“Two Sisters” by Ama Ata Aidoo

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In the story “Two Sisters,” Aidoo raises different aspects of life two sisters are living. Connie is the older sister of Mercy, who is married and has traditional values. Mercy is unmarried and grew up without a paternal care. The story starts off by Mercy preparing to get from work and wonder that life would be easier if she had a “boy-friend” to drive her home and work. In the meanwhile, Mercy does not have other choice than to the public transportation. As soon as she gets home, she complains to her sister that her “fingers are dead with typing” (Aidoo 995). Mercy asked to herself if being a typist is her only choice. Her alternative idea is to date much older men to obtain what she wants because she is not satisfied with the life she has. Once Connie finds out that Mercy is dating an old man, she disagrees with the path her younger sister is taking. Connie tells her sister that she could date Joe, a taxi driver, who can have a prosperous life if he works his way up (Aidoo 996). Here, Mercy sees that Joe would not be able to please her demands, therefore Mercy prefers to seduce older men.

Connie receives Mercy’s boyfriend gift, which Connie says by accepting the gift, it is a betrayal (1002). This betrayal could mean that she is allowing herself to go against her values. To Connie, personal values are that one must work his/her way up to obtain comfort and to be faithful to one man. Connie finds indifferent how Mensar-Arthur, Mercy’s fifty years old boyfriend, is using her sister. Connie’s husband states that Mercy is not indifferent to her boyfriend (Aidoo 1002). Since they are using and manipulating each other. I think Connie is persuaded by Mercy, instead of rejecting the gift right away. Mercy brings to her what she wanted since Connie could not afford it. To Mercy, she self-directs her life. She neither want have any kind of commitment nor belong to anyone. Although Mercy does not follow traditional values, she eventually comes back to her only family, her sister.

Both sisters relate on not following feminist values. Connie allows her husband to have an affair. Although she suspects of her husband being infidel, she does not worry about it than for her younger sister, Mercy. James, her husband, without any hesitation says “you have heard of my newest affair?” (Aidoo 1001). Here, James declares to have had more than one lover, but Connie’s reaction is it was not what she was referring to, with her soft tone of voice continues to worry for her sister (Aidoo 1001). Connie sees James’s affair like anyone could have an affair. Maybe she thinks that it is temporary, therefore she did not pay much attention. Moreover, Mercy sells herself as an object to men. She does not regret what she has been doing. After a few months, Mercy comes back home with a new old rich man like nothing.

 

Anthology Assignment Breakdown

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As stated on your assignment handout, timely and satisfactory completion of the various assignments leading up to the anthology will be factored into your grade as follows (the anthology in total is worth 25% of your grade):

Proposal: 5%

Short essay: 5%

Introduction draft: 5%

Active attendance at both days of presentations: 5%

Complete Project: 80%

A Room of One’s Own

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Chapter 6 of “A Room of One’s Own” begins with Woolf observing a man and woman entering a cab together. Already, we can see the smallest things that Woolf utilizes to express her themes. From this small action of entering a taxi, Woolf conveys the soothing it brings upon her soul. A man and a woman, together, conveys a sense of unity and harmony that ultimately soothes Woolf. She knows for for gender equality in literature, something similar to the man and woman entering the taxi together must happen, but on a larger scale.

This sight leads into the narrator speaking on how one sex cannot exist without the other. For ultimate harmony, men should be accepted as are and women should be accepted as are. There isn’t room for the many gender roles society creates. Men and women should be able to live in peace and write and feel freely, without typical “manliness” or “too feminine” judgements.

Men and women both have fears, especially when it comes to writing. If they could work together, writing fiction freely could be in reach. The narrator argues that fiction is suffering because of the constant struggle of gender consciousness. Whether the gender is fearing inferiority or a loss of superiority, with these fears present, how can either gender reach their full writing potential? The gender consciousness hinders both sexes greatly. One example of this is when the narrator opens up Italian literature. The work was written during Fascist times, and has a masculine undertone to it. She expresses it as “too masculine” and states that the anxiety it gives off comes from inability for men and women to compose literature at peace, especially during a fascist time period. Woolf then expresses that gender superiority and inferiority don’t exist too significantly. The real value is subjective and Woolf then proposes her readers decide a work’s worth on their own.

How To Write Literature 101

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In the final chapter of “A Room of One’s Own” Virginia Woolf closes by returning from her story to real life. She tells us what the purpose of her whole story was, what will give women the power of literature. She says that for anyone to write great literature they need to be unencumbered by outside motivations, emotions, and agendas. She says that women have to stop approaching literature as a “woman” meaning thinking that she is writing as someone with an agenda to fight societies notions of female writers, and even more than that an emotional agenda at all. For a writer to be successful they need to be unhindered by outside motivations, that’s why she believes that an androgynous mind would be the ideal for authors. And that’s why an author needs a room and money to be left alone without the reliance or hindering of others.

Woolf says that the ideal literature is an incandescent light — a light bright and unmolested. This goes beyond a feminist ideal it’s an essential for all literature. In her essay Woolf uses this as the platform for women to strive for because women don’t have it. They don’t have it because they are either writing with an agenda to fight the chains that they are out into or left without the space to develop their own thoughts and ideas. Instead of telling her audience that it’s terrible that women are held down and that we see a few that rode up and we have to emulate and learn from them, she shows us the core of the problem. With only two adjustments at the base of the issue all of the problems of women in literature would be fixed. Women — really anyone — needs to have their own save to develop ideas without any disturbance, and their own independence without having to rely on others or fight for freedom. She says at the end “What is your excuse?” (p. 112) Women have the opportunity to learn on their own today and to make money if they wishes why don’t they go and write.

One thing I found challenging about the author’s point of view is that so many great works have come from authors writing what they know; works based on personal experiences, from unique and individual viewpoints. I find it difficult to understand how Woolf idealizes a sterile mind and a sterile environment as the perfect background for powerful storytelling.

Virgina Woolf “A Room of One’s Own”

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In this section of “A Room of One’s Own” the author analyzes the works of several female writers during the sixteenth century and notes that, “by some strange force, they were all compelled when they wrote, to write about novels” (P66). She goes on to derive several possible explanations as to why women chose to express their ideas through this specific medium – the first of which ties into her original claim that women need money and her own space to write fiction. Considering how middle class women were never able to write with a peace of mind as they never had a room of their own to write in, novels were seen as a hardier form of writing that could withstand all distractions.

Another reason as to why women may have been compelled to write novels may have been because of the malleability and sense of freedom that this gave them. The author makes note that the writings of male novelists were based on a sentence that was current at the time and that women needed to find an alternative way to write that would fit their own original perspectives. The author praises Jane Austen who “devised a perfectly natural, shapely sentence proper for her own use and never departed from it.” (P 77) She makes the point that the lack of tradition and inadequacy of tools gave women the freedom to create something of their own, steering away from the form that males established for themselves.

I find it interesting that Woolf suggests women should ignore men and write freely. In the last section she explains how women shouldn’t rebel against the “common sentence” used by name writers, but that they should ignore it and rest upon their own free thoughts. It gives off this notion that she believes men and women are equal in the sense that they have equal intelligence – they’re just different kinds of intelligence. Since women are innately different from their male counterparts in the way they feel and value, they must also write differently and form their own styles in order to be true to themselves and their own distinct experiences.

Virginia Woolf “A Room of One’s Own”

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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.

Virginia Woolf “A Room of One’s Own”

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I believe Virginia Woolf was as one of the most complex text we’ve read so far, mostly because of her style mixing fiction and lecture. However, it so cleverly written. Even not reading her biography and background, we can notice how intelligent and what an incredible intellect she had with all her quotes about different authors.

In this text, Virginia Woolf developed the idea of women being able to become a fiction writer, and to do so, women needs money, a room of her own and education. Women must have financial independence to make choices for themselves. They must have a room with privacy and silence to develop their ideas, and most of all, they need freedom of time. We all understand that, by the time this text was written, women did not have the same freedom men had. This will lead us to another of her arguments of how men and women differs in society.

Woof developed arguments about how society views women and how it views men. Also, how education is different for both genders. I think a good example from the book is when she mentioned how wealth Men’s College is in comparison to Women’s College that essentially has no money.  Also, on Chapter 1, she exemplified the dinner she had on both Colleges. From the Men’s College the dinner was sophisticated. On the other hand, Women’s College Dinner were the same as saying they were serving leftover meals. It is unquestionable  that education offered for men and women were unequal and absolutely unfair. Women would not  be able to have the same intellect and opportunity to compete with men.

Additionally, Woolf not only pointed out this difference, but she argued about the absurd of how different men and women were treated. A good example is when she was waking on the path of the College campus and the Beadle approached her. What difference would make in society of her walking in the campus where only “Fellows and Scholars” (341) were allowed? That is one of the absurd that she could not agree with.

Another interesting point, so brilliantly and strongly developed in Chapter 3, it’s the story she made up about Shakespeare’ sister. She questioned if Shakespeare had a sister as talented as he was, would she be able to show her work as he did? Of course the answer was no. She stated, “…any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended up her days in a lonely cottage…” (366) which means that any women with such talent would go silent, because to seek this work would be impossible and even tragic for a female. Therefore, Woof is arguing that a lot of art had been lost, because society did not allow women to have that form of expression. Society has suffered immeasurable loss because of all the female voices that got silent.

A Room of One’s Own

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Virginia Woolf’s “A room of one’s own” is an essay that she reads to a group of women from an all women college to discuss the relationship between women and fiction She uses different methods to get her point across: history to look for example, tragedy and modernism. She begins her story by detailing the step she took to come up with a conclusion which is that a woman must have money and a room to be able to write and told the audience with all the information she will provide at the end they should come up with their own opinion. As the story elaborate we learn about all the injustice women had to face if they want to be more than somebody’s wife or daughter and the outcome most likely a genius woman will face even if she follows her dream when she gives the example of a female Shakespeare instead of the male Shakespeare. She concludes by saying that women to be successful need a room of their own.

Thorough the text you can notice that the author get distracted many time and loses track of what she was saying before “ The sight of that abrupt and truncated animal padding softly across the quadrangle changed by some fluke of the subconscious intelligence the emotional light for me”(344). She still goes on explaining her reaction to seeing the cat and for a long period stops talking about the main reason of the essay. I think that she keeps getting interrupted to show what women have to deal with when they are trying to write and that is another reason why women need a room of their own to be able to write.
As the reading develop the setting that she is in get smaller, the beginning of the story takes part by a river where only fellows and Scholars are allowed she met a guard that looked at her in horror but she still continue to go on the path, later on she question herself on why didn’t she follow the rule. Then she went to London where she only stands by a window to look at people, even though she stay inside, she felt like she is understand the people and the city more. And finally the story ends when she is in her room.

At the end of the story I realize she is using the room as a metaphor for another issue. When you have a room of your own, you can live a private life, be independent in every way and not be interrupted every time; she also said that men have it so why can women have it too.

Diary of a Madman

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In “Diary of a Madman,” the author borrows a madman’s perspective to attack some people’s social appearances. The madman begins his diary with his consciousness of the moonlight. He feels refreshing when he sees the moonlight, but it immediately changes with no moonlight in the diary 2 and he warns himself to be careful of something dangerous. The development of the diary reveals that he is a person who is paranoid. He feels uncomfortable with people’s stares, and he feels there are unfriendliness in people’ eyes which come from their hearts. His irrationality causes him to suspect his elder brother, neighbors, passengers, children, and dogs want to eat his flesh. His family tries to lock him inside a room so that he will not get into any troubles. He concludes that people are cannibals after he overheard a farmer’s report from a nearby village.

He is so obsessed with cannibalism that he wants to study it to fully understand it. He studies a history textbook and he finds out that the single phrase “EAT PEOPLE” is written between the lines (Lu 246). As a consequence, he treats everyone with distrust because he is afraid that he is going to be eaten. When the doctor says to his elder brother “To be eaten as soon as possible!” (Lu 247) The doctor simply means that the patient should take his medicine as soon as possible to cure the illness. However, he misunderstands the doctor’s phrase and accuses that his elder brother wants to collaborate with the doctor to eat him too. He also tries to accuse that his elder brother of eating their little sister even though he does not have any evidences to support this conclusion. He is disgusted that he may also eat some of his sister’s flesh without knowing.

It is unexpected that he knows that other people label him as a madman because he does not fully lose his ability to think clearly- In the preface, he is said to be cured of his disease. As a result, he is not at all an irrational human being. When he states that “People want to eat others and at the same time they’re afraid that other people are going to eat them” (Lu 250). He shows his contempt of the way that society works. The rich people who appear benevolent are oppressive of the poor people’s labors and resources. The people at the top of the social ladder are figuratively eating the people at the bottom rung to obtain their economic, social and political powers. There is deeper meaning when he says that “And yet all they’d have to do is turn back-change-and then everything would be fine”(Lu 251). He mentions the word “change” three times in the dairy to emphasize his innocent and good intentions. At last, when he calls out to the children because he wants to save the children who haven’t been corrupted by the society.