Exploring Freedom and Influence in Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas Anonymous 12th Grade

Both Virginia Woolf’s critical essay A Room of One’s Own (1929) and her polemic Three Guineas (1938) explore feminist issues of freedom and influence. Despite being written almost a decade later, Three Guineas further explores the ideas and values of A Room of One’s Own, thus highlighting how, despite their different contexts, there has been little change. Whilst A Room of One’s Own focuses on the financial and intellectual freedom of women, Three Guineas explores notions of educational freedom for women. Comparing the contexts of the two texts also provides us with insights into the influence of societal views and the power that educational opportunities can provide women.

Both A Room of One’s Own (A Room) and Three Guineas explore the theme of freedom through a call for progress of women’s intellectual and financial rights. In A Room, the financial restrictions on a woman’s literary potential are expressed in Woolf’s overarching argument that, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”. The room acts as a symbol of financial and intellectual independence, whilst the frequent repetition of the words “a room” throughout the essay emphasizes how women lack the necessary freedom to write. A woman’s...