Modernism, Women and the stram of onsciousness Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own

Abstract

The period between 1880 and 1930 marked the British literature. The last decade of the 19th century faced the death of the Victorian novel which focused more on the society and its evolution; the nineties was ready to go toward progress; it was like a bridge between the Victorian and the modernist movement. The Occident of the 1880 witnessed the appearance of a new concept of the society based on reason; leaving religion and faith. In order to develop this society of reason, Freud introduced psycho-analysis. The reason goes with the conscious and the psycho-analysis goes with the unconscious .Virginia Woolf was the first British writer to translate the psycho-analysis of Freud, to introduce the unconscious in the modern literature, and then to add a new dimension in the reason. The psycho-analysis was defined as the aesthetic of the modern and Virginia Woolf set it in her turn as the modernist aesthetic with the aim to give the exact and perfect image of the inner world of the human being. Woolf challenged the question of women and fought against the stereotypes attributed to them by the patriarchal society, she wanted women to have all the rights, more importantly the right to education and having a legacy and unlike some women; Woolf was convinced that women can enjoy their equality with men. This research intends to show how modernism as a movement witnessed in England a rapid evolution due to the Russian, the German and the French great writers and this acceleration in the growth shows that the movement was needed and wanted by the British society so it first evolved in London. It also demonstrates how it gave birth to the British novelist Virginia Woolf who was herself influenced by the Russians, the Germans and especially by the French. It explains how modernism was the inspiration for this feminist writer in creating the stream of consciousness and in writing fiction like A Room of One’s Own; an essay in which Woolf deals with women and fiction and gender issues through centuries with the message that a woman must have money and a room of her own in order to write fiction.