Lesson Four
Professions for Women
by Virginia Woolf
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Virginia Adeline Woolf
(1882—1941)
English novelist, critic, and essayist
Works:
The Voyage Out (1915)
Night and Day (1919)
Jacob's Room (1922)
Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
To the Lighthouse (1927)
Orlando (1928)
A Room of One's Own (1929)
The Waves (193I)
The Years (1937)
Fanny Burney (1752 –1840)
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At 15, burned early writing because her stepmother felt
that a reputation for scribbling would harm the girl’s
marriage prospects and because she herself was early
impressed ‘with ideas that fastened degradation to this
class of composition’ then, as now, called the novel.
Evelina (1778) ‘Explored the social development of a
heroine who proves herself worthy of her well-born
suitor’.
Cecilia; or Memoirs of an Heiress (1782) ‘Analysized the
social and economic problems of women’
Tried to raise the status of the novel by combining
verisimilitude with instructions.
Aphra Behn (1640 –1689)
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Spy and playwright, traveler and wit, Aphra Behn was
England’s first professional woman writer. In a age when
many women of letters were intellectual aristocrats who
claimed to write only for pleasure and ‘fame’ among their
friends, Behn was a middle-class widow who frankly
wrote for money and public acclaim.
In 1666, she entered the intelligence service of King
Charles II, when such public toils of state affairs were
unusual with her sex. She carried out her mission
remarkably well, but was never paid properly. So she
ended up spending some time in 1668 in a London
debtors’ prison, which decided her upon what was, for a
woman, an unprecedented step: writing for money. She
became a professional and highly productive playwright.
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)
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She was more rigorously and formally educated than
most women of her time. She was precociously and
independently interested in economic topics
Her father's death in 1826 forced her to support her
mother and herself by needlework and writing for the
Globe on economic topics such as machinery and labor.
Illustrations of Political Economy, 1832-34
Illustrations of Taxation, 1834.
Society in America, 1837.
Retrospect of Western Travel.
Deerbrook, 1839.
Jane Austen (1775 -1817)
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She defined herself as a writer by self-consciously
satirizing not only the female tradition in literature
but also its effects on the growth and development
of the female imagination. She comically criticized
the overvaluation of love, the miseducation of
women, the subterfuges of the marriage market,
the rivalry among women for male approval, the
female cult of weakness and dependency, the
discrepancy between women’s private sphere and
public (male) history.
George Eliot (1819-1880)
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Eliot was aware that her identification with
masculine achievement threatened to
undermine her consciousness of herself as
a woman. ‘You may try, but you cannot
imagine what it is to have a man’s force of
genius in you, yet to suffer the slavery of
being a girl.’, said a heroin in her novel.
Pre-class questions
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1 How do you understand the title of the lesson?
2 Which rhetorical speech is repeatedly used in this lesson to
achieve the fixed effects?
3 How many sections can you divide the lesson into?
4 Tell the students what difficulties they will face in
understanding the lesson.
5 What is the most striking characteristic of the language used
by Virginia Woolf in this essay?
6 How does Virginia Woolf begin her discussion of professions
for women? Why does she start this way? At what place in the
essay does she alert her audience and how does she alert the
audience that a woman has to overcome great difficulties in
order to have her won profession?
Detailed study of the text
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Para. 1
1. What is the main idea of Paragraph 1?
In the profession of literature, the author finds
that there are fewer experiences peculiar to
women than in other professions because many
women writers before her have made the road
smooth.
2. your Society= the Women's Service League
3. What professional experiences have I had?
A rhetorical question
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4. the road was cut 路已开辟出来
5. making the path smooth: paving the way (for)
6. regulating my steps: guiding me as I move forward 指导我
向前走
7. Thus, when Il came to write.., few material obstacles in my
way.
(1) Note the word "material". The implied meaning is that
there are other obstacles in her way, probably obstacles
opposed to material, that is, obstacles of a spiritual, mental or
psychological nature. As readers, we naturally expect a
discussion of those obstacles in the following parts of the
essay.
(2) in my way: ( in the way) in a place or position that
prevents someone or something else from moving freely
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8. The family peace was not broken by the scratching
of a pen.
(1) Here the "family peace" has two meanings:
first: calm, quiet, tranquility;
second: harmony, lack of worry and quarrels.
(2) scratching of a pen: the sound made by an old
fashioned ink pen when it moves on paper
9. No demand was made upon the family purse.
(1) There was no need for a writer to spend much of
the family money in order to write.
(2) The word "purse“----- metonymy, standing for
money, financial conditions,
e, g. the family purse: 家庭财力、经济
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Metonymy:
A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted
for another with which it is closely associated. 换喻，转喻
eg. “Washington” for the United States government
“the sword “for “military power
"the White House" for "the President",
"the crown" for "the king" or "the queen" .
The pen is mightier than the sword. (Here the instrument
pen or sword is used as the name of the people wielding it. )
He succeeded by the sweat of his brow. (Sweat of one's
brow stands for one's own hard work. )
He is too fond of the bottle. (The container is used as a
name of the thing contained-- wine, liqueur, or drinking in
general. )
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Para. 2
1. What is the function of Paragraph 2?
The author responds to the host's suggestion
that she should tell the audience something
about her own professional experiences. So
she now tells her own story--how she became a
book reviewer when she was a girl. Paragraphs
1 and 2 can be read together as the beginning
part of the whole speech, introducing the topic
under discussion.
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2. Then it occurred to her to do what is simple.., into
the red box at the corner:
Instead of saying straightforwardly that she wrote a
book review and mailed it to a journal.
The red box is the mailbox in England.
3. ... and my effort was rewarded.., one pound ten
shillings and sixpence.
(1) She would have said that her article had been
accepted by the journal and that she was paid
one pound ten shillings and sixpence for the article.
(2) shilling: (先令)a former monetary unit of the
United Kingdom, equal to 1/20 of a pound or 12
pence.
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4. But to show you how little I deserve to be
called a professional woman.., with my
neighbors.
(1) Implication: In the lives of professional
women there are usually struggles and
difficulties. When they make some money,
they would spend it on bread and butter, rent,
shoes and stockings or butcher's bills, all of
which are basic daily necessities.
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(2) bread and butter--- : food and the most important and basic
things. ----synecdoche
Synecdoche: a figure of speech by which a part is used for a
whole, an individual for a class, a material for a thing, or the
reverse of any of these. A good synecdoche is based on an
important part of the whole and not a minor part and, usually,
the part selected to stand for the whole is the part most
directly associated with the subject under discussion.
eg. (a) We need 50 hands for the work. ( Hands rather than
feet are used to stand for people. )
(b) It was a fleet of 20 sails. (Sails for ships)
(c) Have you got any coppers? (Coppers for pennies,
coins made of copper)
(d) He is a foot soldier. (Foot for infantry)
(3) butcher's bills: Butcher's bills stand for meat bought from a
butcher. This is metonymy.
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Paragraph 3
Main idea of Paragraph 3
This paragraph is an important part of her speech. In this
paragraph the speaker focuses on the first obstacle to
becoming a professional woman writer. She uses a figure of
speech "killing the Angel in the House" in describing her
determination to get rid of the conventional role of women in
her writing. Now here are a few words about figurative
language. Figurative language is a form of writing using
comparison to go beyond the literal meanings of words. The
two most common types are simile and metaphor. The simile
uses the word "as" or "like" to indicate the comparison; for
example, "lie is as strong as a horse." The metaphor equates
the objects being compared and does not use a connecting
word, as in "He was a lion in battle." "Killing the Angel in the
House" is a metaphor.
Killing the Angel in the House
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I, a woman writer who
wants to review a man’s
novel.
I have a mind of my own.
I have five hundred pounds
a year so that I don’t have to
depend solely on charm for
my living.
I want to express what I
think to be the truth about
human relations, morality,
sex.
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The Angel in the House, a
Model woman representing
the Victorian ideology of
femininity. ‘Be sympathetic;
be tender; flatter; deceive;
use all the arts and wiles of
our sex. Above all, be pure.’
She never has a mind or
wish of her own.
These questions cannot be
dealt with freely and openly
by woman.
Killing the Angel in the House
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Came between me and my
paper. Bothered me and wasted
my time and tormented me
Shadow of her wings fell on
my page; the rustling of her
skirts in the room
Slipped behind me and
whispered
Would have killed me; would
have plucked the heart out of
my writing.
Died hard. Her fictitious nature
was of great assistance to her.
She always crept back.
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I turned upon her and
caught her by the throat. I
did my best to kill her.
I acted in self-defence.
I took up the inkpot and
flung it at her.
I dispatched her.
It’s far harder to kill a
phantom than a reality.
I flatter myself that I
killed her in the end.
Do a battle with a phantom. The phantom was a
woman….the Angel in the House
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With this metaphor, the author invites us to look at her
struggle to free herself from the Victorian ideology of
femininity as a severe battle between enemies. And the
enemy has complicated natures. Describing the enemy as
a phantom, she allows the reader to imagine the great
difficulty in fighting an intangible enemy. By
personifying the traditional ideology of femininity as the
Angel in the house, the author left a powerful impression
upon the reader, for they can feel its existence and its
each and every movement.
Meaning of ‘Arts and Cats’
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Arts:
1. She excelled in the difficult arts of life.
2. Use all the arts and wiles of our sex.
3. I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed
herself in all the arts and professions open to human skill.
Cat:
1. But to show you how little I deserve to be called a professional
woman, …I went out and bought a cat – a beautiful cat, a
Persian cat.
2. What could be easier than to write articles and to buy Persian
cats with the profits?
3. I made one pound ten and six by my first review; and I bought a
Persian cat with the proceeds. Then I grew ambitious. A Persian
cat is all very well, I said; but a Persian cat is not enough. I
must have a motor car.
Questions
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What is a novelist’s state of mind?
Why does the author use the metaphor of
fishing to describe her state of mind? In what
way does the image of a fisherman at a deep
lake fit the situation of a woman writer?
What was the problem discussed in the second
experience?
The fisherman at a deep lake perfectly fits the situation
the author is trying to describe. Outwardly, the lake
appears deadly calm, and the fisherman sunk in dreams
– calm, too. Beneath the surface of the water, there are
big fish as well as hard stones, hidden in darkness. The
line may go deep into the water to catch the biggest fish
or, to crash on a hard rock. Inside the fisherman/writer,
there are conflicting thoughts. That is, the freest
imagination that, according to traditional thinking,
should be held privately and not dealt with in public, as
well as the awareness of the consequences of revealing the
imagination to the public. Through this metaphor the
reader perceives that the truth about body and passion
and sex is forced into darkness by traditional values of
femininity. And within the woman writer herself, the wish
to explore the forbidden topic and the awareness of the
double standards men have against women tears her
asunder.
To sum up the two experiences, while the first
experience is a fight against something outside
– the phantom, or the Angel in the house, the
second experience is about the inner struggle
between the conflicting ideas within the writer
herself.
Summary & Assignments
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1. Summary of each section
to make the students aware of the thoughts
and ideas offered by the author and make the
students know what we should learn from the
lesson.
2.Assignments: