A Profound Profession

     Virginia Woolf uses her personal experiences to discuss the hardships that women face in different professions in Professions for Women.  Woolf herself is a novelist and writer who hesitated to completely dedicate herself to a male dominated work place.  When she first began writing, she would get in her own way by believing that men always had to have the upper hand.  Over time, she realized that that took away from the effectiveness of her writing and began to show true feminism in a time where it was frowned upon.
     Woolf uses many different rhetorical strategies to artistically convey a thought provoking message on her life.  She uses herself as an example for a larger picture; women holding themselves back for fear of the male reaction.  Woolf begins her account by thanking those female writers that came before her.  Fewer experiences for women are allowed in the writing field since women are only truly accepted writing for a hobby.  However, there is a path that is open to Woolf and her fellow writers that had been paved by the first brave women authors.  She describes the path she is taking as "smooth" and "regulating."  Both of these words invoke feelings of guidance and simplicity, which goes to prove that it is the image of men that gets in the way of women writers, since the path is already clear and the materials are not expensive.  The descriptive language that Woolf uses allows the reader to visualize what she is saying, and she is able to do this due to her talent as a novelist.  A novelist creates and tells stories, so her background permits her to tell a convincing and moving account.  Woolf creates another beautiful image when describing a young girl writing in her bedroom.  She describes the girl moving her pen across the paper, from left to right, as "from ten o'clock to one."  This can mean two things; the first being that it is physically the way the girl is writing, but it can also mean that she is writing for house between the times of ten o'clock all one.
     Description of simple things also create a vivd story in the reader's mind.  In my opinion, one of the most beautiful descriptions in this piece is the battle with the phantom.  This chunk of story begins by Woolf saying that a phantom would come to her while she was writing, which later became identified as an angel.  The word phantom itself brings along with it many different preconceptions.  This word is dark and scary, an unknown being, a threat, a warning, and an obstacle all combined into one.  To me, Wool's use of the phantom/ angel is the personification of the doubt that women put on themselves when going against men.  This is the angel of doubt.  All of this is taken from a single word, "phantom."  Only a truly talented novelist would be able to convey such a powerful feeling in a simple use of personification.  Woolf's word choice is able to convey such a deeper meaning.  Even the change from phantom to angel is decisive and meaningful.  An angel is meant to protect, and in a sense this angel as protecting her from the harsh opinions and reactions of men, but this protection was also inhibiting her from reaching her full potential.  The angel also casts a "shadow [with] her wings."  A shadow is something that is dark and blocks out something bright, such as the bright thoughts that young Woolf had.
     Virginia Woolf also takes a subtle dig at the fragile masculinity of men when she says that the angel tells her to "be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of our sex," when critiquing something from a man.  These words are all kind and delicate, as if to address something that can be easily broken or damaged.  In this case the masculinity is very fragile since they cannot handle the truth of a critique from a woman.  When Woolf finally realizes that the angel is an inhibitor, she kills it since it would eventually "pluck the heart of [her] writing."  Plucked is a quick and decisive word, and the heart can stand for truth and honesty, passion, and accuracy.  Only a true novels would be able to pack such a large amount of feeling into six words.
     Several of the things that Woolf says are still applicable today, such as, "[Women] must tell lies if they are to succeed."  This is true because men only wish to hear things that are good about themselves, not the honest answer, and since men dominate the leadership positions in man fields, women have to warp the truth in order to survive in specific professions.
     Woolf makes many decisive choices in regards to syntax and diction, revealing her skill as a novelist.  She is able to create relatable and understandable characters, such as the girl and the angel.  Virginia Woolf also sets a variety of scenes in great detail for each moment in her recollections and comparisons, such as the bedroom, the boat in the fisherman metaphor, and the house.  Many other forms of feminist writings are not as descriptive and deep, but because of her background as a novelists, she comes off as composed and collected.  In another essay we read in class, titled Bad Feminist, the author was hesitant to accept the title and all that it implied as well as the misconceptions of it.  However, without directly stating she is a feminist, she is unwavering in her belief that men and women should be on the same playing field without holding each other back.  Instead of bringing other women down, she encourages them to see their strength, ability, intelligence, and potential.  This is my favorite piece of feminist literature we have read this school year since it is both eloquent and meaningful.