课前准备 Warm-up

Women used to be in an inferior position in society. Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes. This includes seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for men. Before you read the text, think about the following questions:

1) What have read or heard about feminism?

2) What is your opinion of feminism?

3) How much do you know about the stream of consciousness technique in fiction?

4) What do you think women can do to choose their own professions?

本章概览 An Overview

Virginia Woolf is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in the 20th Century as well as the pioneers of women liberation from patriarchy. Professions for Women is one of her famous pieces, which illustrates how should the women treat their status correctly and obtain the equal human rights by telling her own experiences.

She uses three vivid metaphors: “the Angel in the House”, “a fisherman lying sunk in dreams on the verge of a deep lake with a rod held out over the water”, “Own Room” to illustrate how women can do to gain their own rights, earn money by themselves and become independent.

She firmly believes that only women have abandoned the traditional woman’s role as a sympathizer to men can they have their own rights. Therefore, Virginia Woolf decides to kill that angel for her pursuit of the emancipation from the prejudice of the women.

学习目标 Objectives

Through textual analysis and learning, the students should

（1）Get the theme of the text

（2）Comprehend the social significance of the text

（3）Acquire relevant rhetorical devices used in the text

知识结构 Knowledge Structure

The text can be roughly divided into four parts, which can be subdivided into several sections.

Part I (paras. 1)

Beginning: an introduction to her choice to be a writer.

Part II (paras. 2-4)

Use the metaphor “kill the angel”. Virginia Woolf focuses on the obstacles to become a professional woman writer and her efforts to beat the traditional role of women in writing.

Part III (paras. 5-6)

Use another two metaphors to illustrate Women should try their best to get rid of prejudice.

Part IV (paras. 7)

Virginia Woolf raised some important questions concerning the role of women and new relationship between the men and women.