A Room of One's Own

“The title women and fiction might mean, and you may have meant it to mean, women and what they are like; or it might mean women and the fiction that they write; or it might mean women and the fiction that is written about them; or it might mean that somehow all three are inextricably mixed together and you want me to consider them in that light.”

Woolf explains several conceptualizations of the phrase “women and fiction,” illustrating that the role of women in literature is still contested. The last phrase of this quote introduces one of Woolf’s primary arguments and the basis upon which this work was created: Each of these conceptualizations of the idea of “women and fiction” “are inextricably mixed together” through the sexist practices that limit women’s opportunities (3).

“When a subject is highly controversial—and any question about sex is that—one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold. One can only give one’s audience the chance of drawing their own conclusions as they observe the limitations, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker. Fiction here is likely to contain more truth than fact.”

Woolf argues that there is no absolute truth regarding complex sociopolitical issues, like sexism. Her intention to guide readers through her own rationalizations allows Woolf to accomplish her goal of allowing the audience to establish “their own conclusions” about sexism (4). Her final suggestion that “Fiction here is likely to contain more truth than fact” intentionally blurs the division between truth and falsehood (4), anchoring her literary analysis in the coming chapters in the logic that perceptions of deeply entrenched social injustices are often more obscure than the representations created in fiction writing.

“Thought [...] had let its line down into the stream. It swayed, minute after minute, hither and thither among the reflections and the weeds, letting the water lift it and sink it, until—you know the little tug—the sudden conglomeration of an idea at the end of one’s line: and then the cautious hauling of it in, and the careful laying of it out? Alas, laid on the grass how small, how insignificant this thought of mine looked; the sort of fish that a good fisherman puts back into the water so that it may grow fatter and be one day worth cooking and eating.”

This quote contains one of Woolf’s many metaphors and describes the process of developing a thought into an idea. In this metaphor, the thought is a fish, and the narrator is fishing and “catches” the thought in the stream of her mind.