Book report

Author: Virginia Woolf

Title: A Room of One’s Own
Publication Information: 1928, by Grafton
Genre: essay

A Room of one’s is one of the few not fiction books of Virginia Woolf and it
concerns the following topic: Women in Literature.
In the begging of this book, the author tries to understand how women are seen in
literature, what the role they have in the literary world. Firstly, she draw our attention
to the complexity of such topic. She got to the conclusion that that the role that
women normally play in the literary text is different from the role they have in reality.
In other words, women were an ideal in the literary text written by men and the
women writers had no influence in the literary world. In the other hand, women
description in the literary text was far from the reality.
Usually in the literary text, women are always present in the story. They can dominate
kings, but in really life they are their husbands slaves and they do not even know how
to read or write.
Nevertheless, they were a few women writers, in her time, but they were depend of
their husbands. This is the main question in this book, because for Woolf, we would
have women writers if they could afforded it. Even she is an example of this situation,
because she could be a writer thank to an inheritance she got from an aunt.
For her, all men benefits from the patriarchal society they live just as the white people
benefited from the racial structure, even if they do not agree with it. However, does
not mean that just the one who have money could write, it is also necessary to respect
the literary text and comprehend of the society.
In this book, Woolf give us two examples of women who had money and write, but
they were ridiculed because they were women and they were not autonomous. There
for the freedom came from the independence of choosing how and when to spend
your own money and for this reason, society could judge a women work based on
gender.
A century later, the work of Virginia Woolf still very useful and very true, thus there
still are women around the globe suffering from the same issues that women had at
that time. They are still girls and women struggling to get an education and to have
their own voice.

1
In the literary world, if we think, for example, in the Nobel Prize we will see that the
percentage of women who obtained that prize is far less than the number of men who
won the same award.
I agree with almost all ideas of Woolf in this book, and the title is very elucidative of
the content of this book. Even today, I find it is very important for women to have
their own financial independence, and not to become some accessories for their
husbands. It is imperative to promote these ideas in the minds of young girls, so they
can became more responsible for themselves and others.
The financial independence is vital, but is also necessary for women to think ahead of
their time, as did Woolf.

Author: Kathryn Stockett

Title: The Help
Publication Information: 2009 by the Penguin Group
Genre: Novel

This book is the first novel written by the author and it is a portrait of the Mississippi
society of the 60’s. It describes the relationship between the white housewife’s and
their black housekeepers, who raise their children.
The main character of this book are Aibileen, black women who lost her 24 for year
sun. She has raise more than 15 white children during her career as a house cleaner;
Skeeter, white women, raise also by a black women. She is 22 years old and has a
college degree; Minny, Aibileen best friend. She is describe as a great cook, but also
as someone that cannot keep her mouth closed when in front of an injustice.
These are the three narrators in this novel. Each one of them tells the story from their
perspective in different moments of the book.
The first, Aibileen realized that she is a different person since she lost her sun. she
works for the Leefolt family and takes care of the young Mae Mobley. In the book we
can notice that Mae Mobley mother, Mrs. Leefolt, do not love her daughter as a
normal mother usually does. However, Aibileen has an internal conflict in these time,
although she loves all the children that she had raise, she realized that when they grow
up, they became just like their parents. In a way, she thinks that is the reason why
society in Jackson will never change. The youth reproduce the same mistake of the
previous generation. This is more evident in the character Hilly, young white women
who is mean even to her own mother.
Hilly represent the role that was expected from a white women at that time. She is the
leader of the group and instigates the others to behave as she does. In some sense, the
three protagonist fight against what she represents.

2
The second narrator, Skeeter, is the opposite of Hilly, although they been best friend
since childhood. She represents hope to both communities, black and white. She is
describe as a simple girl, nice to everyone, she does not discriminates no one, but she
is perfectly conscience of the time she is living. In the story, she is willing to discover
what had happen to the black women who raise her.
Although she is an educated young woman with a college degree, her mother wants to
see her get married. This is her mother main concern. However, Skeeter is a free
spirit; her ambitious is different from the rest of the people from her generation.
The third narrator, Minny, keeps losing job after job, doing her temper. She is
describe as a mother and a victim of domestic violence. She works for Hilly mother,
but loses her job when Hilly decides to send her mother to a rest house for old people.
Doing this situation, she stays jobless. However, she will find a new job at Mrs. Celia
Foote. These two women will created a special relationship where women came
together to help one another despite of their color.
These three narrators are involve in a dangerous project. Skeeter is writing a piece for
a magazine where she is outlining the black women point a view. To do so, she needs
the help of Aibileen and Minny. In the end the piece became a book written in six
hands.
The Help has a various and different characters, all with diverse personalities that
came together to tell they side of the story. Although the book is mainly about racial
issue, it is my understanding that the main theme of this book is how women were
seen at that time, in that particular place, both black and white. How these women
were segregated from each other and what was expected from each group.
It is remarkable how the ton of the writing changes as the narrator alteration. The
good aspect of this technique is that it allow us to see three different perspective and it
permit the reader to be in a various number of places at the same time. It also make us
see how these narrator/ character see each other.

Author: Sukasih Ratna Widayanti

Title: A Stylistic Study of Language Deviation in Thomas Hardy’s The Ruined Maid
Publication Information: 2007.
Genre: essay
This paper was published in the web page academia.edu and it is the main objective
is to analyses the language deviation in the poem The Ruined Maid by Thomas Hardy.
The author starts by remember us about the importance or vitality of language in
literary works. For her we cannot separate literary work from language. It is a way for
the poet to express his ideas and thought about a particular issue. In that way a poem
traduce the poet, choose of words and style. It also shows the freedom that are
allowed to poets to transgress the correct use of language in order to archive a certain
objective.

3
As all artists, poets have their own way to express an idea and that helps created an
unique style for each poet. Thus, stylistics is the study of style in written or spoken
language.
The choose of the poem in question here is because of the phenomenon of language
deviation that is most representative in this particular poem. This transgression is
allowed in order to archive beauty.
This paper can be divided in three parts: Introduction, main body and conclusion. The
main body can be divided in two parts. Here the first part is a literary review on the
concepts of stylistics and language deviation and the second part it is about the
analyses of language deviation in the poem itself. In this section, she presents us with
the different types of language deviation and examples that help the reader understand
better the concepts and its application.
This is a small paper but well organized in my opinion. It concerns to a single topic.
The reading of this paper help me understand better how I can outline a topic for a
small paper. Starting with small paper allows me to comprehend the king of logical
reasoning that are in the foundation of academic writing.