There are many ways in which women and women writers in particular have changed and challenged notions

of writing women, as well as those who have re-written women. Virginia Woolf and Anne Carson have both re-written women in their own ways, and in their own times. Woolfs A Room of Ones Own and Carsons Eros the Bittersweet are both texts that have challenged women in many different areas of their lives. Woolf focuses upon the education of women, as well as their access to it and perception of it by men, while Carson looks at ideas of romance and desire and combines these with ideas of knowledge, and uses sources from a variety of times across history to portray these ideas. This essay will be exploring these two texts and the various ways in which they can be considered to have re-written women.

A Room of Ones Own is an essay that looks at the basic question of why women are not considered the educational and intellectual equals of men. She looks at how women have been perceived over the years, from the Middle Ages until her time of the early twentieth century and tries to figure out this conundrum. She also looks at how women lived, and how this is also a factor in their perception. It brings to mind Mary Wollstonecraft, who made the statement that it is men that have made women what they are, by not giving them an education, or money or social status, and since men have all of those things, it is no surprise that women are considered lower when they were not even given the same opportunities to succeed in life. As Woolf states, 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 (35). By this Woolf highlights the lack of opportunity for women not only in her time, but all time preceding, due to the power of men and their refusal to share their power with women.

Woolf challenges the ideas about women that were held in the past, and ponders if they will ever change. She notes that women are what she calls the protected sex (41). She has future hopes that these values will change, that women will have ceased to be the protected sex. Logically they will take part in all the activities and exertions that were once denied them (41-42). She says this because she knows that the time of change for women was then. It was the time of the suffrage movement, where women were rising up to challenge men for equality. It was the time where women were trying to throw off their figurative shackles and take their rightful place in the worldnext to men, not in a sitting room embroidering. They wanted to go out and gain an education, to have a good job, to have the choice to do whatever they wanted for themselves, without needing their father or husbands permission to do so.

Woolf can be said to be giving an explanation as to why women could not have been considered the equal of men in literature, art, and music. If women could not read or write, then it becomes exceedingly difficult to write a novel that is the equal of a man when they do not have the access to education and its basics such as knowing how to read, as well as to write. The simple fact is that women could not be the equal of men in these areas, among many others, because they were not given the opportunity to do so. A woman cannot compose a piece of music if she is not taught what notes are. As women were given such a subordinate, uneducated role in society, it comes as no surprise that there were not as many great women as there are great men. Those women that we look at as having such virtues did things that were unthinkable in society in their respective time periods. In modern times we perceive those women in a greater light due to the fact that what they did not have access to then is free to most people now. But women in previous time periods would have been shunned and shamed for their actions. Back then, roles were strictly based on nature, as well as religious ideas of what men and women could and could not do. As women were the bearers of children, their role was to raise said children and to look after their husbands, whose role it was to

provide, and learn. Of what use is playing the piano to a woman in a purely domestic role? Knowing how to read and write does not help her make dinner any better than a woman who cannot read or write. It has only been in the relatively recent history that women have been given opportunities to escape their gender roles and to try to achieve equality with men. Woolf is saying that it is hard to be and to do something when you cannot access it, and that with access, women can make incredible progress to equality.

Quentin Bell has noted that Woolfs A Room of Ones Own is a commentary on how the disabilities of women are social and economic and that a womans way to social and economic freedom lies in a room that a woman can say is hers, and in which she can live with the same freedom and independence as her brothers (cited in Restuccia 1985:253). However, it really is more than just personal space and money. Woolf is right in stating that women need to have these things, as do everybody else, in order to preserve mental health and to look after oneself, but they cannot just be given these by the patriarchy and think that all will be well with women. The attitudes held by men need to change as well. They need to see women as their equals before any real progress can be made. To eliminate womens social disability, social attitudes need to change, and as it was (and to an extent still is) men who are in charge, it is they who need to change their thoughts, and even women, who need to be able to see themselves as equals. As long as (some) women continue to think that they are lesser than men in any way, equality cannot happen. Woolf addresses these quite clearly, and even her time progress was being made, but even today, there is still a lot to be done before we can look at society and say that we are equal.

Woolfs main argument in A Room of Ones Own is that women are not considered the equal of men and that they need to be given the opportunity to be as great as men, namely a room of ones own

and five hundred pounds a year (112). However, women now have access to education, and in fact actively pursue it more than men, they can have good jobs and be the barrister who has made a hundred thousand pounds (41) and can do legally nearly all the same things as men. So why is it that in terms of things such as literature, where there are just as many women writers than men, who have the same opportunities as men, that they are not considered equals there? Women have education and money. Woolfs main flaw with her argument is that if women have education, space and money that all will be fine with them and they will be equal. This is not the case. Women in literature are still stigmatised, and still have limitations placed upon them. It is up to both men and women to change their supposed limitations, and to write about what they want to write about, not just write what they think their particular sex should write about. Men can write romance just as much as women can write about war. It is society that creates these gendered notions of writing, and as members of society, they should and can break free of the mould that is supposedly holding them in place. Woolf has just needed to anticipate the progression of women in society, as well as their regression that occurs at the same time.

Eros the Bittersweet contains many ideas linking desire to knowledge, as well as to writing. Given that writing about desire and romance, as well as love, is seen as a form or genre of womens writing, this text is an excellent one to highlight former and current definitions of womens writing, and the challenge towards it, and the need to change and alter such definitions. As Carson notes, it was Sappho who first called eros bittersweet (3). It creates the idea that there is only one way in which to define such emotions, and therefore only one way in which to write about it, as well as the fact that Sappho was female, defines it as a womans genre. This gives rise to stereotypical ideas about the writing of this emotion and genre, and again creates stereotypes of women, such as they are usually the only ones to write about it. Though Carson uses examples of many ancient Greek men who did write about the concept of eros, the idea today is one that it is stereotypically a

womans place to write about such things. Most romance novels are written by women, as it is more common for men to write about things such as war. These simple stereotypes have continued for a very long time, and even though women now have the ability to publish work in their own name, or even get published at all (such as what Woolf was wishing for women in the future), the fact that there remains such notions about writing is simply discriminatory, to men as well as to women, and Carson can be said to be challenging these ideas.

Carson notes that the word eros in Greek has multiple meanings of want, lack, desire for that which is missing (10). She then goes on to mention that the lover wants to have something that is basically impossible to achieve as, once the lover has what they have desired, they no longer desire it. This, as well as the other point of having something come between the lover and the beloved, the three point circuit (as noted by Sappho) are both rather stereotypical notions of desire and romance. She highlights the clich nature of the genre, as even the ancient Greek wrote about romance in the same way as we do. There almost always seems to be a general story line of two people meet, they love each other, then something has to come between those two people, whether it is another person or a set of events that are unfavourable, or a number of other things. The two people must desire something or someone that they cannot have. The notion of eros as being something lacking in the conception of desire, seems to imply that without it, there cannot really be a story. Again, the idea of the three point circuit are raised. The question of whether a story can be told without having to keep the lovers apart and miserable until the last page (78) where on the last page, everything is miraculously fixed and the two lovers have a happily ever after. Most romance novels seem to have this basic clich structure, and Carson is challenging this nature. As she is challenging why this genre is a woman dominated genre, she is also challenging why the genre is the way it is. Does it need to follow that set pattern? She makes fun of this, and in doing so, says

that changes need to be made to what has become a very stale and unchanged genre that has basically stayed the same for thousands of years.

As mentioned earlier, Eros the Bittersweet is also a text that looks at the links between desire and knowledge. While they are both dissimilar, they have at their core such similarity that one could almost think that desire and knowledge are the same thing. Carson notes that they are not like anything else, but they are like each other (70). As one can never have complete desire, one can also never have total knowledge. One feels empty after having something they have desired, as they have gotten what they did want, but now once they have had it, it needs to be discarded. One cannot desire what they already have. Also, the emptiness is akin to one knowing that they cannot know all that there is to know. One can try to know as much as they possibly can, but they will fall short every time, and this leads to feelings of being unfulfilled.

The use of history in the definition of eros, as well as desire and lack, highlights the very nature of what eros and desire are. History for us, particularly ancient history, comes to us in parts. Its very nature is that it is incomplete. We can never know exactly what happened, why it happened, and how people lived in those times. This has a striking similarity to desire and eros. It is all about the idea of lack. We lack the complete picture of the past, and desire is all about lack and the wanting of what we do not have. It also shows that desire can take multiple forms, desire is not just about the idea of eros and romance, but is a part of other things, such as knowledge. The desire to know the past is still desire of some kind, and it is just as important as desire that comes from ideas of eros and romance and love. Carson is challenging the idea of the clich type of desire, the kind that occurs between lovers, and highlights that desire is all around us, in things that are not commonly associated with the word, but rather with its actual meaning. Desire is not just necessarily a feminine

thing, a romantic thing, it is something that has a very broad meaning, and to give it just one such meaning is showing limitations for women, as well as for writing as well.

Carson can also be looking at challenging the literary canon in her work, especially the place of women within it. While most works in the canon are from men, she looks at why some women are there and others are not. Sappho is one example. As a female, and an ancient Greek female at that, her work is looked at in the same manner as are other ancient Greek writers, such as Aeschylus and Aristotle. This was not the case so recently for women in more modern times. If ancient Greek women can be looked at in such a positive light, why were women writing in modern times not looked at in the same way? The answer lies within social attitudes. In Greek society, while women were ultimately inferior to men, they still were considered highly and had some opportunity to learn and access what later women could not. As social attitudes in our society were focused upon a womans subordinate role in society, and not given access to education, status or money, they could never be what they were in Greece or even in our modern society. It is due to social change that allows women a better place and better access to equality.

Women who write have over time, challenged the ways in which they should write, as well as how they do write. Both Virginia Woolf in her text A Room of Ones Own and Anne Carsons Eros the Bittersweet have challenged these ideas, as well as other things, such as education and opportunity and access to these, as well as to status, power and money. In their writing, they both challenge writing itself and what it means to write women, as well as to re-write women and to also look at the way in which women are perceived and treated in society that allow and exclude women, and how these have changed as well as what still needs to be done, especially in regards to the equality between the sexes, not just socially, as Woolf argues, but also within the literary world, as Carson

argues. In both of these areas, while women have come a very long way than in the past, there is still a long way to go in order for true equality to exist between the sexes, and both texts have presented fantastic ideas on how women have been and are being re-written.

Reference List: Carson, Anne. Eros the Bittersweet. Princeton, New Jersey. Dalkey Archive. 1998. Restuccia, Frances L. Untying the Mother Tongue: Female Difference in Virginia Woolfs A Room of Ones Own. Tulsa Studies in Womens Literature. Volume 4. Number 2. 1985. Pp. 253-264. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of Ones Own. Australia, Penguin, 2009