Of late, I have been reading
about the life and times of a great female author, Virgina Wolfe (1815-1941).
Born to highly erudite parents, Sir Stephen and Julia Stephen, Virginia
displayed her literary talents from early childhood. Her first endeavor into
the literary world was a family news paper that reported the anecdotes of her
family called ‘The Hyde Park Gate News’.
That marked the beginning of her journey into a world that was thus far male
dominated.
In addition to being a prolific
writer, Virgina was also a great social activist. She strongly advocated women
rights to participate in literary activities, to make intellectual
contributions to the society and to also participate in politics. She was
certain of the fact that if women were given a chance to prove themselves they
would excel in their chosen field. Her famous work “A Room of One’s Own” tells
in depth the urge she felt about the role of a woman in contributing to society;
be it in the form of writing fiction, making intellectual contributions to the
society or simply leaving a legacy for future women scholars to work on.
What motivated me to delve deeper
into the works of Virgina Wolfe, is the realization of the fact that today, in
the twenty-first century, we as women have abundant literary power. We are free to read, free to write and free to
make intellectual contributions. In terms of making a significant literary
contribution to the future generations, we as women are no longer confined to
any boundaries. The all pervasive freedom which generations of women before us
have constantly fought for has been bestowed upon us and yet have we seized the
opportunity and utilized it to the fullest? Do we present women authors or
novelists of the current generation as potential role models to our daughters? Does
our education system encourage creative writing, apart from the regular
academic essays prose and poetry? The time is ripe for us to nurture our
daughters to be the Virginia Woolf s or Harper Lees of the future. The
twenty-second century will need some classics from this period to fall back on and
derive life’s lessons from.
Isn’t it time to replace ladles
with keyboards?
