A Room of One's Own, Questions Chapter 6

 Chapter Six

 

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

---

                          Questions

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