Essay begins with her enquiry regarding the thesis in an imaginery campus named 'Oxbridge'. Where she founds that woman can enter to the campus only after getting a certificate from the Dean. Later she argues that for a woman to write a fiction she must need money and a room of her own. In the second chapter she moves to London and search for books written about women but could find only a few and that too written by men and which is out of their anger towards women. In this chapter she states that sometimes men too might be a victim of their education and culture. And also throws lot of questions like, why did men drink wine and women water? Why was one sex so prosporous and the other so poor? And a lot more.really these questions trigger our minds too, to find adequate answers. Later she turns into historical documents where she belives she might finds some facts about women and literature. Somehow it was also in vain. However, she potrays a female figure called Judith Shakespeare, an imaginary sister of William Shakespeare. Just like Shakespeare Judith also has all the ' celestial fire' but couldn't shine like him, only due to gender difference. Woolf might be right if a woman like Judith has lived in the Elizabethen era, her fate mighn't be differ from that of Judith. It clearly shows the destiny of woman who has all the sort of creativety in them, and they were not allowed even to touch pen and book and hence they never dared to. But there were women who couldn't hide all those godly powers in them, even then they have to hide their identity and appear to the world in male pseudonyms.Later Woolf traces out some women writers. And she argues that women must feel and see differently than men and they also write differently if they are true to themselves. In the last chapter Woolf states that currently women are writing just as men and also states, women have creative powers which differ from men and education should bring out those differences. She concludes the essay saying "it is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sexes." Even when she wides up the essay her thesis on women and fiction is still unwritten.
This essay is written as if scribbling down whatever thoughts have emerged in Woolf's mind, this might be the reason why the readers wouldn't feel any sort urge to stop in between the essay. It is usually considered as a feminist text, but it never mocks at the norms of patriarchy and never argues for the importance of women over men in the male centered society. Instead, it simply informs us that even in the field of literature women haven't got equal or even almost equal chances as men had got. I usually got confused regarding the term inequality based on gender. Was this inequality present at the very birth of human life itself ?. However, I think notion of the society is like that. Being born and brought up as a woman, I think, if women are allowed to do the things that the male centered society is boasting only themselves could do then it will be the same or far better than men are doing. Because, the Almighty God hasn't bestowed any so called superiority over the male sex.
