Breaking Barriers: Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and the Feminist Pursuit of Creative Freedom

Abstract

The article exposes how Woolf vividly illustrates the societal constraints, through the imagined figure of Judith Shakespeare, that stifled women's talents, juxtaposing Judith’s unrealised potential against her brother William's celebrated success. Woolf underscores how financial dependence and relentless domestic demands limited women's literary contributions, steering them toward forms like the novel, which could better accommodate interruptions. The essay’s narrative also examines gendered subjectivity, challenging patriarchal constructs in language and identity. Woolf adopts a fictional narrator to universalise her arguments, emphasising that women’s struggles transcend individual experiences. Her metaphor of the spider’s web highlights the delicate balance between fiction and material reality, revealing the pervasive impact of economic and societal limitations on literary creation.