Narrative Authority in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own

   

     I really enjoyed reading the first chapter of Virginia Woolf's essay A Room of One's Own. In particular, I was struck by how she did such a wonderful job of making her fictional descriptions of the colleges of Oxbridge and Fernham realistic that I found myself in a quandary about whether or not to believe her claim that they were completely invented. In fact, though she grounds them as inventions early in the chapter, I found myself interpreting the experiences of the speaker literally. I think it shows her mastery of the writing process that she was able to enact her own argument about women and fiction through showcasing her own ability to write so well that the line between fact and invention is blurred. Ultimately, her essay's compellingly realistic and evocative tone illustrates exactly what heights female writers can attain when they have money and a room of their own to facilitate their careers.
     When Woolf first stated that "Oxbridge is an invention; so is Fernham" I couldn't help but wonder if she was not only invoking a comparison to Oxford University and a similarly existing women's college, but obliquely implying that she was relating a number of factual details about those institutions. Of course, the incident with the beadle directing her off of the turf reserved for male students, and likewise the old gentleman who refused her entrance to the hallowed library, indicate that Woolf certainly wouldn't have been invited to a luncheon with the "Oxbridge" students. However, her descriptions of the food and conversation at that lavish luncheon are so redolent with sensory detail that it is easy to begin to wonder if she spied on such a gathering or perhaps received a description of the luncheon from an acquaintance. Though that is an interesting matter to ponder, the literal truth is most likely that Woolf invoked that very specificity of detail in order to highlight her own skill as a writer, which should in turn have gained her admittance to that gathering. Yet again, she uses the format of her essay to support her thesis that women deserve to have the same educational and career opportunities as men.
     Later, when Woolf chronicles the speaker's return to the humbler women's college, she states that "Fiction must stick to facts, and the truer the facts the better the fiction--so we are told." On the surface, it seems that her description of Fernham adheres to this maxim and, in this case, Woolf could very well have dined at the women's college. However, Woolf again resists the patriarchal framework that presumably created that maxim when she begins her description of Fernham's grounds as a beautiful springtime bower and later states that it was actually an October evening. Her idealization of the women's college, to the point that she places an unnamed and eminent female author in the springtime grounds, shows how a skillful writer of fiction can manipulate language to give the impression of a factual scene. She inverts that maxim in the face of contemporary writing conventions, and it makes her argument for women being afforded the same advantages as men all the stronger.
     Overall, I found this essay a fascinating enactment of its own argument about women being just as good or better writers than men if given the right tools. Woolf's skill in blending fact and fiction to the point that the reader begins to question the narrator's veracity and has to reflect on the motive behind that blending results in a much more nuanced argument. In other words, she not only illustrates what female writers can achieve when given the chance, but also inverts patriarchal standards while doing so.