The Androgynous Mind / Women & Fiction
/ Conclusion
Attention on London
1. recapitulation: the stream, the taxi-cab
2. Unity of the Mind
3. Coleridge and "the androgynous mind"
4. Criticism of Mr.A's treatment of an intimate scene
5. mention of the Italian Futurists
6. Mary Beaton arrives at an explicit thesis for her
article or speech on Women and Fiction
7. Two Criticisms anticipated
8. The Idea of Reality, The function of literature
and Things in themselves
9. Conclusion
/ Conclusion
Attention on London
1. recapitulation: the stream, the taxi-cab
2. Unity of the Mind
3. Coleridge and "the androgynous mind"
4. Criticism of Mr.A's treatment of an intimate scene
5. mention of the Italian Futurists
6. Mary Beaton arrives at an explicit thesis for her
article or speech on Women and Fiction
7. Two Criticisms anticipated
8. The Idea of Reality, The function of literature
and Things in themselves
9. Conclusion
1. What is Mary Beaton's interpretation of Coleridge's theory of the androgynous mind? Daniel
2. What is Mary Beaton's main complaint about Mr.A's treatment of a scene of intimacy between Alan and Phoebe? Viola
3. What is Mary Beaton's explicit thesis for her article or speech on the topic of "Women and Fiction"? Jorik
4. What does Virginia Woolf mean when she says, "for in a question like this truth is only to be had by laying together many varieties of error"? Reina
5. Is Woolf contradicting herself? She writes, Sara
All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this
claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority, belong to the
private-school stage of human existence where there are "sides," and
it is necessary for one side to be another...Praise and blame and alike
mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is
the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of
the measurers the most servile of attitudes. So long as you write
what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters
for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.
In the prior chapter, she had Mary Beat reflect,
There is no mark on the wall to measure the precise height of women.
There are no yard measures, neatly divided into the fractions of an inch,
that one can lay against the qualities of a good mother or the devotion of
a daughter, or the fidelity of a sister, or the capacity of a house-keeper.
Few women even now have been graded at the universities; the great
trials of the professions, army and navy, trade, politics and diplomacy
have hardly tested them. They remain even at this moment almost
unclassified. (P.85)
6. What are the two criticisms Woolf anticipates at the end of the chapter? Margi
7. For Woolf, what is the use or function of literature such as Lear, Emma, or La Recherche du Temps Perdu? Ben
2. What might be the reason why Woolf creates a fictional author named Mary Carmichael? Margi
3. Woolf's character reflects, "...determined to do my duty by her as a reader if she would do her duty by me as a writer, I turned the page and read." What does she mean by the duty of the reader and the writer respectively? Ben
4. The sentence in Mary Carmichael's book "Cloe liked Olivia" led Woolf character to reflect upon what aspect of the relationship between women and fiction in the past? Viola
5. As Woolf's character read on, she began to appreciate more and more the work Carmichael has written, but she then stops to reflect, "I had slipped unthinkingly into praise of my own sex." Why is the problematic? Supposing that there is a well established tradition of writing by women, what appears to be the next great difficulty? (How was this same problem raised in the prior chapters?) Sara
6. What does Woolf's character mean when she says, "[but] we should wrong these illustrious men [Johnson, Goethe, & Co.] if we insisted that they got nothing from these alliances [with the opposite sex] but comfort, flattery and the pleasures of the body" (P.86 Harcourt edition)? ( Also place this in context of prior chapters.) Jorik
7. What is in a way "tragic" about the episode where Woolf's character imagines asking a respectable middle-aged woman crossing the street with her daughter what she did in her life that was meaningful? (How is this idea reflected in the work of Woolf herself?) Daniel
8. Why, according to Woolf's character, is Mary Carmichael's victory, as one might put it, 'bittersweet'? In what why has Carmichael surpassed her predecessors? In what way is she still "failing"? Can her failure nonetheless still be considered a success? in what ways? (Is Woolf's character reading Carmichael as "the last volume in a fairly long series" "fair" to Carmichael?) Reina