VIRGINIA WOOLF'S FEMINISM AND A POST-COLONIAL LITERATURE

Abstract

Feminism and Post-Colonialism are movements that emerged in the 20th century within the Social Sciences and that similarly attempt to deconstruct the hegemonically European and patriarchal literary canon in order to understand it and to modify the individuals’ performatic structures, allowing them a greater interaction with literature and all the areas of human knowledge and expression. From the work A room of one’s own (1928), written by the English author Virginia Woolf, we intend to make a relation of the expressions and concepts used by both movements, and to demonstrate the similarities in what they wish to say and to accomplish. Virginia Woolf’s work, that was directed to the emancipation of women and written for a conference given at a British University for a female audience, shows that women’s problems are similar to the silence imposed on the actions of the individuals from countries that are former colonies of European countries. Therefore, by studying the theories of post-structuralism, the intended analogy may be referred so as to discuss and to establish further more characteristics to the feminists movements and to post-colonialism itself. African black women, for example, who have been silenced by patriarchalism e by colonialism left as heritages, now find mechanisms to be heard and to express their knowledge about life and the world.