In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf hypothesizes about the theoretical life of Shakespeare's sister, Judith, and comes to the conclusion that "any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village." This statement corresponds with the ending of Kate Chopin's The Awakening, in which Edna, condemned by society for freely pursuing love and individuality, commits suicide. Woolf and Chopin use the disturbing fates of Judith and Edna to expose society's oppression of women. However, I think it's more powerful to view Judith and Edna as extremes of universal female suffering.
As I read Woolf's analysis of Shakespeare's hypothetical sister, I immediately thought of Maria Anna (Marianne) Mozart, the sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In contrast to Judith, Marianne was unlike most women of her time because her father was a renowned composer. As a result, she received a high level of musical training like her brother and is believed to have written several compositions. However, whereas Wolfgang had the opportunity to travel and gain recognition for his music, Marianne had to stay home and enter an arranged marriage. Woolf's conclusion suggests that an exceptionally talented woman like Marianne would have gone mad or committed suicide. However, despite her sure frustration and resentment of her brother, Marianne lived a seemingly content life and found happiness in contributing to her brother's biographies at the end of her life.
My point is that, while Judith's implied fate and Edna's death are powerful, I think the most poignant part of Woolf's analysis is when she states that Judith "lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed." Judith has an exceptional talent and Edna meets an exceptionally dark fate. However, more common are the women, perhaps with exceptional but undiscovered talents, who conform to gender roles as Marianne did and live a life riddled with frustration.
That's a very interesting real life version of Woolf's hypothetical, and it makes you think about how many women who had equivalent talents to great men have gone unnoticed. I agree that whats not important is Judith's suicide but what Woolf was saying at the end.
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