"Fifteenth-Century Woman"
Woolf writes, “When a woman was liable, as she was in the fifteen century, to be beaten and flung about the room if she did not marry the man of her parents’ choice, the spiritual atmosphere was not favourable to the production of works of art. When she was married without her own consent to a man who thereupon became her lord and master, ‘so far at least as law and custom could make him’, as she was in the time of the Stuarts, it is likely she had little time for writing, and less encouragement.”
The 15th-century environment contributes to the suppression of a woman's voice. A woman cannot engage in meaningful art such as writing due to the restrictions that are imposed in her life. A woman is objectified that she lacks the freedom to engage in other activities that would offer her satisfaction and fulfillment. Accordingly, successful women would not be expected to emerge during the oppressive century.
“19th Century Novels”
Woolf expounds, “Even in the nineteenth century, a woman lived almost solely in her home and emotions. And those nineteenth-century novels, remarkable as they were, were profoundly influenced by the fact that the women who wrote them were excluded by their sex from certain kinds of experience. That experience has a great influence upon fiction is indisputable…But the novels of women were not affected only by the necessarily narrow range of the writer’s experience. They showed, at least in the nineteenth century, another characteristic which may be traced to the writer’s sex.”
The woman’s world, in the 19th century, revolves around the domestic sphere and feminine emotions. The feminine gender hinders women from delighting in some experiences that would have reflected in the novels. Gender is the foremost aspect that hinders the potential of the 19th century women.
“19th Century Literature”
Woolf observes, “Before the nineteenth century literature took almost solely the form of soliloquy, not of dialogue. The garrulous sex, against common repute, is not the female but the male; in all the libraries of the world the man is to be heard talking to himself and for the most part about himself. It is true that women afford ground for much speculation and are frequently represented; but it is becoming daily more evident that Lady Macbeth, Cordelia, Ophelia, Clarissa, Dora, Diana, Hellen and the rest are by no means what they pretend to be.”
Sex dictates the content of literature authored throughout the 19th century. The portrayal of women in the literature is based on sexist portrayals and stereotypes regarding females and males' behaviors. Soliloquies are representative of the afflictions which plague the lives of people during the 19th century.
'Aurora Leigh'
Woolf writes, “At any rate we cannot read the first twenty pages of Aurora Leigh without becoming aware that the ancient Mariner who lingers, for unknown reasons, at the porch of one book and not of another has is by the hand, and makes us listen like a three year’s child while Mrs Browning pours out in nine volumes of blank verse the story of Aurora Leigh.” ‘Blank verse’ denotes the blankness of Aurora Leigh’s life. Leigh’s story is very significant in outlining the females’ experiences and the utilization of blank verses appeals to the reader’s interest.
Laws
Woolf confirms, “It is clear that the extraordinary outburst of fiction in the beginning of the nineteenth century in England was heralded by innumerable slight changes in law and customs and manners. And women of the nineteenth century had some leisure; they had some education. It was no longer the exception for women of the middle and upper classes to choose their own husbands. And it is significant that of the four great women novelists-Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot-not one had a child, and two were unmarried.”
The transformation of law encourages women to venture into fiction writing. Education permits women to attain knowledge that is instrumental in their writing. Furthermore, the alteration of laws enables women to seek fulfillment in art spheres, such as writing, instead of focusing on marriage only as did the women of earlier centuries.
