1. What is the most striking characteristic of the language used by Virginia Woolf in this essay?

回答：

The language that Virginia Woolf uses in the essay is highly figurative and colloquial. She uses a lot of metaphors in the essay to present the obstacles facing professional women.

2. How does Virginia Woolf begin her discussion of professions for women? Why does she start this way? At what place in the essay does she alert her audience and how does she alert the audience that a woman has to overcome great difficulties in order to have her own profession?

回答：

To discuss professions for women in general, Virginia Woolf talks about her own professional experience. She begins by telling her story —how she became a book reviewer by overcoming big obstacles. The purpose of telling her own story is to make the description authentic and vivid. From Para 3 the author alerts her audience that a woman has to overcome great difficulties in order to have her own profession by using a vivid metaphor “killing the Angel in the House”.

>

3. In recounting her first professional experience the author uses a metaphor-the Angel in the House. Does she illustrate her point clearly and convincingly by using this metaphor? Please give a detailed analysis of this metaphor.

3. In recounting her first professional experience the author uses a metaphor-the Angel in the House. Does she illustrate her point clearly and convincingly by using this metaphor? Please give a detailed analysis of this metaphor.

回答：

In recounting her first professional experience the author uses a metaphor —the Angel in the House. She compares the phantom she has to fight against to the Angel in the House. She uses the vivid metaphor “killing the Angel in the House” to describe her resolution to avoid the traditional woman’s role as a sympathizer to men. The original meaning of the word “angel” is a messenger of God and a supernatural being to whom are attributed greater than human power, intelligence, etc. The conventionalized image of an angel is one of a white-robed figure in human form with wings and a halo. When used figuratively, the word means a person regarded as being as beautiful, good, innocent, etc. as an angel, especially said of women and children. Since an angel is supernatural and often female, it is appropriate for the author to call the phantom an angel

>

4. How does the author make the transition between the discussion of her first professional experience and her second one?

4. How does the author make the transition between the discussion of her first professional experience and her second one?

回答：

The author makes the transition between the discussion of her first professional experience and her second one by introducing and answering the question “What is a woman?” in Para 4.

>

5. What metaphor does the author use in describing her second experience as a novelist?

5. What metaphor does the author use in describing her second experience as a novelist?

回答：

“The image of a fisherman lying sunk in dreams on the verge of a deep lake” is the metaphor the author uses to describe her second experience as a novelist.

>