Every Reader is a Judge

Virginia Woolf is asked to speak about the subject of women and fiction. Just as I get confused and stumped when writing about certain topics, Virginia is perplexed. These words can have a plethora of different meanings. One word and one word only can mean something completely different to each person who comes across it. One word can be entirely significant to one, and utterly insignificant to another. One word has the power to be singled out, to be picked apart, to be pulled in every direction. Virginia realizes that she will never be able to come to one, single conclusion. Instead, she says, “Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them” (p. 4). It is up to me, the reader, to find the truth in what she says and to throw the rest away. Virginia is a writer and every reader is a judge.

Virginia’s lying lips speak her opinion of women and men in society. She conveys that men have always been more dominant in society and they prevail over women. I sadly believe, in many ways, that is true. Virginia strolls off the path and into the grassland of the fisherman’s turf. “Instantly a man’s figure rose to intercept me…he was the Beadle; I was a woman. This was the turf; there was the path” (6). She is showing me that it seems men have the right to territory, while it is a woman’s job to stay away from that territory. But culture and civilization are ever-changing. Things will die; things will grow; things will move; things will change. “Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation…The nursemaid will heave coal. The shop woman will drive an engine” (40).