The Artistic Impact of Anger in Virginia Woolfs A Room of Ones Own - Essay Example

The Artistic Impact of Anger in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own Introduction Virginia Woolf is very much informed of the various enticements to anger that a woman author should confront. She understands, but persistently argues that such anger, though reasonable, is possibly catastrophic when it invades the production of literature or a work of art. The frustration of Charlotte Bronte with the limitations imposed on her life is manifested in the stubborn, tireless longing of Jane Eyre for freedom, and in the opinion of Woolf, this anger hurts the artistic truth of the story. Bronte’s resentment weakens her capacity to “get her genius expressed whole and entire” (Woolf ix). Historically, Woolf argues, women who aspired to write have had to confront such difficulty, and those who have failed to overcome anger became extinct in the field of literary art. To emphasize her argument, in A Room of One’s Own she brings back to life Lady Winchelsea, a bard of the 17th century who created several remarkably stunning poems but whose creation in general is “harassed and distracted with hates and grievances” (Woolf 59). Woolf claims that it was possibly only such failure to deal with her anger that encouraged Gay or Pope to criticize her as “a blue-stocking with an itch for scribbling” (Woolf 65). This essay thoroughly analyzes Woolf’s argument presented in A Room of One’s Own about the adverse effect of anger on the process of writing. Anger in the Art of Writing When the female author is resentful, Woolf believes, she is envisioning “something other than the thing itself” (Woolf 74) and her work is harmed. The reliability and honesty of her characters weaken because the readers feel a reluctance to release a specific character from the writer’s tendencies. The opposition of Woolf to such is not only artistic. It is also political. For the author who creates and inspires characters through her resentment is not carrying out an artistic work but responding to patriarchy. And such is factual whether the characters see her dilemma with anger or whether she merely leaves herself to male dominance; hence Woolf’s disapproval of George Eliot (Abel 89). For a manuscript on women and fiction, A Room of One’s Own shows astonishingly several acts of writing. With the exception of the portrayal of Jane Austen concealing her texts under the diary, the sole depiction of a literature in production is The Mental, Moral, and Physical Inferiority of the Female Sex by Professor von X, which represents wholly the manly dialogues the storyteller finds out in the British Museum (Abel 89-90). The storyteller’s depiction of the German professor relates the writing activity to anger: “His expression suggested that he was laboring under some emotion that made him jab his pen on the paper as if he were killing some noxious insect as he wrote, but even when he had killed it that did not satisfy him; he must go on killing it; and even so, some cause for anger and irritation remained” (Abel 90). The act of writing continues from an excess of fury that stimulates and surpasses the stream of signifiers. Raising Freud against a Freudian writing on sexual distinction, A Room of One’s Own relates the act of writing to a vengeful machismo. However, Austen is extraordinary. Much more characteristic of female authors of the 19th century, according to Woolf, is Charlotte Bronte. Woolf believes that Jane Eyre is severely damaged by the seething anger of Bronte against men, a retort to the austere restrictions on her capacity to acquire experiences of her own, which their hatred for women has inflicted on her. Woolf argues that Bronte’s anger hindered her from exploring liberally, unreservedly, the world surrounding her; as a result, she could not accomplish her talent. As a proof of how Bronte’s ruined spirit damaged her creativity, Woolf cites an excerpt from Jane Eyre wherein Jane looks at the landscape surrounding her, a portrayal that is harshly interfered by Jane’s memory of the cruel laughter of Grace Poole. Bronte’s interruption of Jane’s recollection just then is, Woolf believes, is a grave artistic mistake; it is an example of Bronte’s fury distorting her creativity. Woolf admits that the work of Bronte shows greater ‘brilliance’ than that of Austen; however, she comments (Woolf 69): …if one reads them over and marks that jerk in them, that indignation, one sees that she will never get her genius expressed whole and entire. Her books will be deformed and twisted. She will write in a rage where she should write calmly. She will write foolishly where she could write wisely. She will write of herself where she could write of her characters. She is at war with her lot. How could she help but die young, cramped and thwarted. Woolf clearly argues that women should build their own creative approach, because “The sentence that was current at the beginning of the nineteenth century” (Woolf 76) would become “a clumsy weapon” (Woolf 77) in their possession. Woolf believes that this happened to Bronte, because in her possession that form of expression was shaped by a masculine feeling. Woolf is callous in her criticism of Bronte and other female authors of her time for their failure to transform their fury, their ‘inhibitions,’ into the vigor of artistry and build a literature, a creative approach, which genuinely communicated their experiences. As Woolf argues about Bronte’s work, “Now, in the passages I have quoted from Jane Eyre, it is clear that anger was tampering with the integrity of Charlotte Bronte the novelist. She left her story, to which her entire devotion was due, to attend to some personal grievance” (Woolf 73). The paradox of Bronte’s dilemma, and that of her contemporaries, is the fact that they were compelled to copy the inappropriate approach of their male contemporaries for their resentment toward men hindered them from forging their own style. However, the same paradox describes Woolf’s dilemma. Her most important textual revisions, wherein she changes her typically flexible, indirect, and powerful approach into the “clumsy weapon” of male discourse, is a kind of self-revision for which she had criticized her female contemporaries like Bronte, and for which she had cautioned writers of her time (Gewirtz 2). The paradox is heightened, for a great deal of this form of textual revision was carried out with the purpose of showing to the reader the perfect expression of the transformed, objective writer. When it is said that Woolf views Austen to be the only model of a female author whose intellect has “consumed all impediments,” (Woolf 59) especially her fury at having to carry out her artistic pursuits secretly, exposed to many disruptions, it has to be attached to the term ‘solitary’ the succeeding statement, “except for Woolf herself” (Gewirtz 2).The revised text is filled with indications of Woolf trying to eradicate from the manuscript any proof of her untransformed fury, or of what could be referred to as a wounded spirit. In the excerpt wherein Woolf applauds Austen for having been capable of writing in spite of the disruptions innate to her environment, the revised text says (Woolf 66): If a woman wrote, she would have to write in the common sitting-room. And though it must always be difficult to write in the common sitting-room with people going in and out, still it would be easier to write prose and fiction there than to write poetry or a play. Less concentration is required. One would not lose one’s temper so violently if interrupted. Jane Austen wrote like that to the end of her days. Woolf had no way of knowing for sure that Austen would have been uncontrollably temperamental had she created poetry rather than a novel. Remember that Woolf mentions “so violently,” suggesting that Austen had been infuriated or lost her cool when she was making her stories (Gewirtz 2). However, Woolf had no way of knowing this for sure either. Indeed, in the subsequent passage, she mentions the nephew of Austen conveying his astonishment at the calmness and triumph of his aunt despite such disruptions. Obviously Woolf is visualizing how she would have reacted if forced to create her masterpieces under the same conditions. It is a truthful, vivid, powerful statement. The expression “with people going in and out” (Woolf 53) reveals that the author has deeply visualized how it would be to write anything in an environment with too many disruptions. However, in the original text, Woolf deleted mentions of annoyance to disruptions or to “people going in and out” (Woolf 53) and appended a passage from Florence Nightingale, thus the lines become this (Gewirtz 3): If a woman wrote, she would have to write in the common sitting-room. And, as Miss Nightingale was so vehemently to complain,-- ‘women never have an half hour… that they can call their own’-- she was always interrupted. Still it would be easier to write prose and fiction there than to write poetry or a play. Less concentration is required. Jane Austen wrote like that to the end of her days. Woolf does not want other people to view her as a writer who was overwhelmed by her anger. She builds her image as a writer who overcame fury through exceptional creativity. Apparently, Woolf is willing to acknowledge that she loses her temper when she is offended or aggrieved. What she will not admit is that anger can control her for a long period of time, for an author who has not transformed her fury is not able to create grand literature. One of the essential requirements for great writing, according to Woolf, for turning into a genuine artist, is the capacity to explore ‘the thing itself’ (Woolf 62), which is doable if the author’s creativity is not deformed by fury, though reasonable. Woolf argues that the authors’ core awareness of her/his gender, especially in the writing process, should be abandoned. This is the reason she regards it most encouraging that Carmichael “had—I began to think—mastered the first great lesson; she wrote as a woman, but as a woman who has forgotten that she is a woman” (Woolf 93). Woolf further explains this notion toward the chapter’s finale (Gewirtz 3): It is fatal to be a man or a woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly. It is fatal for a woman to lay the least stress on any grievance; to plead even with justice any cause; in any way to speak consciously as a woman. And fatal is no figure of speech; for anything written with that conscious bias is doomed to death. It ceases to be fertilized. The above passage reveals the ‘androgynous’ attitude of Woolf toward the act of writing. Woolf rejects anger in the process of writing, but accepts masculine influence in the act itself. Conclusions In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf elaborates her idea of the impact of anger or resentment on an author’s work, especially on a female writer. She believes that anger distorts, damages, and hinders the act of writing. She gives examples of the destructive nature of anger for the art of writing. She explains how Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre suffered from this form of resentment. She shows through Jane Austen how genuine writers work—composed, calm, and objective. Works Cited Abel, Elizabeth. Virginia Woolf and the Fictions of Psychoanalysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. Print. Gewirtz, Isaac. “’With Anger and Emphasis’: The Proof Copy of A Room of One’s Own”, Woolf Studies Annual 17 (2011): 1-5. Print. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1989. Print. Read More