Through her extended essay "A Room of One's Own" Virginia Woolf attempts to prove her belief that "genius needs freedom; it cannot flower if it is encumbered by fear, or rancor, or dependency, and without money freedom is impossible". This statement appears to be true when it is looked at without the proper context. Woolf attempts to use a fictional sister of Shakespeare and the Bronte sisters to prove her belief. But, Woolf is taking many liberties when using these people as characters, and they do not enhance her arguments. Anne Frank and Thoreau prove her wrong through their real life examples.
In her essay "A Room of One's Own" Virginia Woolf uses an imaginary sister of Shakespeare to prove her belief that "genius needs freedom; it cannot flower if it is encumbered by fear ... without money freedom is impossible". She has this imaginary sister, Judith, have the same genius as her brother William. However, Judith is hindered by her father and forced to marry. This provides the "fear" and "rancor" that keep her "freedom" away. These factors keep her out of the business of writing plays and thus keep her genius from being revealed to the world. Woolf later uses examples of real people, the Bronte sisters, and attempts to have them prove her belief. She claims that even though the sisters were great in the eyes of the world, they could have been better had society not hindered them because of their gender. Woolf again imagines a situation where this time, the sisters are in the middle of writing, but a man constantly walks in so they must immediately hide their work, causing them to loose their thought the potential of their work to lower.
These are good examples when looked at lightly, but if you look deeply these examples do not work to prove her statement. Judith is completely imaginary. Yes, if she were real than perhaps Woolf's argument would be valid, but she is not real. Since she is imaginary, Woolf can then bend the story to prove her theory; that genius needs freedom and that without money freedom is impossible. Anybody can create an imaginary character to prove one of their points. What is necessary is to use a real-life example. Woolf attempts to use this later on in chapter four with the Bronte sisters. Her argument is that their limited freedom hindered their genius. This cannot be proven because perhaps they were not hindered and they produced the best work possible. Both this argument and Woolf's could be true, but neither can be proven. Even if they were hindered, I am sure that they still did the best that could and the best that you can do is the maximum capacity that you have.
This statement is disproved by society. Thoreau went and lived out in the wilderness and did not have money. He still showed genius by writing Walden, despite not having any money. Anne Frank also disproves Woolf. Anne Frank was trapped in an apartment with her family while they were trying to hide from the Germans. She had great fear and very little freedom yet she still showed her genius by keeping her diary. Her diary showed the cruelty of the Nazis and the strength of her family. This may not be seen as an intelligence kind of genius, but to me it is a genius of how strong a person can be.
