Many times, we see in works of literature, ideas of social attitudes toward women. In these two passages, women are portrayed with a low class value, making them look as though men have possession of them. Many details are expressed to show this concept in these passages.
Portrait of Virginia Woolf by George Charles Beres...
English: Portrait of Virginia Woolf
Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf.In the excerpt by Virgina Woolf, we see that the whole essay is based on how women are barely proclaimed in the studies of history. By the tone of her voice, you can tell she is somewhat furious at the thought of this, and she makes her point of how women from the middle-class are portrayed as a value of unimportance in history. She continues on, telling a story about how a bishop she once knew stated that cats didn't go to heaven, and a woman can't write the plays of Shakespeare. Woolf didn't like the bishop very much, but she simply had to agree with the bishop, concerning the fact that women couldn't write the plays of Shakespeare. She believes this because women didn't have the intelligence to write a play of Shakespeare, but for the reason being that they didn't have the free will to write them, for social practices and cultural beliefs prevented them from pursuing such a goal. Woolf continues on, using her imagination to pretend that Shakespeare had a sister with the same intelligence that he had in him. She assumed that Shakespeare would've been doing the things he did in his life, going to school, studying, and pursuing his goals. On the other hand, Woolf thinks that his sister would probably be home asking her parents to send her to school, and just getting a beating for trying to go to school. According to Woolf, Shakespeare's sister wouldn't have been inspired by anyone...