According to Virginia Woolf, “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Justify this statement with special reference to her novel a room of one’s own.

Woolf repeatedly insists upon the necessity of an inheritance that requires no obligations and of the privacy of one's own room for the promotion of creative genius. She gives an historical argument that lack of money and privacy have prevented women from writing with genius in the past. Without money, women are slavishly dependent on men; without privacy, constant interruptions block their creativity. Freedom of thought is hampered as women consume themselves with thoughts of gender. They write out of anger or insecurity, and such emotions make them think about themselves rather than about their subjects. Aphra Behn is the first female writer to earn her own money from writing. She paved the way for 19th-century novelists like Jane Austen who were able to write despite the lack of privacy in their family sitting-rooms. Woolf believes that contemporary female writers still generally operate out of anger or insecurity, but that in the future, with money and privacy, their minds will be freed and their genius will