The Bridge To Find Independent Women-Virginia Woolf's Exploration Of Feminist Theory

Virginia Woolf was a precursor of the feminist movement, and she was more a pioneer especially for the development of British feminism. Her shining spirit and essence, flowing in her specific emotional style, is a lighthouse in the darkness for those perplexed women who are fighting for future equality and freedom.This article attempts to arrange her ideas and theories about feminism. Fragments of her ideas, the guiding star of feminist movement, scattered between the lines in her books. Virginia Woolf is an outstanding stream of consciousness novelist, but also a distinguished critic. She has published 350 theses and book reviews in her life. Her stream of consciousness writing approach has been drew the academe attentions, meanwhile, we should notice the feminine consciousness everywhere in her novels.< A room of one's own> has fully and directly reflected her series of feminist ideas: Women has no material basis for the independent creation and no spirit–space for themselves; the intermittent and poor female literary tradition is not conducive to develop the female specific discourse pattern ; the reality that women continue to be aliened and self-aliened in patriarchal society. However, the idea of"androgyny", a rebellion to the mono-value of male chauvinist, provides a great topic for post-feminists to discuss and to study. And the feminist consciousness in this novel is another point need analyze in this paper. In <To the Lighthouse> ,there are collisions and frictions between bigoted rigid male quality and benevolent innocent female quality, and the water-liked indulgent and tolerant characteristics of women give us a deep thinking. Women in < Mrs Dalloway> have been the focus of the novel. On one hand, it shows one day of Mrs Dalloway to reflect women from high society their ambivalent attitudes and mental fluctuations towards marriage, love and life; on the other hand, it describes rebellious and unconventional women with a new female spirit, Sally Seton, who is a masculine feminine person. Face with the secular impact and challenges, these two very different images give us a better understanding about women. Virginia Woolf realized her conception about women proposed in < A room of one's own >,by putting the typical"androgynous"characteristic on Orlando in her novel <Orlando>. It reflects the concern of the author for women. In addition, many of her other works are deeply embedded her thoughts of women, this paper is going to combine her point of view to reexamine Virginia Woolf'feminism. The study of feminist literary theory appeared in 80s in China. However, the feminist movement has never really started on this land of"women are as the same as man". It is pity that there is no feminist movement in spite of the original intention of the feminist movement is universal. Today, the introduction and emphasis of western feminist literary criticism make us reevaluate our creations, which help to pave the way creative way out of the traditional feminist writing and make a decisive step forward.