WOOLFING # 31

STICK IT TO THE MAN WITH 10 VIRGINIA WOOLF QUESTIONS FOR THINKERS 

By MEAGHAN WAGNER

Virginia Woolf, born this week in 1882, was a singular figure in literature and in history.  A writer whose work wouldn't be appreciated for decades after her own life, Woolf nevertheless came to be considered a seminal modernist and exerted influence on major thinkers of the day through letters and conversation. Her tenacious focus on women, particularly the inner lives of "average" women, and her eloquent way of expressing the detriment of double standards are what set her apart from her contemporaries and blazed a trail for women in all professions, writing and beyond.
In large part, her success stemmed from her willingness to challenge conventions. Her brothers were formally educated at Cambridge and she had no compunction about showing her resentment at being denied the same opportunity. Instead, she became a strong advocate of independent education especially in the forms of broad reading and writing beyond the accepted cannon. Perhaps because of this, one quality that pervades all of her writing -- fiction, nonfiction, even her personal diaries -- is the propensity to ask questions. Often it's rhetorical, occasionally it's more stylistic, but always her questions push the reader to think independently.So in celebration of Woolf's 134th birthday, we've assembled a list of some of her most thought-provoking questions for you to ponder for yourself.

1. How could one leap on the back of life and wring its scruff? (“20 February 1930.” A Moment's Liberty, 1990)

2. The streets of London have their map; but our passions are uncharted. What are you going to meet if you turn this corner? (Jacob's Room, 1922)

3. What is the meaning of life? That was all — a simple question. (To the Lighthouse, 1927)

4. I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know. I do not believe that you know. I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to human skill. ("Professions for Women." The Death of the Moth and Other Essays ,1942)

5. Here I come to one of the memoir writer’s difficulties — one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: ‘This is what happened’; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened. Who was I then?  (A Sketch of the Past, 1939)

6. But to go deeper, beneath what people said (and these judgments, how superficial, how fragmentary they are!) in her own mind now, what did it mean to her, this thing she called life? (Mrs. Dalloway, 1925)

7. Outwardly, what is simpler than to write books? Outwardly, what obstacles are there for a woman rather than for a man? Inwardly, I think, the case is very different. ("Professions for Women." The Death of the Moth and Other Essays ,1942)

8. Perhaps I have been too happy for my soul's good? And does some of my discontent come from feeling that? (“2 January 1923.” A Moment's Liberty,1990)

9. Life for both sexes — and I looked at them, shouldering their way along the pavement — is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to one self.  (A Room of One's Own, 1929)

10. Why have I so little control? It is the case of much waste and pain in my life. (“15 September 1926.” A Moment's Liberty, 1990)