Questions for Discussion

  1. According to Virginia Woolf, what are the two main obstacles to women’s professional identity? Are these still the two main obstacles, or does the contemporary woman face different hurdles? Explain.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 8 - Professions for Women - Questions for Discussion: According to Virginia Woolf, what are the two main obstacles to women’s professional identity? Are these still the two main obstacles, or does the contemporary woman face different hurdles? Explain.
  2. Research the origin of “The Angel in the House” (para. 3). Why is this an appropriate or effective frame of reference for Woolf?

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 8 - Professions for Women - Questions for Discussion: Research the origin of “The Angel in the House” (para. 3). Why is this an appropriate or effective frame of reference for Woolf?
  3. What do you think Woolf means in paragraph 5 when she asserts that “a novelist’s chief desire is to be as unconscious as possible”? Do you agree that someone who writes fiction should be “unconscious”? Why do you think a novelist would want to be “unconscious” or would benefit from being “unconscious”?

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 8 - Professions for Women - Questions for Discussion: What do you think Woolf means in paragraph 5 when she asserts that “a novelist’s chief desire is to be as unconscious as possible”? Do you agree that someone who writes fiction should be “unconscious”? Why do you think a novelist would want to be “unconscious” or would benefit from being “unconscious”?
  4. In paragraphs 5 and 6, Woolf explores the consequences of being unable to tell “the truth” about her own “experiences as a body.” What does she mean? Why does she believe that surmounting this obstacle is more difficult—perhaps impossible at the time she was writing—than “killing the Angel in the House”?

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 8 - Professions for Women - Questions for Discussion: In paragraphs 5 and 6, Woolf explores the consequences of being unable to tell “the truth” about her own “experiences as a body.” What does she mean? Why does she believe that surmounting this obstacle is more difficult—perhaps impossible at the time she was writing—than “killing the Angel in the House”?
  5. In her final paragraph, Woolf apologizes to a certain extent for dwelling on her own experience, and then points out that her “professional experiences . . . are, though in different forms,” also the experiences of her audience. What exactly is she asking of her audience here?

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 8 - Professions for Women - Questions for Discussion: In her final paragraph, Woolf apologizes to a certain extent for dwelling on her own experience, and then points out that her “professional experiences . . . are, though in different forms,” also the experiences of her audience. What exactly is she asking of her audience here?
  6. In an online essay, Barbara Wahl Ledingham makes the following assertion about the relevance of Woolf’s essay to women in the twenty-first century:

    We must claim and have knowledge of our feminists, our artists, our mothers, our leaders, and our organizers, women like Susan B. Anthony . . . or Margaret Sanger. . . . All of these women acted despite persecution. Their sacrifice is responsible for many of the rights we take for granted today, but the biggest challenge is confronting our own Angel in the House, our own inner phantom, the one that keeps us from . . . defining and owning our own lives.

    With a kind of uncanny prescience, Woolf’s words follow us seventy years later, haunting us with their veracity and timelessness. They are a gauge by which to measure not only our exterior accomplishments but also our inner state, and they serve as a warning not to lose consciousness or become apathetic about either realm.

    After summarizing what Ledingham is saying, explain why you agree or disagree with her analysis.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 8 - Professions for Women - Questions for Discussion: In an online essay, Barbara Wahl Ledingham makes the following assertion about the relevance of Woolf’s essay to women in the twenty-first century: We must claim and have knowledge of our feminists, our artists, our mothers, our leaders, and our organizers, women like Susan B. Anthony . . . or Margaret Sanger. . . . All of these women acted despite persecution. Their sacrifice is responsible for many of the rights we take for granted today, but the biggest challenge is confronting our own Angel in the House, our own inner phantom, the one that keeps us from . . . defining and owning our own lives. With a kind of uncanny prescience, Woolf’s words follow us seventy years later, haunting us with their veracity and timelessness. They are a gauge by which to measure not only our exterior accomplishments but also our inner state, and they serve as a warning not to lose consciousness or become apathetic about either realm. After summarizing what Ledingham is saying, explain why you agree or disagree with her analysis.