The Relevance of Gender In Society: A research paper on Virginia Woolf's views on gender roles using three of her books, "To the Lighthouse", "Mrs. Dalloway", and "A Room of One's Own".

Essay by iloveshoesUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, November 2006

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Virginia Woolf was a master of modern writing. Through her literary genius, she developed a mountain of works that explored numerous ideas like the importance of time, love, and death. One theme that resounded throughout most, if not all, of her writings was the concept of gender. Whether Woolf was exploring the societal impact on gender or the idea that gender is irrelevant, one thing was clear; Woolf was obsessed with gender. She was a wonderful feminist writer who was confused by the roles women were forced to play in society. Her own confusion with sexuality played a huge part in her writing methods. "Different though the sexes are, they inter-mix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above."

(Virginia Woolf Quotes,http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/v/virginia_woolf.html). Through her characters, Woolf presented a menagerie of women who displayed such raw emotions that they seemed real. These characters dealt with gender in different ways. Some embraced their role as a woman in society while others shunned society's idea of women. No matter how she was presenting her characters, Woolf loved using them to explore the complexity she found within gender.

Some of Woolf's ideas on gender corresponded with the great psychologist, Freud's views. Woolf was an avid reader of Freud, but it took her a long while to understand and agree with anything he developed. She did eventually agree with his ideas on gender. "For him [Freud], the acquisition of a gender identity was a totally psychological process" (Bland. J. Freud, The Father of Psychoanalysis). Mrs. Dalloway is bursting with Woolf's views on gender. The fact that Septimus was created to be...