of Female Rage in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own

‘Out with It’: The Suppression and Power of Female Rage in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own

Maggie Yuan, Rice University

One of the most compelling moments in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is her criticism of Charlotte Brontë’s rage, during which Woolf argues the expression of anger invalidates literary integrity. Her aversion to anger arose from a modernist literary sentiment that valued impersonal art, as well as cultural values of the Victorian era and conciliatory motives of early feminists, all which sought approval from a male-dominated social landscape. By exploring the literary and historical context of the suppression of female anger during Woolf’s career, I challenge the disapproval of female rage in A

Room of One’s Own. Female rage is a valuable source of insight, energy, and freedom. The expression of female rage is act of rebellion that produces impactful artwork and social progress, as feminist writers Jane Marcus and Audre Lorde argue. The restraint of female rage that Woolf espouses not only derives from concessions to patriarchal standards, but also acts as a systemic tool that silences minorities—particularly women of color, whose voices have been historically excluded from the feminist literary canon, including A Room of One’s Own. In a novel in which women need “a room of one’s own” to write, there must be room made for female anger. In A Room One’s Own, Woolf articulates her distaste for the expression of anger and explains that female writers must avoid rage for the sake of preserving their novels’ artistic integrity. While examining passages in Jane Eyre, Woolf argues that the single error of the novel is Charlotte Brontë’s inability to quell her anger. Asserting that “anger was tampering with the integrity of Charlotte Brontë the novelist,” she makes explicit that rage threatens the execution of an artist’s vision for their work (Woolf 72). Woolf laments that Bronte’s rage detracts from the focus on her narrative, leading to a story that is moved by personal feelings. While she acknowledges that Brontë’s rage arose rightfully from the struggles she faced as a woman—she was “made stagnate in a parsonage mending stockings when she wanted to wander free over the world”—Woolf nonetheless concludes that writing suffers when anger takes reign (72). Female writers must restrain their rage, as the consequences of anger tarnishes the experience of reading the novel. Brontë’s anger, to Woolf, produces writing that is laced with “acidity,”

interrupting the narrative with the “influence of fear” and “contract[ing] those books, splendid as they are, with a spasm of pain” (Woolf 72). The expression of anger is a fatal flaw, one so potent that Woolf winces in “pain” when she sees its remnants in Jane Eyre. Woolf makes her stance uncompromisable: anger impairs the artistic integrity of literature, and female writers must avoid expressing their rage in order to uphold the credibility of their work. Woolf’s resistance to the expression of anger can be contextualized by the impersonal sentiments of modernist literature. Alex Zwerdling argues that Woolf’s principles aligned with the “whole literary climate” of the early 20th century, which “fostered the kind of detached, controlled, impersonal aesthetic theory she adopted” (70). Seeking to erase their identities from their creative work, modernists valued impersonal art that was “detached” from the self. For modernists, it was precisely emotions such as rage that threatened the successful erasure of the self. Woolf’s primary criticism of Brontë is that “she left her story, to which her entire was due, to attend to some personal grievance”—that is, the expression of rage. Brontë infused her novel with the trials of her identity, which Woolf viewed as irreconcilable with detached modernist sentiment. Her assertion that Brontë’s “entire [attention] was due” to the integrity of the novel can be further elaborated as the modernist justification for the erasure of the self, an idea delineated by T.S. Eliot in his 1919 essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Asserting that “the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates,” Eliot makes the case that artists must learn to eradicate any traces of the personal. In modernist authorship, the relinquishment of the self is a necessary sacrifice. Eliot goes as far as to argue that art is forged from the very act of erasing the self, that art is “not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion,” and “not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality” (Eliot). In Eliot’s essay, artistry and impersonality are mutually dependent; artists must successfully separate themselves from their creations. Any personal emotions, such as the rage of Brontë that Woolf criticizes, must be excluded from in order to produce true artwork. The detachment from the self, a value espoused by Eliot and his fellow modernists, led to the aversion to anger that Woolf displays in A Room of One’s Own.

Implicated in Woolf’s contemptuous relationship with her anger was the desire for support from a male-dominated environment, as reflected by the backdrop of the feminist movement. During an era in which feminist leaders were concerned about the viability of rage, many female writers used “concilia-

tory gestures” in order to appease male lawmakers and scholars (Zwerdling 73). Feminists were inclined to suppress violent emotions in order to attain the support of men in power—an inclination that impacted Woolf’s own literary values. Indeed, the sense of urgency in A Room of One’s Own—from Woolf’s critique of the “acidity” in Brontë’s writing to her succinct warning to the fictional writer Mary Carimichael (“If you stop to curse you are lost”)—speaks to the idea that excess anger was antithetical to male approval (92). Woolf’s distaste for anger veered towards repulsion, a knee-jerk response that any rage in her work would tarnish her literary success. In his analysis of her diary entries and letters, Zwerdling explains that Woolf saw her anger as “embarrassing and childish; at best it only provides some interesting raw material for the artist to refine and contain” (69). Woolf’s hostility to rage led her to only express this emotion in her private writings, a realm in which she could release her turbulent feelings and successfully detach herself. She viewed anger as an uncontrollable emotion that harmed the integrity of a literary work, just as the suffragists saw rage as a detriment to gaining male support. From this light, Woolf’s rebuke of Brontë’s rage is contextualized by both modernist theory and the feminist movement; both are tied irrevocably to gaining the approval of male authority. Zwerdling makes the case that Woolf was entrapped by “the urge to conciliate the male audience she could never entirely ignore” (68). As much as A Room of One’s Own espouses the necessity of female agency and authorship, Woolf’s rebuke of female rage is undeniably connected to historical conciliations to patriarchal structures of power. A contemporary feminist lens can provide more historical context to Woolf’s aversion to rage and offer an incendiary opposing perspective—when expressed openly, anger is a form of rebellion, an agent of social change, and a catalyst for profound artwork. In Art and Anger: Reading like a Woman,

Jane Marcus looks to the values of the Victorian era as further reasoning for Woolf’s suppression of anger. In a time period where anger was considered a “masculine emotion,” the female expression of rage was “the great Victorian taboo” (Marcus 45–46). Marcus acknowledges that Woolf’s restraint of rage was necessary in order for her to succeed as a female writer in the Victorian era. At the same time, Marcus credits rage as a force that drove the creative pursuits of Woolf and makes the case that anger is a valuable resource for female artists. Referring to anger as the “great sewer of the imagination,” Marcus asserts that these recesses of female rage remain in Woolf’s work (138). Indeed, there is anger buried between the lines of A Room of One’s Own; the emblazoned defense of female intellect—“Lock up

your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind”—speaks to the defiance smoldering below the surface of its conciliatory tone (Woolf 75). Marcus contends that such rage should be uncovered. Contradicting the modernist belief that emotion should be detached from writing, Marcus declares, “Anger is not anathema in art…. Rage and savage indignation sear the hearts of female poets and female critics” (153). If violent emotions such as anger are the creative forces behind great works of art, as Marcus puts it, rage should be brought to the center stage of female artistry. This anger—arising precisely from the patriarchal standards that they are inclined to comply with—gives female creators a conviction that is unparalleled. Reflecting on the lives of Woolf and her Victorian peers who repressed their anger, Marcus urges the modern-day female writer, “Out with it. No more burying our wrath, turning it against ourselves” (153). Highlighting the right of female writers to openly express anger, Marcus’s contemporary feminist perspective designates rage as an act of defiance, one that dismantles the patriarchal limitations that ensnare all women. If anger is an act of liberation for all women, then its expression is rendered more critical by the intersectional struggles faced by women of color—an acknowledgment is not addressed by Woolf in A

Room of One’s Own. At the end of the novel, Woolf presents a call to action to women that ignores the disproportionate obstacles that women of color must face. Chastising women for not achieving enough and urging them to take full advantage of the resources available to them, she asserts, “The excuse of lack of opportunity, training, encouragement, leisure, and money no longer holds good” (Woolf 111). Yet her assertion only applies to white women; far more societal and institutional barriers prevent women of color from accessing these opportunities that Woolf claims are readily available to all women. When Woolf points to the right of 20th-century women to vote, for instance, it must be taken into account that this right did not apply to women of color in 1929 (the year in which A Room of One’s Own was published). In the United States, while the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 gave women the right to vote, women of color were barred from voting due to discriminatory voting practices such as poll taxes and literacy tests; they were only able to vote 45 years later, after the ratification of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 (“Voting”). The concerns of women of color are not taken into account in Woolf’s addressment of “all women.” Her accusation to women of the 20th century, “What is your excuse?” overlooks the fact that it is far more difficult for women of color to acquire “opportunity, training, encouragement,

leisure, and money,” all assets necessary for the achievements Woolf expects (110). The feminist call to action of A Room of One’s Own turns a blind eye to the struggles that women of color are forced to confront. These intersectional obstacles serve to complicate the expression of rage for women of color, making it far more difficult for them to express their anger in works of art and other social spaces—a struggle that is multiplied for Black women. As Audre Lorde asserts in her 1981 keynote presentation, “The Uses of Anger: Women responding to racism,” Black women must contend with a rage that has been multiplied, stoked by misogyny and racism alike—they also face the greatest expectation to suppress this anger. The limitations placed upon Black women’s expression of rage come not only from men, but also from white women and non-Black women of color. Lorde gives the modern example of tone policing; reflecting on academic conferences where white women have responded negatively to her open expressions of anger, she explains how Black women are forced to curb their rage so as to appease privileged women. She also presents a particularly pertinent instance of how the privilege of non-Black women of color can contribute to anti-Blackness; when conversing with a white colleague about a collection of work produced by non-Black women of color, she recalls the colleague admitting, “It allows me to deal with racism without dealing with the harshness of Black women” (Lorde). The aggressions that Black women face form what Lorde calls a “symphony of anger at being silenced at being unchosen, and she elaborates that it is a “symphony rather than cacophony because we have had to learn to orchestrate those furies so that they do not tear us apart.” Lorde’s honest account of the disproportionate struggles she has faced as a Black scholar rejects Woolf’s distilled claim that “all women” in the early 20th century have access to ample resources to guarantee their professional success and social dignity—evidently, this equality was not the case during the time of Lorde’s speech (published 50 years after A Room of Own’s Own), nor is it the case today. The heightened experience of anger and suppression of that anger that Black women undergo in contemporary society is a testament to the disproportionate struggles that women of color continue to face—a narrative excluded from Woolf’s colorblind call to action.

While highlighting the voices of Black women and other women of color, Lorde reaffirms the necessity of the expression of female rage, as Marcus brought up, in an inclusive, contemporary femi-

nist exhortation. She reflects candidly on her relationship with her anger, “I have lived with that anger, ignoring it … Once I did it in silence, afraid of the weight,” before she concludes, “My fear of anger taught me nothing” (Lorde). Lorde’s addressment of the “fear of anger” echoes the detachment espoused by modernist literature and the suffragist movement. Her admission that she was “afraid of the weight” of her rage begets the question of whether or not the writings of Woolf, and the modernist movement as a whole, drew their impersonal style from a primal “fear” of rage, rather than dedication to literary credibility. This fear of anger, as Lorde asserts, is not conducive to creating more impactful artwork. Like Marcus, she zeroes in on female anger as a “powerful source of energy serving progress and change.” Her assertion that rage is a form of “energy,” one that can be funneled into social progress, creative works, and female solidarity, poses a refutation to Woolf’s modernist, Victorian designation of anger as unconducive to coherent writing. Charlotte Brontë’s rage over being “made stagnate in a parsonage mending stockings when she wanted to wander free over the world” then need not be removed from the source (Woolf 72); her anger—tied to her “self” that the modernists sought to eradicate—can make for an even more compelling work of literature and serve as an act of feminist rebellion. The expression of rage also gives way to a powerful agent of change in intersectional feminism: the act of listening to one another. Calling upon women to honor the rage expressed by others, Lorde attests that “The angers between women will not kill us if we can articulate them with precision.” The recognition of other women’s anger can be a platform for intersectional feminist solidarity, giving space to women of color who have been historically excluded from the works of Woolf and the feminist literary canon. The contemporary feminist perspective honors the stagnate anger of female writers of the past, from Woolf to Brontë, while calling upon present-day women to channel their rage into creative works—for the sake of female liberation, solidarity, and progress. When expressed openly, female anger is an agent of social change and creative insight. The suppression of female rage espoused by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own can be analyzed through the lenses of modernist literature, the suffragist movement, and the Victoria era, whose values restrained female expression of emotion. Woolf’s detachment from anger in her writing reflects sensibilities of modernists and feminists in her era, indicating their aim to conciliate a male-dominated society. Vocalizing anger is an act of feminist rebellion that challenges patriarchal standards and grants women freedom,

as contemporary feminists Jane Marcus and Audre Lorde have illustrated. Rage is an arsenal of energy and empowerment; when channeled into creative works, female anger can produce compelling insights that can transform society. The liberation of female rage is pertinent to women of color, particularly Black women, whose voices must be amplified in the feminist literary community. If women are to be free to write novels—the dream that Woolf stoked in A Room of One’s Own—they must be emboldened to release the anger that has been silenced for far too long.

Works Cited

Eliot, T.S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Poetry Foundation, 2009, www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69400/tradition-and-the-individual-talent. Lorde, Audre. “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism.” BlackPast, 12 Aug. 2012, Storrs, CT, www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1981-audre-lorde-uses-anger-women-respond ing-racism/. Marcus, Jane. Art and Anger: Reading Like a Woman. Ohio State University Press, 1988. “Voting Rights Act.” Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/wex/vot ing_rights_act. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. Harcourt, Inc., 2005.