| It is in the early 1920s that Virginia Woolf begins to criticize social political, economic and cultural system in the patriarchal society. She upholds that human history should be interpreted from female perspective in order to create a new civilization. Woolf's profound feminism has a significant influence on feminists in the 1960s. Her feminism is obviously embodied in her novels such as To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway.This dissertation is intended to analyze Virginia Woolf's feminist thoughts in three chapters. Chapter One is mainly concerned with the background of Woolf's feminist thoughts. In this chapter, we can find that Woolf `s feminism is not only a result of the social environment, such as changes in politics, economics and ideology, but also closely connected with her patriarchal family education. Both social and family backgrounds stimulate the origination of Woolf's feminism.Chapter Two focuses on the development of Woolf's feminist thoughts. Woolf's lesbian and self-independent ideas are separately embodied through her two novels——To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway. In To the Lighthouse, Woolf pays more attention to two female figures that have quite opposite characters, Mrs. Ramsay and Lily. For Mrs. Ramsay, although she wants to have social status like her husband, the patriarchal family makes her conceal her unconsciousness, and she takes it for granted that she should serve her husband. Eventually, she dies under the patriarchal pressure. On the contrary, Lily, her counterpart, who hates patriarchal ideology, insists on her own"Being Self"consciousness and at last she reaches"Lighthouse". The importance of independence for women's development is clearly embodied by the two figures. Mrs. Dalloway tells us the meaning of life through the lesbian relationships between several women. On the other hand, Woolf criticizes the cold Britain society after the World War I. She points out that lesbianism can not help women to get out of mental crisis. If women want to have social status and be respected, they must get jobs in society.Chapter Three pays attachment to Woolf's gender ideal——androgyny. Androgynous idea was firstly introduced into literature by Woolf in her A Room of One's Own. But her most prominent androgynous novel is Orlando. The hero Orlando changes his gender from male to female. But after his gender change he meets with a lot of unequal treatment in life. Actually, this is an epitome of all women in that time. At last Orlando realizes the balance of her masculinity and femininity and gets freedom and love. Orlando in fact is a miniature of Woolf to show her androgynous ideas that writers must forget their gender in order to accomplish literary masterpiece. For the society, the gender opposition can only be overthrown after the balance between male and female is reached. In this way a real harmonious society can be built up. This is also the way Virginia Woolf points out for women's liberty.Through the above analysis this dissertation has drawn a conclusion. Woolf breaks with the restriction of the traditional feminism. She refers that women have the power to enjoy their due prestige instead of staying at home to serve their husband and children. If a woman wants to write, she must kill the"Angel in the House"so that she can have her own room to materialize her thoughts. Constant succumbing to men's ruling only brings women's sacrifice to society. What Woolf is more progressive than other feminists lies in her androgynous idea. Only a person has both the masculine and the feminine qualities at the same time, can he or she gets success, like Shakepeare.
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