some cases, and undermine one another in others. Among these relationships are mother-daughter relationships which in part may derive from her own odd relationship with her mother and from her observation of other such relationships. The mother-daughter relationship is key in much of Woolf's fiction.
The issue of the plight of women in society has been addressed directly by different writers, and Virginia Woolf showed concern for the matter in her criticism as in her fiction, and also indicated that she was looking to her own life as a source. Woolf's approach to the issue of women and fiction was firmly grounded in a general theory of literature:
She argued that the writer was the product of her or his historical circumstances, and that material conditions were of crucial importance. Secondly, she claimed that these material circumstances had a profound effect on the psychological aspects of writing, and that they could be seen to influence the nature of the creative work itself (Barrett 5).
The writer is not an abstract but a real person who must make a living in this world, and therefore material conditions are important. Material conditions can be influenced by writing--the writer who can make a living has those conditions affected--and a failure to provide the necessary material conditions can prevent a writer from writing or force her to marry and commit herself to a domestic life as a way of surviving.
Woolf raised this issue again and again in her criticism, as when she discusses two woman writers--Emily Davies and Lady Augusta Stanley--in her essay "Two Women":
Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century the distinguished woman had almost invariably been an aristocrat. It was the great lady who ruled and wrote letters and influenced the course of politics. From the huge middle class few women rose to eminence, nor has the drabness of their lot received the attention which has been bestowed upon the...