1170 Woolf, Virginia
allows each person to perfect his or her use of rea-
son. The ability to make rational decisions leads to
further knowledge and virtue, characteristics God
expects of everyone. Therefore, men should not
place limitations on women’s moral virtue, a concept
that should be clear to any rational Christian.
In line with Christian theology, Wollstone-
craft does not challenge the existing institutional
arrangements within society; rather, she advocates
that women should be allowed to participate in
them. She does not assert that women and men
reverse roles, leaving women to forfeit their respon-
sibilities as wife and mother; on the contrary, she
argues that granting women equal access to edu-
cational, occupational, political, and moral pursuits
would create better wives and mothers. As she
states, “It is not, I assert, a bold attempt to emulate
masculine virtues; it is not the enchantment of liter-
ary pursuits, or the steady investigation of scientific
subjects, that leads women astray from duty. No, it
is indolence and vanity—the love of pleasure and
the love of sway, that will reign paramount in an
empty mind.” She acknowledges that it is possible
that women will have a hard time competing with
men in various public arenas, but she adds that this
does not mean that the right to participate should
be taken away from them. Women should be able to
compete, and if they fail, then so be it. After all, it
is not yet known how women will fare when given
the opportunity to compete. If women do not suc-
ceed, changes can be made accordingly; however,
women’s abilities cannot be understood until the
playing field is even.
Throughout her book, Wollstonecraft makes
clear that these rights should be extended to middle-
class women, whom she sees as the most oppressed
group within society. She argues that wealthy women
are beyond help, while poor women benefit from not
having the worry brought about by wealth. Her ideas
about social class apparently shape her suggestions
for education. She purports that all children, boys
and girls of every class, should have access to free
public education. However, she does not believe that
all children should have the same type of education.
Accordingly, children would essentially be involved
in a system of what is currently thought of as “track-
ing.” Before age nine, all children should be educated
together. After age nine, wealthy children, and those
with superior abilities, should be educated separately
from less fortunate children, who are inevitably
meant to do domestic or trade work. Splitting these
groups apart, then, would allow for more efficient
instruction, designed with children’s anticipated
destinies in mind.
Wollstonecraft begins her book by making the
claim that an education that develops the mind is
essential to all mortal beings. However, her exclusive
focus is on the oppression of middle-class women.
Nevertheless, implicit in her argument is that these
rights should be extended to all oppressed groups.
Sonya ConnerwooLF, virGiNia Mrs Dalloway
(1925)
Virginia Woolf ’s Mrs Dalloway, the original work-
ing title of which was The Hours, is regarded as one
of the defining texts of modernism. The main char-
acter, Clarissa Dalloway, together with her husband,
had been briefly introduced in Woolf ’s first novel,
The Voyage Out (1915). Unusually, the novel’s action
takes place within a single day, written in a stream-
of-consciousness style. Vast concepts are depicted
within the narrow confines of the lives of a few
characters in a single day in June 1923, moving back
and forth in time, intertwining thoughts and actions
and thereby creating a defining picture of postwar
England and its empire.
Themes addressed in the novel include death,
social class, gender, and nationalism, together
with a general commentary on interwar society,
incorporating a similar plot device as used by James
Joyce in Ulysses. Woolf (1882–1941) brings various
opposing elements to the fore: men/women, rich/
poor, self/other, life/death, past/present. The novel’s
language comprises some of the most beautifully
crafted sentences written in English: “Her words
faded. So a rocket fades. Its sparks, having grazed
their way into the night, surrender to it, dark
descends, pours over the outlines of houses and
towers; bleak hill-sides soften and fall in.” The com-
plexities of the themes addressed, although couched
within the progression of a single day through the
depiction of commonplace occurrences, stylistically