Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own: Acknowledging the Anima

Inamullah1 & Mushtaq ur Rehman2

Abstract
Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own highlights the problem of suppression of women in a
patriarchal set up of the Western culture that represents male dominance which treats women as
objects and deprive them of their subjectivity. Psychologically speaking, the patriarchal culture is
an emblem of masculinity and celebration of the principle of logos associated with what Jung
calls the “animus” and suppression of the “anima” being its inner opposite. This extended essay
beautifully dramatizes the psychological nudging of the anima principle which is a clear
indicator of male dominated society leading to lopsided individuals. This paper is an attempt to
analyze as to how the theme of anima suppression works through different characters and
situations in her continual struggle to right the wrong that may lead to a psychologically healthy
and a balanced society.
Key words: anima/animus, persona, individuation, conscious and the unconscious.

Introduction
Virginia Woolf, despite being a lady coming from an aristocratic class, struggled throughout her

life for women to gain their place as speaking subjects in the male dominated society in England

and elsewhere. Her well-known essay “A Room of One’s Own” is one of the best attempts as a

writer towards the same goal. The work overtly displays the existing status of women as “flies to

wanton boys” (Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4) ever dealt ruthlessly to keep them in check and

chains in a society where “masculine values prevail” (Woolf, 2012, p.80)i . The roles assigned to

them through such a society are very well-defined. They are expected to be good mothers, good

cooks, obedient and faithful wives and good domestic runners what Woolf calls “an Angel in the

House” who have nothing to do with the outer world despite her latency for becoming a good

writer, businesswoman, teacher, engineer, doctor, sailor and so on. Referring to Anne Finch’s

1
Inamullah, M. Phil (Scholar) Dept. of English Language and Literature, Gomal University, D.I. Khan, Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Email: inam0404@gmail.com
2
Dr. Mushtaq ur Rehman, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English Language and Literature, Gomal University,
D.I.Khan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Email: mrehmaneng@gmail.com
idea of the societal/male definitions of writing, reading, and thinking, Gilbert and Gubar, well-

known 20th century feminist critics, are of the view that these activities from the masculine point

of view are “not only alien but also inimical to ‘female’ characteristics” clicks with “the idea

expressed by Robert Southey in a famous letter to Charlotte Bronte which says, “Literature is not

the business of a woman’s life, and it cannot be” (2000, p. 8). The chilling repression of their

“noble rage” (genius) by patriarchal culture or male hierarchy keep their psyche and “body

seemed contained in a miraculous glass cabinet through which no sound can penetrate” (Woolf,

2012, p.31). The quotation from the text is laden with meaning from the point of view of Jungian

archetypes, anima/animus.ii The phrase “miraculous glass” is symbolic of such a transparency,

clarity and light associated with the reason and logos/patriarchy representing overdeveloped

animus within the psyche which is repressive to its counterpart but integral, the anima. Mostly

male narratives which unconsciously reveal their repressed side of the unconscious are a clear

proof of the anima’s rejection or the inner woman at the psychic level as well as of women at

conscious level.iii It would be futile effort to dream of psychologically balanced individuals or a

peaceful and healthy society without paying attention to the integral part of one’s psyche, i.e.,

anima. From a Jungian perspective, anima being the source of life, productivity, and all

nourishment, when accepted and integrated into one’s conscious attitude/level ignites

connectivity and human bonds in the society. Virginia Woolf (2012) distils the idea into a very

beautiful passage focused on Coleridge’s profound idea. She says:

And I went on amateurishly to sketch a plan of the soul so that in

each of us two powers preside, one male, one female; and in the
man’s brain the man predominates over the woman, and in the
woman’s brain the woman predominates over the man. The normal
and comfortable state of being is that when the two live in
harmony together, spiritually co-operating. If one is a man, still the
woman part of his brain must have effect; and a woman also must
have intercourse with the man in her. Coleridge perhaps meant this
 when he said that a great mind is androgynous. It is when this
fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its
faculties. Perhaps a mind that is purely masculine cannot create,
any more than a mind that is purely feminine, I thought. But it
would be well to test what one meant by man-womanly, and
conversely by woman-manly, by pausing and looking at a book or
two. (p.97. Emphasis mine)

It would not be out of place to say that Coleridge’s view in the above passage quite clicks with

the Jungian perspective that a great mind is the combination of both the aspects animas/anima of

the psyche which when harmonize and cooperate with each other become creative, productive

that leads personality to individuate and attain psychic wholeness.

Literature Review

Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own has been critically discussed from various

perspectives but mostly from a feminist point of view. This essay is concerned with depravity,

repression and subjugation of women in a patriarchal culture which considers women as slaves

serving their godly masters. Mary Jacobus (1978), a feminist critic, while talking about AROO in

her essay “The Difference of View” says, “At once within this culture [patriarchal culture] and

outside it, the woman writer not only experiences exclusion, but an internalized split” (20). This

remark of Jacobus is in line with Jane Goldman (2006) who in her Cambridge introduction to

Virginia Woolf views that women are forced to live under the authority of men who treat women

as objects and inferior beings and serve slavishly as subjects to the male dominated society.

Similarly, another feminist critic, Kathy J. Whitson (2004) opines that Woolf in A Room of

One’s Own is concerned with the social, political, and economic condition of a women to

become a writer. She puts, “A Room of One’s Own is actually a feminist analysis of material

conditions—social, political and economic—in which women struggle to become creators of

literature” (Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature, p. 278). Laura Marcus in her essay “Woolf’s
Feminism” discusses feminist issues in AROO of a patriarchal society which otherise women

and believes them to be inferior to men. She says: “A Room of One’s Own represents the

structures of inclusion and exclusion as fundamental to patriarchal society and its treatment of

women” (in Sellers, S, 2010, p. 150). Likewise, Jane Marcus in her essay “Still Practice,

A/wrested Alphabet, towards a Feminist Aesthetic” pays tribute to Woolf by saying, “A Room of

One’s Own is the first modern text of feminist criticism, the model both in theory and practice,

of a specifically socialist feminist criticism” (in Benstock, 1987, p. 79). However, all of these

critiques miss to discuss it from a Jungian perspective. In this paper my attempt is to read this

essay from a Jungian point of view which is perhaps more logical and convincing and

intellectually satisfying. In Woolf’s AROO women’s suppression at the outer level is symbolic

of what Jung and Jungians would term as suppression of “the anima” at the inner level of man’s

psyche. And this inner psychic disproportion in the individual issues out as societal discord and

lopsidedness which disturbs peace and harmony of the society.

Discussion

Woolf being a radical feminist has done her level best in the said essay AROO to shake

the deeply entrenched tradition of patriarchal hegemony that has overwhelmingly swayed the

Western culture since time immemorial which has ruthlessly deprived women even to the extent

of choosing a life partner. ivWoman is never allowed to step into the man’s world; it is a closed

room for her for she is otherised at every level. She does not seem to be a shareholder and is

either a clipped hen or a caged bird curtailed of freedom and exercise of her own free will. It

looks as if the earth is not all before her but all before man where he is the master/decision maker

and the owner, and woman the commodity. Such a masculine ascendancy lionizes the

persona/animus at individual as well as at societal level to keep the feminine/anima aspect

suppressed. From a Jungian perspective it means that the animus represented by masculine

authority that heroically dominates its counterpart the anima as the whole world of Eros is under

subjugation. That is why the society as whole act/behaves one-sidedly in all phases of life to the

utter neglect of synergic approach of the animus/anima or what perhaps Coleridge necessitates

for the great mind that must be “androgynous”. As Virginia Woolf (2012) aptly depicts the then

scenario of England in particular and metaphorically the world in general in the following

passage:

England is under the rule of a patriarchy. Nobody in their senses

could fail to detect the dominance of the professor. His was the
power and the money and the influence. He was the proprietor of
the paper and its editor and sub-editor. He was the Foreign
Secretary and the judge. He was the cricketer; he owned the
racehorses and the yachts. He was the director of the company that
pays two hundred per cent to its shareholders. He left millions to
charities and colleges that were ruled by himself. He suspended the
film actress in mid-air. He will decide if the hair on the meat axe is
human; he it is who will acquit or convict the murderer, and hang
him, or let him go free. With the exception of the fog he seemed to
control everything. Yet he was angry. I knew that he was angry by
this token. When I read what he wrote about women — I thought,
not of what he was saying, but of himself. (p.51)
In the male dominated society everything is under the control of men who are dominant in every

field of life while women are given no representation in the affairs of life. Women are usually

banished from participating for the good of society; kept outside from the so called man’s fields

like politics, engineering, professorship, writer, cricketer, and so on; because men believe that

women can do no good except harming. As in Virginia Woolf’s novel, To the Lighthouse Mr.

Ramsay vividly represents the patriarchal culture who tends to go against his wife’s stand that

the weather will be fine tomorrow and the children will be able to visit the lighthouse. Mr.

Ramsay words stun James who (James) begin to think that they will be perhaps unable to fulfill
the long-promised excursion to the lighthouse, but Mrs. Ramsay cares for the feelings of her

children and behaves optimistically who gives them a message of hope and expectation.

No doubt that in AROO women are considered to be the subject to patriarchal values which are

imposed upon them by the society and state which they have to enact them in every walk of life,

yet the ideology or what Althusser calls ISAs (Ideological State Apparatuses) leaves no stone

unturned to enmesh them to be subjects to patriarchal culture. vAs Jane Goldman (2006) very

befittingly in her The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf, says, “Here Woolf touches

upon the forced, subordinate, complicity of women in the construction of the patriarchal subject”

(p.99).

Women are suppressed and rejected by men in their conscious life but they are the center

of interest in their writing that is product of the unconscious. A person who poses to be a strong

and heroic in his/her conscious life becomes inwardly weak and unconsciously tends to be what

he/she does not want to in his/her conscious life. In his conscious life he rejects the presence of

the opposite gender and follows the society blindly which demands adherence to its rules and

gender roles but inwardly harbors and cherishes the desired female characteristics. As Jung

(2014) says in his Psychological Types, “Identity with the persona automatically leads to an

unconscious identity with the anima because, when the ego is not differentiated from the

persona, it can have no conscious relation to the unconscious processes” (p.470).

In AROO men’s personavi is overdeveloped and they are suppressing the anima in order to

heroically double their persona. That is why Woolf vehemently criticizes the tradition of not

allowing women to visit the library and college because they are built solely for the male part of

the society. Likewise, women are not allowed to become writers and scholars because these

professions are considered to be manly with which women have no concern. But in men’s
writings, as product of the unconscious, their center of interest is woman. Unconsciously women

are eulogized and idolized as the goddesses and deities in their works. Which is why Woolf

addresses women and ask a string of questions, “Have you any notion how many books are

written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by

men? Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe?” (Woolf,

2012, p.46). In men’s writings, women are the most discussed beings because men’s conscious

mind is not let to integrate the anima into conscious environment/reality. So men succumb to

inner femininity which reeks through their works. In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice,

Portia is described as a beautiful woman having wit, property and authority. When we analyze

her character, she creates a powerful impression on our mind and her part in the play is

amazingly memorable. She has a sense of humor, sparkling wit and oratory which makes her an

everlasting and enviable character. But in real life Elizabethan women are bound by the

patriarchal society which demands them to be good and obedient house wives and patriarchal

mothers or what Woolf rightly calls them as “angels in the house” in her essay “Profession for

Women”. Virginia Woolf explains the idea more efficiently and clearly in the following passage:

Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is

completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover;
she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings
and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy
whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most
inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature
fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely
spell, and was the property of her husband. (Woolf, 2012, p.58-59,
emphasis mine)
It would not be inappropriate to say that according to Woolf Lady Winchelsea, in her poetry, is

the conspicuous example of suppression psychologized as suppression of the anima figure in the

Elizabethan society where humanity is divided into two parties. Men represent the “opposing
faction” (Woolf, 2012, p.69) while women are the dominated one. Women are scary because

men have the authority to exploit them as they like. Any woman who attempts to have her voice

through pen, she is considered audacious and insolent. Then men remind them of their dissidence

and deviation from their assigned social roles and duties. As Woolf quotes from Lady

Winchelsea:

Alas! A woman that attempts the pen,

Such a presumptuous creature is esteemed,
The fault can by no virtue be redeemed.
They tell us we mistake our sex and way;
Good breeding, fashion, dancing, dressing, play,
Are the accomplishments we should desire;
To write, or read, or think, or to enquire,
Would cloud our beauty, and exhaust our time,
And interrupt the conquest of our prime.
Whilst the dull manage of a servile house
Is held by some our utmost art and use (2012, p.70, emphasis mine).

Speaking more elaborately, longer repression of the anima at individual and societal level

turns it into act like shadow as repressed content of the unconscious. Anima projection occurs

when an unindividuated man identifies himself with those qualities that are masculine and does

not recognize feminine characteristics as part of his own personality but rather projects them

onto women in the outer world. These unattended feminine attributes become the butt of hatred

at the outer level through projection. As Jung (1964) says in his Man and His Symbols: “the ego

feels hampered in its will or its desire and usually projects the obstruction onto something

external. That is, the ego accuses God or the economic situation, or the boss, or the marriage

partner of being responsible for whatever is obstructing it” (p.169).

Virginia gives the example of Judith Shakespeare, who was a genius and a great

dramatist somehow like Shakespeare. Unlike Shakespeare she did not accomplish anything

because of men who saw her to be the one who was unable to create something great. She was
gifted like Shakespeare but remained at home and never ever attended a school. She never came

to learn Virgil and Horace instead mended stockings in the house. Whenever she picked a book

and started reading she was disturbed by the domestic duties. Then she was beaten by her father

and he begged her to accept the marriage proposal and “not to shame him in matter of marriage”

(Woolf, 2012, p.61). Under such circumstance how could she betray her father by rejecting the

person whom her parents have chosen for her. In all obedience and unflinching loyalty, she was

married to a person whom she hated and despised. How beautifully writes Shakespeare to

criticize monstrous patriarchal Athenian society and the law against women in the words of

Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Hermia says to her father, Egeus amazingly “O hell! to

choose love by another's eyes” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.280). Virginia Woolf describes Judith

Shakespeare’s genius in these words:

Meanwhile his extraordinarily gifted sister, let us suppose,

remained at home. She was as adventurous, as imaginative, as
agog to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school.
She had no chance of learning grammar and logic, let alone of
reading Horace and Virgil. She picked up a book now and then,
one of her brother's perhaps, and read a few pages. But then her
parents came in and told her to mend the stockings or mind the
stew and not moon about with books and papers (Woolf, 2012,
p.61).
Virginia Woolf describes an event which displays that how the projection of men resulted in

hatred for eternal feminine and men shaped their opinion that women are errant. A man named

Mr. Z who is considered “most humane, most modest of men” (Woolf, 2012, p.52) takes a book

by Rebecca West and after reading it exclaims, “The errant feminist” (Woolf, 2012, p.52),

because she has written “Men are snobs” (Woolf, 2012, p.52). It is a protest of suppressed anima

that is complaining against the overdeveloped persona of men who constantly prevents women to

enter into main stream of life. The very concept of being a woman was either to be good angel or
a monster. Even the writers and critics of the male dominated society expressed their hate and

bias about women which shows not only their personal but societal dislike and abhorrence for

women who wanted to pursue their career in a male oriented world. As Gilbert and Gubar (2000)

point out in The Madwoman in the Attic that patriarchal culture holds that women writers lack

the ability to use language to create something notable and praiseworthy because “in the mouths

of women, vocabulary loses meaning, sentences dissolve, literary messages are distorted or

destroyed” (p. 31). Some said “Most women have no character at all” (Woolf, 2012, p.48)vii

while others were doubtful of their souls or evil nature, and the “the Best woman was

intellectually the inferior of the worst man” (Woolf, 2012, p.65)viii. Jane Marcus in her essay

“Still Practiced A/wrested Alphabet, towards a Feminist Aesthetics” asserts same point and says:

We are at the very least forced to recognize that suppression of

women writing is historically and psychologically directly related
to male sexual violence against women, that men have cut out the
tongues of speaking woman and cut off the hands of the writing
woman for the fear of what she will say about them and about the
world. (Benstock, 1987, p.81)
Socio-economic, cultural and intellectual suppression of women results in dullness and

lack of creativity in art and literature because the anima being creative and intuitive aspect of the

individual’s psyche was crippled and repressed.ix Even women themselves looked at life from

man’s point of view; and if they had the opportunity to express themselves in writing, they

attempted in male poetics and from male perspective of women. Out of fear of being considered

monster and demonic women writers used male pseudonyms as pen- names to exercise their

intellectual capabilities in fiction and poetry such as George Eliot for Mary Anne Evans, Ellis

Bell for Emily Bronte and Acton for Charlotte Bronte and so forth. Consequently, the literature

of the age became imbalance at all levels. Mostly in19th century gothic literature women were

presented as vile witches, demons, mad, foolish and detestable with evil nature. That is in a way
an unconscious expression of the anima suppressed centuries long. As Emma Jung in her

Animus and Anima says:

Because the anima, as the feminine aspect of man, possesses this

receptivity and absence of prejudice toward the irrational, she is
designated as the mediator between consciousness and the
unconscious. In the creative man, especially, this feminine attitude
plays an important role; it is not without cause that we speak of the
conception of a work, of carrying out a thought, delivering oneself
of it, or brooding over it. (Jung, 1957, p.56)

Rightly Virginia Woolf in her AROO asserts that men consider themselves as the authority in art

and literature but “writing with the male side of their brains” (Woolf, 2012, p.99) while the

creative and prophetic side has been neglected. Unlike male critics Woolf is of the view that

works of Mr. Kipling and Galsworthy lack “fountain of perpetual life” (Woolf, 2012, p.99)

which we can symbolically associate with the anima as soul or animating principle as stated by

Jung. (Jung, 1971, p.160) A critic Rosa Boshier in her How to Analyze the Works of Virginia

Woolf says:

Because men historically have had authority over what is

published, they were able to decide what was written about
women. Men’s authority over literature allows them to shape
society’s perception of women. The overwhelming male presence
in literature exposes the patriarchy of education. It reveals that,
contrary to popular belief, literature is not objective but biased by
the male perspective. (Boshier, 2013, p.47-48)
AROO celebrates overtly an emphatic urge of the long repressed anima to be integrated at

the conscious level to gain the right to write what it feels and wants instinctively and naturally.

Virginia speaking of Aphra Behn to be the first to express her freedom of mind who paved the

way for other women writers such as Jane Austen, George Eliot, Lady Winchelsea, Rebeca West,

Margaret Cavendish, Emily Bronte and Charlotte Bronte, is a mark of her conscious effort to

integrate the inner woman into the conscious real world of man. Woolf further pays tribute to
Aphra Behn and other women figures laid the foundation stone and made the way for coming

writers who are nothing without her as Shakespeare without Marlow and Marlow without

Chaucer. A monumental work of art is not the sole creation, a single soul but it has a long

culture, history and “many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people,

so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice” (Woolf, 2012, p.74). Virginia is of

the view that Jane Austen must pay thanks to Fanny Burney and lay floral wreath on her

tombstone, and George Eliot needs to pay tribute to Eliza Carter for their efforts which made

Jane Austen and George Eliot able to write something of their own. Woolf says:

All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of
Aphra Behn, which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately,
in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to
speak their minds. It is she-shady and amorous as she was- who
makes it not quite fantastic for me to say to you tonight: Earn five
hundred a year by your wits (Woolf, 2012, p.74).
Women writers are able to earn a living for their own because of Aphra Behn who initiated

writing by discarding the set standards of the patriarchal culture which demands blind obedience

on the part of women and considers writing women to be “A dog’s walking on its hind legs”

(Woolf, 2012, p.66). Although women had not much exercised their intellectual faculties and

capabilities before Aphra Behn due to the masculine philosophy but according to Virginia

women have done more than men in the development and nurturing of society. Although they

never participated in the war, neither written plays like Shakespeare nor civilized the barbarians

but they have nurtured the generation of human beings for centuries and without their efforts

“those seas would be unsailed and those fertile lands a desert” x (Woolf, 2012, p.107). Virginia

believes that the soul of Shakespeare’s sister (Judith Shakespeare) still lives with women and

desires them to snatch their rights of writing which the society has extended to men only. She
urges them to revitalize Judith Shakespeare by writing and by participating in the affairs of

society to become career women.

Virginia Woolf’s appreciation of a couple in the taxicab is symbolic of healthy change in man’s

attitude to accept the inner woman in his conscious life. It accords with the idea that gradually

men are undergoing a change in their psyche to accept women as the integral part of their

personality. Woolf literally watches from the window that man and woman going together in a

cab who were previously indifferent to each other are now united and the discorded elements

have reconciled. She says:

For certainly when I saw the couple get into the taxicab the mind
felt as if, after being divided, it had come together again in a
natural fusion. The obvious reason would be that it is natural for
the sexes to co-operate. One has a profound, if irrational, instinct in
favour of the theory that the union of man and woman makes for
the greatest satisfaction, the most complete happiness (Woolf,
2012, p.96-97).
In the light of above passage, it is overtly admitted from the psychological point of view that “To
have made contact with your inner woman at all is a blessing; to be tied to one that holds you
back can be fatal” (Sharp, 2001, p.44). And when the inner woman/the anima/unconscious,
which is a mediator between the conscious and unconscious, is integrated, the individual is put
on the path of individuation which according to Jung (1971) is
Becoming a single, homogeneous being, and, in so far as “individuality”
embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies
becoming one’s own self. We could therefore translate individuation as “coming”
to self-hood or self-realization (p. 143).
Conclusion

A seminal lesson that we get from the whole conglomeration of textual/critical ideas and

their analysis of is that we as individuals and the denizens of a society need not only to

psychologically establish ideal coordination with the inner woman within but also outwardly and

necessarily integrate her into our conscious reality in all unbiased interlocking relationship and
human bonds. The author guides us through this essay as well as her other works that we must

revisit and reassess our psychic make up, patriarchal cultural values and the perception of gender

roles in our society in order to reshape what has been misshaped/ill-shaped by repetitive exercise

of masculine authority and centuries long reticence and repression. In order to undertake this

venture to make the project prevail practically in the society, it is no wonder to say what Woolf

asserts that “a woman must have a money and a room of her own.” Progress in the society would

be a dream or a wish unfulfilled if we do not liberate women psychologically, economically and

culturally at all levels—locally, nationally and globally.

Notes

i
This and all other textual references to the edition Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (2012.
London: Wordsworth Classics) indicated by page number in parenthesis unless otherwise indicated.
ii
According to Jung Animus is the unconscious aspect of a woman’s psyche that is logical, domineering
and assertive. It is unconscious male in a female which makes a women able to hold healthy and good relations with
the men. Integration of Animus in conscious attitude makes woman a complete individual who is psychologically
whole and individuated.

The anima is the personification of all female psychological tendencies in the psyche of a man, including feelings,
moods, intuition, receptivity for the irrational, the ability for personal love, a feel for nature, and the man's attitude
toward the unconscious. This inner image becomes conscious by real contacts with women, especially the first
woman he encounters in his life. For details see Anima/Animus, Joseph Campbell’s (1971) The Portable Jung. New
York: Penguine Books), Emma Jung’s (1957). Animus and Anima (Canada: Spring Publication, Inc.).
iii
In Jungian psychology the unconscious is a part of us that remains in the background, but is in no way
inactive or inert. The unconscious is composed of hidden aspects of ourselves that continue to work on the conscious
and thus on our everyday life, although we are not mostly not aware of it. The unconscious tries to bring man back
into balance. In life we are not always able to do or be what we would like. Thus, the unconscious will influence our
behavior and actions in a way that will compensate. These unconscious tendencies can be stronger than our
conscious, and can even go against our will. Thus we tell things in a flare of anger, of which we will be very sorry
afterwards. Jung divided the unconscious in two parts: the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. For
details see Joseph Campbell’s (1971) The Portable Jung. New York: Penguine Books).
iv
AROO is an abbreviation of the essay A Room of One’s Own and will be used onward.
v
For details read Louis Althusser’s. (1971). “Ideology and ideological State Apparatuses”. Trans.
Brewster, Ben. London: New Left Books.
vi
In Jungian psychology persona is the mask we all wear, a mask that pretends individuality. It makes us
believe that one is a certain individual, but it is nothing else than a well-played role. The persona is a compromise
one creates between himself and the community about how one appears to be. One adopts a name, a title, an
occupation, and identifies oneself with this or that. One thinks that one is a businessman, a good father or a misfit,
but all this are masks, ways we would like to be or appear to other people and does not always reflect who we really
are. For details see Joseph Campbell’s (1971) The Portable Jung. New York: Penguine Books).
vii
Virginia Woolf responds to Pope’s biased comment on women who in his Epistle II. To a Lady. Of the
Characters of Women says:
Nothing so true as what you once let fall,
"Most Women have no Characters at all."
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair…
Whether the Charmer sinner it, or saint it,
If Folly grows romantic, I must paint it.
viii
Tennyson’s poem “The Princess” depicts the same situation of women in the Victorian society where
women were considered to house wives and domestic creatures, who have nothing to do with the society around.
The perfect image of the women in the eyes of men during Victorian era was what Coventry Patmore says “Angel in
the house”. Tennyson rightly criticizes the attitude and thinking of Victorian society in these lines:
He says:
Man is the hunter, women is his game
The sleek and shiny creature of the chase
We hunt them for the beauty of their skins
They love us for it and we ride them down
Man for the field and women for the hearth
Man for the sword and for the needle she
Man with the head and women with the heart
Man to command and women to obey.
ix
The figures of Sibyl and Pythia are famous for divination and prophecy in Roman and Greek culture.
These feminine figures being symbolic of anima, represent the prophetic and divine characteristics.
x
As Medea in Euripides’ play Medea says that it is men are considered to be superior because they go to
war and fight for the safety of women. She is of the opinion that bearing a single child is more difficult than
participating in three battles. While addressing maids of chorus she says:
They say we have a safe life at home, whereas men must go to war. Nonsense! I
had rather fight three battles than bear one child. But be that as it may, you and I
are not in the same case. You have your city here, your paternal homes; you
know the delights of life and association with your loved one
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