and she eventually concludes that no such thing exists. The narrator later writes, “When a subject is highly controversial, one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold.” To demonstrate the idea that opinion is the only thing that a person can actually “prove,” she fictionalizes her lecture, claiming, “Fiction is likely to contain more truth than fact.” Reality is not objective: rather, it is contingent upon the circumstances of one’s world. This argument complicates her narrative: Woolf forces her reader to question the veracity of everything she has presented as truth so far, and yet she also tells them that the fictional parts of any story contain more essential truth than the factual parts. With this observation she recasts the accepted truths and opinions of countless literary works.
#Motifs
Interruptions
When the narrator is interrupted in A Room of One’s Own, she generally fails to regain her original concentration, suggesting that women without private spaces of their own, free of interruptions, are doomed to difficulty and even failure in their work.While the narrator is describing Oxbridge University in chapter one, her attention is drawn to a cat without a tail. The narrator finds this cat to be out of place, and she uses the sight of this cat to take her text in a different direction. The oddly jarring and incongruous sight of a cat without a tail—which causes the narrator to completely lose her train of thought—is an exercise in allowing the reader to experience what it might feel like to be a woman writer. Although the narrator goes on to make an interesting and valuable point about the atmosphere at her luncheon, she has lost her original point. This shift underscores her claim that women, who so often lack a room of their own and the time to write, cannot compete against the men who are not forced to struggle for such basic necessities.
Gender Inequality
Throughout A Room of One’s Own, the narrator emphasizes the fact that women are treated unequally in her society and that this is why they have produced less impressive works of writing than men. To illustrate her point, the narrator creates a woman named Judith Shakespeare, the imaginary twin sister of William Shakespeare. The narrator uses Judith to show how society systematically discriminates against women. Judith is just as talented as her brother William, but while his talents are recognized and encouraged by their family and the rest of their society, Judith’s are underestimated and explicitly deemphasized. Judith writes, but she is secretive and ashamed of it. She is engaged at a fairly young age; when she begs not to have to marry, her beloved father beats her. She eventually commits suicide. The narrator invents the tragic figure of Judith to prove that a woman as talented as Shakespeare could never have achieved such success. Talent is an essential component of Shakespeare’s success, but because women are treated so differently, a female Shakespeare would have fared quite differently even if she’d had as much talent as Shakespeare did.
#Symbols
A Room of One’s Own
The central point of A Room of One’s Own is that every woman needs a room of her own—something men are able to enjoy without question. A room of her own would provide a woman with the time and the space to engage in uninterrupted writing time. During Woolf’s time, women rarely enjoyed these luxuries. They remained elusive to women, and, as a result, their art suffered. But Woolf is concerned with more than just the room itself. She uses the room as a symbol for many larger issues, such as privacy, leisure time, and financial independence, each of which is an essential component of the countless inequalities between men and women. Woolf predicts that until these inequalities are rectified, women will remain second-class citizens and their literary achievements will also be branded as such.
(2) Key ideas of each part
Para.1 She tried to find some information about women in history but failed——to
little information. Para.2 Contrast:
Imaginatively(in fiction) ——very important,, very great
practically (in historical records as well as in history) ——insignificant
Para.3. Since there were few facts about women in history, she suggested to rewrite
history.
Para.4. She tried to create an imaginary figure who was as brilliant as William
Shakespeare, but there was no doubt about the tragic fate about this Judith
Para.5-6 Again She emphasized the point that women had no place in history.
(3) Summary of A Room of One's Own
The dramatic setting of A Room of One's Own is that Woolf has been invited to lecture on the topic of Women and Fiction. She advances the thesis that \must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.\Her essay is constructed as a partly-fictionalized narrative of the thinking that led her to adopt this thesis. She dramatizes that mental process in the character of an imaginary narrator (\me Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael or by any name you please—it is not a matter of any importance\with the same topic.
The narrator begins her investigation at Oxbridge College, where she reflects on the different educational experiences available to men and women as well as on more material differences in their lives. She then spends a day in the British Library perusing the scholarship on women, all of which has written by men and all of which has been written in anger. Turning to history, she finds so little data about the everyday lives of women that she decides to reconstruct their existence imaginatively. The figure of Judith Shakespeare is generated as an example of the tragic fate a highly intelligent woman would have met with under those circumstances. In light of this background, she considers the achievements of the major women novelists of the nineteenth century and reflects on the importance of tradition to an aspiring writer. A survey of the current state of literature follows, conducted through a reading the first novel of one of the narrator's contemporaries.
Woolf closes the essay with an exhortation to her audience of women to take up the tradition that has been so hardly bequeathed to them, and to increase the endowment for their own daughters.
5. Key words and expressions (1) avarice (6) poach (2) memoir (7) on the sly (3) anecdote (8) lust (4) whisk away (9) on the track of (5) parish register (10) wizard
5. Topic for Discussion
(1)Why does Virginia Woolf suggest rewriting history?
(2) What does the story of the imagined Shakespeare’s sister signify?
(3) Do you agree with Woolf when she says that genius like Shakespeare’s is not born today among the working class? Explain.
6.Exercises about the text
7. Reading skills: Reading the Feature Story in a Newspaper 8. Fast Reading& Exercises VI Homework. 1. Home reading: Aptitude Aplenty 2.Preview Unit 8
Unit 8 Three Days to See
Ⅰ Objectives 15. Understanding the text 16. Mastery of some language points
17. Learning the writing style: autobiography 18. Knowing the life of Helen Keller 19. Learning from Helen Keller
20. Knowing how to read the administrative language Ⅱ Key points 1. Full understanding of the text 2. Mastery of some language points
3. Distinguish autobiography from biography Ⅲ Difficult points 1. Some of the words and phrases are difficult 2. Mastery of the reading skill
3. Though being told to cherish our ability to see and hear some students might still not value time so much IV Time Arrangement ? ? About two periods of class will be used for the analysis and discussion of the
passage itself.
? Total class hours: three periods V Teaching procedures 1. Title: ? --- What Helen Keller wished to see if she had the power of sight for just three days
2. Preview Questions
What would you do if you only have three days to see?
3. Related information (1) About the author
Helen Keller (1880-1968) is one of the most remarkable persons born in the 19th century. She lost her eyesight and hearing at 19 months old. But she managed to overcome the double handicap of blindness & deafness and to take an active part in the life of the world. She graduated with honors from Radcliff College in 1904. Since then she carried on a career that had really begun at the age of 11, when she arranged a tea party at which she collected money to help the education of a smaller deaf-blind child. Even in her eighties, she still spent her busy life in the
service of the other handicapped people. She traveled widely & had friends all over the world. Of course, she could never have accomplished this alone. Just as
remarkable as Miss Killer was her teacher, Anne Sullivan, who undertook to lead her out of the darkness & enable her to have a normal life. Helen wrote a number of boo
ks,
including her autobiography & a biography of Miss Sullivan.
During her life, Helen Keller was one of the world's great heroes. Her remarkable story was well known throughout the world. Born in 1880, she contracted an illness when she was less than 2 years old that left her unable to hear or see. At a time when the lives of most people, and certainly, most disabled people, were constrained by their society's medical, philosophical, social, and economic limitations, Miss Keller went on to develop formidable powers of intellectual and emotional achievement. She traveled to the farthest reaches of the world; became a leading figure who publicly campaigned on behalf of civil rights, human dignity, women's suffrage, and world peace; and met the most celebrated personalities of her time. It is therefore not surprising that Helen Keller today remains a woman whose astounding personality and accomplishments attract widespread admiration and awe. (2) About Anne Sullivan
Anne Sullivan had lost most of her sight at the age of five. By the age of ten, her mother died and her father deserted her. She and her brother Jimmie were sent to the poorhouse in February 1876.
Anne's brother died in the poorhouse. It was October 1880 when Anne finally left and went to commence her education at the Perkins Institution. One summer during her time at the institute, Anne had two operations on her eyes, which led to her regaining enough sight to be able to read normal print for short periods of time. Anne graduated from Perkins in 1886 and began to search for work. Finding work was terribly difficult for Anne, due to her poor eyesight, and when she received the offer from Michael Anagnos to work as the teacher of Helen Keller, a deaf-blind mute, although she had no experience in this area, she accepted it willingly. She worked very hard and was instrumental in the education of Keller. (3)About the text
\son. Its language is lucid ,subtle and prosaic. It tells us the exact perception of a blind and perhaps only a blind can write such a wonderful piece. Helen Keller, from the point of view of a blind, tells us how to value our sight.
4. Text Analysis
Part I (para. 1-2): Introduction: What should we do if we are given only a few days to live?
Part II (para. 3-7): Two kinds of attitudes toward life: treasure each day, living with a
gentleness, a vigor & a keenness of appreciation vs. “Eat, drink and be merry” Part III (Para. 8-19): The author?s point of view: the seeing see little, not treasuring their sight much & paying little attention to the world around him by providing her own experience & observation.
Part IV. (last para.): The author wishes that she could have the power of sight for just
three days, emphasizing the preciousness of sight.