Do not write responses in essay form. Write separately

This week, you will be discussing three readings:

Reading 1:

Reading 1: Virginia Woolf Professions for Women 

“Professions for Women” was first delivered as a speech in 1931 at the Women’s Service League. Later on, it was included as an essay in the collection of The Death of the Moth and Other Essays.  She makes many points in this speech/essay. Obviously, she talks about the professions for women. She begins by talking about her field, which is literature and she points out that she was not the first one to be a woman writer.  She points out to important women writers such as Fanny Burney, Jane Austen, George Elliot and others who happen to be prominent writers who paved the way for Virginia Woolf as a woman writer.

She talks about the kinds of obstacles or challenges that she faces to become a writer; she names the challenge as the struggle with the phantom: very few material obstacles in my way” such as the phantom that represents the force that represses women. Woolf calls for fighting the image of the repressed and submissive Victorian image of the woman: “Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer.”  When she fights this phantom, which she calls the Angel in the house, she would be liberated.  The question Woolf asks as she wonders about writing is about how can a woman write and express her thoughts if she does not have her independent self and does not formulate her own thoughts and thinks as a woman and not as a man in a patriarchal; society.  Woolf deals with two major crises, as she talks about in her speech/essay. Does she overcome them?  Read the essay and answer the question

Read about the Victorian image and the Angel in the House concept: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/thackeray/angel.html

1- Does Virginia Woolf overcome the two crises/obstacles she talks about in her essay?  Explain.  Read the essay and answer the question

2- Does your reading of Woolf’s essay inspire you? Explain

Reading 2: Baldwin’s  Notes of a Native Son 

Listen to the reading of the story Part I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMgJl9aMGoU&feature=youtu.be, Part II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2ca80-vtRA&feature=youtu.be, and Part III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G37ThmcDGA&feature=youtu.be

3- What does Badwin talk about?

4- What is the major struggle in Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son”?

5- What do you find similar/different between Woolf and Baldwin in terms of thematic comparison?

Reading 3:

Stephanie Ericsson. “The Ways We Lie.” P. 157

6-What is the main theme that Ericsson discusses in this article?