the narrator of 'A Room of One's Own' money is the primary element that prevents women from having a room of their own, and thus having a room of their own, and thus, having money is of the utmost importance. Because women do not have power, their creativity has been systematically stifled throughout the ages. The narrator writes, "Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for 200 years merely, but from the beginning of time..." She uses this quotation to explain why so few women have written successful poetry. She believes that the writing of novels lends itself more easily to frequent starts and stops, so women are more likely to write novels than poetry: women must content with frequent interruptions because they are so often deprived of a room of their own in which to write. Without money, women will remain in second place to their creative male counterparts. The financial discrepancy between men and women at the time of Woolf's writing perpetuated the myth that women were less successful writers.

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