A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. Comparative Study

In what ways does a comparative study accentuate the distinctive contexts of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and A Room of One’s Own? Context is vividly reflected through artistic texts over time in order to assert the author’s opinion on the same human issues, such as truth. Virginia Woolf’s A room of one’s own (1928) dismantles the strength of the patriarchy and their singular truth, through the creative form of her lecture given at a women’s college, to empower women to speak the truth.

She achieves this through the reflection on a male dominated history, whilst including a fictional aside, as evidence of the female truths. These ideas mirror her context of post WWI, subsequently leading people to question the status quo due to their loss of innocence, sparking both the feminist and modernist movements. Whilst Woolf strived for a harmonious balance of gender truths, Albee through Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf (1961) condemns his society for its obscured truth with illusions and its worship for artificial values.

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The boom in consumerism and the overvaluing of the nuclear family creates a void in his society that people fill with illusions, which he illustrates through theatre. Albee reflects his society’s foibles to his audience by his verging on absurdist play, whilst simultaneously destroying the illusions that have eroded their evolution. Both composers achieve their resolution of change to a major flaw in their societies’ through the power of artistic form. A comparative study accentuates the distinctive contexts by the shift in perspective on the value of truth. Virginia Woolf Highlights the power of fiction to speak the truth.

She’s able to encapsulate through her form, the linear logic of the patriarchy, melded with the creative feminine form of fiction, thus creating an incandescence of an androgynous mind. Her polemic commences with the dismantling of the male truth, demonstrated through her mocking tone to their “nugget of pure truth”, as a metaphor for the male truth. She follows this argument through with identifying the male truth as sometimes clouded by emotion, as is the case for Professor X. She highlights that he’s writing with “the red light of emotion and not the white light of truth”, and through this sensory magery portrays that his writing is thus rendered moot because he’s biased, “he was concerned not with their inferiority, but with his superiority. ” She suggests that perhaps he’s writing to make himself superior, thus reinstating the power of the patriarch that was being questioned after WWI. Woolf criticizes this cleverly through her metaphor of women being looking glasses for men, mirroring the context of the feminine movement of her time yet recognising that it’s a delicate situation if harmony is to be the resolution, “for is she begins to tell the truth, the figure in the looking glass shrinks; his fitness for life diminished. Thus through her partially masculine for of a lecture, and through the use of logic she uses a man’s way of thinking to disempower the preconceived truth the women were inferior. Albee criticises the American dream, as its values have become artificial, leading to a society wrought with illusions in order to cover up the truth of this dream being unfulfilling. Through the characterisation of the two couples the void that its created becomes dramatically exposed to the audience allowing Albee to denounce his society.

Martha is a fundamental character as she embodies the complete failure of the American dream as a housewife and a mother, “What a dump! ” The repetition of this phrase highlights how she’s unable to fulfil her pre-determined roll according to the Patriarchy. Furthermore due to their inability to procreate, which is another aspect of the American dream, it leads them to create a fictional son in order to cope, as George expresses “Yes, well, he’s a…comfort, a bean bag”. Although Albee acknowledges that illusions, hiding the truth can be comforting, it’s causing the devolution of society.

He identifies drinking as another way of people literally numbing the pain of their inability to live in the restricted guidelines, but also with the commencement of the second wave of feminism, “I’m number enough… I don’t mean by the liquor, though maybe that’s been part of the process… but you’ve taken a new tack”. Martha’s aggressive animalistic characterisation is symbolic of the feminist movement, illustrating Albee’s opinion that women are viciously trying to harness power, thus he believes in restoring the patriarch to its previous power.

He condemns the patriarchy it currently is as it too has scummed to artificial values demonstrated by Nick and his loose morals in order to improve his career, “Plough a few pertinent wives… that’s the way to power”. All the loose and artificial values that were present in the 60’s Albee condemns in an attempt to change society through the form of art. Woolf supports her dismantling of the patriarch’s truth though her artistic form. She uses the feminine way of writing, as fiction, through her historical fictitious story on Judith Shakespeare’s, in order to further her polemic encouraging women to write their intellectual truths.

Through playing out the possibility of how Judith’s life would’ve gone, it’s impossible not to see her logic, leading Woolf to state, “Fiction here is likely to contain more truth than fact. ” She follows this concept through with the supporting idea based on science, considered to be male’s logic and truth, “The human frame being what it is, heart, body and brain all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments”. This is metaphorical for the male and female truths, that a society needs both in order to have a balance and incandescence.

Through her multi-form polemic Woolf highlights the value of multi-truths and thus encouraging women to write, and voice their truths. While Virginia dismantles a preconceived truth, Albee shatters illusions, identifying truth, through his confronting theatrical form, that’s directed at an American public audience. Albee uses George as a character and director in the play, eventually leading to him exposing the illusory child thus finding the truth. Through this artistic form Albee portrays the tension that is caused by illusions, gender relations and by the cold war through theatrically shooting a toy gun “POW!!!

You’re dead”. This is symbolic of the artificial values creating tension that Albee believes can only be exposed by confrontation. With George the director, controlling the play he causes the painful truth to be exposed, thus demonstrating Albee’s belief in the restoration of the patriarch. He is Albee’s mouth piece, stating that history mirrors how we behave, “And the west encumbered by the crippling alliances, and burdened with a morality too ridged to accommodate itself to the swing of events, must… eventually… fall”.

The theatrical technique of George reading this from a book enforces the use of drama in order to shatter illusions, and thus reveal the truth. The stark differences and similarities in these texts are accentuated by their shift in context, however they both acknowledge the need to reveal the truth. They use artistic forms in order to illustrate their belief on this value, with Albee firmly wanting to attack his societal problem, while Woolf directs her texts to women, in order to create more of their works.



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