A Room of One's Own is a 1929 extended essay by Virginia Woolf. In the text, Woolf argues that women require financial independence to produce great literature, stating:
Which quotation from A Room of One's Own most effectively illustrates the claim?
Explanation
Context: The claim: Woolf argues "women require financial independence to produce great literature." The quotation must tie material conditions to literary creation.
Answer: A) "Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time."
Why? The chain is explicit: "material things" → "intellectual freedom" → "poetry," and "women have always been poor" names the barrier. Money-to-literature is stated outright.
Traps:
- B) fiction contains more truth than fact → describes Woolf's storytelling method, not money and writing.
- C) cannot think well if one has not dined well → gestures at material needs but never reaches literature or women's poverty.
- D) no lock upon the freedom of my mind → celebrates unstoppable thought, cutting against the claim that material conditions constrain creation.