Diana - Woolf Chapter 1

Woolf states early in chapter one, “I need not say that what I am about to describe has no existence; Oxbridge is an invention; so is Fernham; “I” is only a convenient term for somebody who has no real being. Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping. If not, you will of course throw the whole of it into the wastepaper basket and forget all about it.” (pp. 4,5)

Which, of course, no one has done. But why not?

Despite the fact that Woolf declared, “Lies will flow from my lips,” by the next paragraph, I felt as though I were with her, witnessing the beauty of the riverbank on which she sat. The analogy of Thought trolling for an idea as though it were a fish entranced me. (p. 5) As she strolled through the colleges, past the ancient halls (p. 6), I clearly pictured all she described, from the library’s Beadle refusing her entrance (p. 7), to her description of the “grey blocks [of the ancient hall] in whose shade I was now standing” (p. 9).

Perhaps Woolf thought that setting the stage by allowing readers to experience the reality of the places she described would lend credence to the ideas she planned to propose, thereby encouraging people to seek out the truth and thoughtfully consider what were then radical views. If so, her reasoning was sound, because readers have found "A Room of One's Own" worth keeping in its entirity for over seventy-five years.