In the text “A Room of One’s Own” the author, Virginia Woolf attempts to answer a question she is asked about the relationship between women and fiction. She dismembers this question, diving deeper and coming up with new questions; she answers “…a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman… (Woolf 340).” Throughout the text, she gives much reasoning to her answer. Often, she goes off topic, making the reading very difficult to separate the reasons for her answer from her mindless daydreaming. She uses resources that are available to her in her attempt to explain her reasoning for this answer.

The text seems as if Virginia Woolf is ranting about the way women are treated and how men believe that women are inferior to them. She brings up a series of novels to explain her thought process in this answer. Woolf’s thoughts make the reader think about these questions that are not often brought up when speaking about great novels – such as, why Shakespeare’s sister gifts weren’t recognized. She rants about women aren’t recognized for the great work they do. Woolf explains that men often write about women and criticized them in their writing. She goes further, explaining that the reason that men criticize women in their writing is to make themselves feel superior.

She goes on because she is very happy that her aunt has left her a generous amount of money. “…I opened it I found that she had left me five hundred pounds a year for ever,” here Woolf is pleased that she doesn’t have to rely on anyone for money. Throughout the text she rants about the way women are portrayed. She seems upset that men often wrote about women in a degrading way, however, women didn’t write much about men. Personally, I do not see much of an answer to the question she posed in the beginning.

In my opinion, the text “Punishment” and “Separate Ways” pose to be two of the best text we have read thus far. They both give the reader questions to think about – for “Punishment,” there’s a lot of ambiguity as to why Chandara took the blame for a murder that she didn’t commit. As for “Separate Ways,” although Kichizo was abandoned as a child and he feels that Okyo is abandoning him as well, there seems to be a bit more reasoning for Kichizo’s anger towards Okyo.

In “Punishment,” I think Chandara took the blame for the murder of Radha because she was merely insulted that her husband, Chidam would even ask her to take the blame for a murder that she didn’t commit. In a way to get revenge on her husband, she admits that she kills Radha, and faces execution. Thereby, leaving her husband with a guilty conscience for the rest of his life; this is the punishment. However, Radha did not only punish her husband, but also her mother and father. They must now also live with the death of their beloved daughter. Due to the time period, being Indian did not play in Chandara’s favor. Her husband Chidam plead to the British Judge that his wife was innocent, but because Chandara was Indian, and Indians were viewed as an inferior race, the Judge did not pursue the case further for Chandara’s innocence. Also, because Chandara was admitting to the murder, gave the Judge another reason not to pursue the case.

There are also other possibilities for Chandara’s death. Chandara was only 18 years old – although this was normal in Indian culture, Chandara could have disliked this cultural tradition, and thought that her only way out would be death.

In “Separate Ways,” Kichizo was 16 years old and experienced much hardship. He was the only child to his knowledge and he was abandoned at a young age by his parents. He was often bullied by others and didn’t have much friends. Until he met Okyo, who was a stylish woman in her twenties. She showed Kichizo respect and didn’t judge him about anything. For once, Kichizo felt a connection and viewed Okyo as a big sister. However, he lost this feeling when Okyo decides to become the mistress of a wealthy man and leave her poor lifestyle. Again, Kichizo feels abandoned and he feels like he’s back to the beginning. Being bullied and having no one around. He becomes upset with Okyo cries because he feels that he is yet again, being disappointed.

In the poem “It was essential,” Ghalib is mourning the death of his nephew, Arif. He believed his nephew died too early for his age. Arif was very important to Ghalib, as he described him as “the full moon of [his] home”(Ghalib 598 Line 33). In this poem, Ghalib has a constantly reiterates “for a few more days,” essentially he is begging to spend a few more days with Arif. In the last line, Ghalib shows how important Arif really was to him, stating “It’s my destiny to wish for death for a few more days” (Ghalib 598 Line 58). Here, it seems as if Ghalib is begging to die to be with Arif, which shows his significance in Ghalib’s life.

In “Couplets,” Ghalib expresses deep anger towards his wife for being unfaithful: “I have hopes of faithfulness from her – she who doesn’t have a clue what faithfulness might be” (Ghalib 594 Line 7). He continues throughout the poem expressing that she “drove [him] mad,” with her infidelity.

In the text “Now go and live in a place,” Ghalib expresses sincere hatred for someone. Ghalib states “Now go live in a place where no one lives – no one who fathoms your verse, no one who shares your speech”(Ghalib 591 Line 1). Ghalib wants this person to be alone and to be isolated from the world. “Build yourself a house, as if without a wall or gate – no neighbor to keep you company, no watchman to keep you safe,” here, Ghalib wants this person to suffer without any company. In his last line Ghalib states “If you fall ill, no one to nurse you there – and if you die, no one to mourn you there” (Ghalib 591 Line 5). Ghalib makes it perfectly clear that he wants the person to be separated from humanity and to die alone without anyone by their side. The interesting part about this poem, is that Ghalib never gives a reason as to why he wants this person to suffer – nor, does Ghalib mention who is talking about. Throughtout the poem Ghalib addresses “you,” which is why it is unclear of who Ghalib is adressing in these poems and why Ghalib hates this person so much he wants this person to be disconnected from the world. After reading all of Ghalib’s poems included in this section, I realized a growing trend. In each poem Ghalib expressed his emotions towards problems that he was facing, which led me to believe that the poem “Now go live in a place,” was Ghalib’s solution to escaping from his problems – he was speaking about himself in this poem. By being severed from human contact, Ghalib wouldn’t have to worry about his wife’s infidelity or mourning the death of his nephew. Ghalib also states in this poem, “no watchmen to keep you safe,” here we see he wants to achieve his wish for death; which he wished for in the last line of the poem: “It is essential.” It’s applarent to me, that “Now go live in a place,” may have been written last in this collection of poems as a result of Ghalibs problems.