Different perspectives of women

As we were discussing these three novels my attention kept being drawn to the way in which these three authors portrayed women throughout their work. What I found most interesting was the fact that despite the generational gap between them, they had a lot in common, especially Virginia and Jane, regarding this matter.

First of all, as in Jane Austen times women were relegated to domestic, superfluous affairs, to commonness, obliged to comply with the expectations, to assist to balls that were considered “la cumbia” of that time in which first impressions that will determine their future were formed; she challenged all of these conceptions and made a contrast by writing them from a whole different perspective. 

The cool thing about Austen is that by creating Lizzie, she breaks the ideas of that time about women, since she represented everything that women were not supposed to do, such as being outdoors, rejecting marriage proposals, ruining her dresses, etc. Additionally, the life of this complex character can be tied to the portrait that Virginia Woolf presented of her female characters, releasing the female essence. 

Like Austen, Virginia presented an absence of the leading masculine element, for she tried to free her vision from the manly capsule in which she depicted her admiration for writers that wrote as women, such as Jane.  What is more important is the fact that Woolf wrote as a woman shaping her reality throughout her work.

 In her novel Mrs. Dalloway, the main character starts as an ordinary woman that decides to buy some flowers for her party. However, throughout the novel, we realize that she is much more than that, experiencing a process of self-awareness in which she finally becomes Clarissa. Moreover, one of the moments that were attention grabbing for me is when Clarissa denies her homosexuality, representing the destruction of part of her identity as a woman and the destruction process due to having in mind the interest of others.

If Clarissa wouldn’t have wanted to buy the flowers herself, there would have been nothing to write about. Everything would have remained in the same commonness as usual. The same happens with Lizzie, if she hadn’t rejected the marriage proposals, or hadn’t defied Lady Catherine, the groundbreaking issues would have been nonexistent. 

Finally, The Hours is the combination of all these female, revolutionary expressions. Although the novel follows the line of thought of Woolf, there is still some Austen in it, especially through the fact that none of the female characters have to rely upon a man and that first impressions were subject to changes.

I believe that the fact of changing the perception of women, for the time in which these authors were embedded, was a pioneering thing to do, especially for Austen. It was really helpful to have this in mind while reading the novels, since it allowed me to understand in a better perspective their point of view and to comprehend that women as a new element were the first small step towards change.

References

-Blanchard, L. (1985). Virginia Woolf and her critics: on the discrimination of feminisms. Texas: University of North Texas.

-Heilbrun, C. (1969). Feminism & Art: A study of Virginia Woolf . Illinois: University of Illionis Press Stable.

-Marcus, S. (2010). Family likeness: Sex, Marriage, and Incest from Jane Austen to Virginia Woolf. Indiana: Indiana University Press.