To me, one of the most interesting things that Virginia Woolf ensures her reader knows, in "A Room of One's Own," is that for her to provide an absolute truth about women and fiction is an impossibility. I think this applies to so many other topics as well, and it's smart of her to state that she "can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold" (4). What comes to my mind is the way philosophers, at least the ones that I have read in classes, insist that their philosophy is the correct one, and try to make it truth to their readers. The reason she is so wise is because she realizes that with the time passing, so many things change, including truths: "Even if one could state the value of any one gift at the moment, those values will change; in a century's time very possible they will have changed completely" (40).
This leads to the other thing that struck me about Woolf; her ability to tell the future for women. She foresaw that in 100 years, women would be occupying a more powerful role in society, the role that is in her time, reserved for men. By her estimation, the times have moved even faster than she anticipated. We still have 19 years to fulfill her prediction that "the nursemaid will heave coal" and "the shopwoman will drive an engine" (40). If Woolf's prediction came true this fast, it makes me wonder what our society will be like for the relationship between the two sexes in another 100 years. Women are already "soldiers and sailors and engine-drivers and dock labourers" (40), so what is next?
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