"A Room of One's Own"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Virginia Woolf's 1929 persuasive essay and meditative fantasy called "A Room of One's Own." Particularly, the paper attempts to compare Woolf's views with those of Frederick Nietzsche in "Beyond Good and Evil" and Sigmund Freud in "Civilization and its Discontents." It then discusses which of these philosophers would have been more likely to agree with the views that Woolf expressed in her work.

From the Paper:

"However, despite his highly sexualized view of any relations between men and women, one might first think that Freud would have at least some support for a part of Woolf's essay, given his belief in the benefits of civilization. Woolf, although she espouses individual self-empowerment as innate in both men and women, does not take as dim a view of all civilization as Nietzsche. This is reflected in Woolf's belief in the benefits of modern education, but also her statement that one of civilization's benefits is that it gives women a life beyond the toils of childrearing that would have afflicted Judith Shakespeare, had she attempted to take her brother Will's path. Civilization can lift all individuals, but particularly women, over the stresses of primitive, brute, physical life and society."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and its Discontents. Translated and edited by James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton, 1961, first published in 1930.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Beyond Good and Evil. 1914. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia. 6 Mar 2006. Libraryhttp://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/NieGood.html
• Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. London; Harcourt & Brace, 1929.

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