In Virginia Woolf’s “A Room Of One’s Own” the narrator is on a quest to support and explain Woolf’s thesis that for a woman to be able to write fiction she must have financial means and a space of her own to do her writing. The narrator is not Woolf herself; in fact she could be any woman. She is representative of any and all women who embark on such a search for answers on the matter, and what obstacles she would face both literally and figuratively on that journey. In fact, the narrator’s journey is riddled with obstacles deterring her from access to full understanding on the subject matter. However, these same obstacles serve to support Woolf’s thesis in within their mere existence. Though it should be noted that although limited, the narrator’s does access to a more expansive pool of knowledge because of her financial security and independence. She is also consciously aware of this, which also serves to reinforce Woolf’s initial thesis. Any and all freedom that a woman can attain from patriarchal ideals will allow for further intellectual expansion.

The narrator goes as far as to invent the existence of an equally genius sister of Shakespeare, Judith Shakespeare, to emphasize how women are hindered intellectually by an oppressive belief system that is fundamentally rooted within a society, and is consequentially embedded into it’s politics. The rights of women are therefore controlled and delineated by a male hierarchy. Shakespeare’s fictitious sister experiences exemplify the existent inequality in the treatment of the sexes, and how women’s capabilities are stunted by it. “To have lived a free life in London in the sixteenth century would have meant for a woman who was a poet and playwright a nervous stress and dilemma which might well have killed her. Had she survived, whatever she had written would have been twisted and deformed, issuing from a strained and morbid imagination. And undoubtedly – her work would have gone unsigned.” (367)

What is interesting however is that although the narrator acknowledges the patriarchal system’s hindrance of women’s intellectual development, she does not blame men themselves for it. “Possibly when the professor insisted a little too emphatically upon the inferiority of women, he was concerned not with their inferiority, but with his own superiority.” (357) But one must ask oneself if such differentiations are possible. Can such a system exist without the active participation of an oppressive party? The narrator states that to be equals both sexes must “shoulder their way along the pavement” that it “calls for gigantic courage and strength”, and more importantly “confidence in oneself” (357). But how can self-confidence become a hallmark in the female psyche and identity when the ruling system in place perpetuates the belief of female inferiority?