Professions for
Women
Virginia Woolf
Speech from 1931 - delivered to
Women’s Service League
The Angel in the House
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http://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads/2008/07/victorian_couple.jpg
Victorian image of ideal
woman
Devoted and submissive
to husband
Passive, powerless,
charming, sympathetic,
self-sacrificing and pure
Poem by Coventry
Patmore, written in 1854
Excerpt: “The Angel in the House”
Man must be pleased;
but him to please
Is woman's pleasure;
down the gulf
Of his condoled
necessities
She casts her best,
she flings herself…
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Tone of Speech
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Passionate but
analytical
Reflective yet forceful
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Relationship Between Speaker
and Audience
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Self-effacing; Woolf
skeptical her experience
is relevant
Never been formally
employed - what can she
offer?
Pathos - portrait of
younger self
Describes self in 3rd
person
Opening Paragraph
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Understatement: It is true I am a woman
Parallelism: It is true I am a woman; it is true
I am employed…
Metonymy: scratching of a pen, family purse
Irony: The cheapness of writing paper is, of
course, the reason why women have succeeded
as writers before they have succeeded in other
professions.
Juxtaposition
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“Murder” of Angel
Matter of kill or be
killed
“Killing the Angel in
the House was part of
the occupation of a
woman writer” (358).
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Form Follows Function
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Paragraph 3 on p. 357
“She was intensely sympathetic. She was
immensely charming. She was utterly
unselfish.”
Short sentences, like a march. Monotony!
Furnishing the room…
“You have won rooms of your own in the
house hitherto exclusively owned by
men…But this freedom is only a
beginning; the room is your own, but it is
still bare. It has to be furnished; it has to
be decorated; it has to be shared” (360).