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Rhetorical Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s “Shakespeare’s Sister” ...

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Rhetorical Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s “Shakespeare’s Sister” In Virginia Woolf’s essay “Shakespeare’s Sister,” Woolf questions whether or not there could be a woman who has the genius of William Shakespeare. Woolf argues that women can definitely be as brilliant and as poetic as Shakespeare. However, if she had been born in Shakespeare’s time and lived in the society of the Elizabethan age, this woman would have gone mad and committed suicide. By powerfully detailing the life of this hypothetical Shakespeare’s sister, Woolf highlights the inequalities and injustices faced by women then and the time she period she is in. Woolf uses ethos, logos and pathos to convince readers that society does not allow women to succeed as artists. Woolf’s essay uses ethos throughout. It can be argued that it relies heavily on ethos. Ethos is the rhetorical appeal to character. By calling her essay “Shakespeare’s Sister,” Woolf sets up an interesting story. She begins her essay by looking at what others have said about women. She cites a bishop who “declared that it was impossible for any woman, past, present, or to come, to have the genius of Shakespeare.” Woolf uses this claim to make her point. At first, she agrees that women cannot be Shakespeare, but then she reveals that this is fact is true not because of the sexism that society allows. Her essay presents a hypothetical character called Judith Shakespeare, who she makes up to prove her point. By inventing a character, Woolf makes her points believable because it is very possible Shakespeare could have had a sister and therefore could have lived a life similar to his. However, Woolf uses this character to show that even Shakespeare’s sister would not have lived a life like his. Even though she is “imaginative” and “adventurous”, because they are related, she would not have been allowed to leave the home. Judith’s life would be filled with obstacles, instead. Therefore, by using the ethos of Shakespeare, Woolf

successfully argues that creative geniuses are prevented from flourishing if they are born a woman. Throughout the essay, Woolf uses the logical appeal by presenting historical facts to present her point. Even though the character is made up, Woolf bases her story on historical understanding of that century. She mentions how, for example, that rules prohibit women from pursuing their dream jobs. While Judith wanted to be an actor, the stage manager does not allow her to do so because at that time they believed that “no woman…could possibly be an actress.” At the end of the essay, Woolf also presents many other historical facts about women authors and how they do exist but they are prevented from becoming successful. For instance, many women who tried to write hide themselves and pretend to be a man. “Anonymity runs in their blood.” Some examples of this that Woolf lists include “Currer Bell, George Eliot, George Sand,” who are “all victims of inner strife as their writing prove, sought ineffectively to veil themselves by using the name of a man.” Therefore, Woolf uses historical facts as a logical appeal to ground her essay in reality. Finally, Woolf powerfully employs pathos to elicit sadness that can move readers. The character Judith Shakespeare experiences a long and hard life filled with struggle. Woolf describes her descent to madness and ultimately suicide. She uses strong words to show the torturous life that a woman has to live if she wanted to embrace her creativity. Woolf writes, “any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at.” Woolf’s vivid description in these lines illustrate the inescapable doom that woman has to face. Rather than being celebrated and revered like William Shakespeare, Judith Shakespeare, who has the same set of skills, would be dead if she had tried and mad and vilified

if she survived. The appeal to emotions in this section reveals to readers the sexism women have to face in the past and also in the present. Woolf’s essay uses the rhetorical appeals logos, ethos and pathos to reveal the reality of being a brilliant woman in a man’s world. By using historical facts and vivid description of madness, Woolf shows that a hypothetical sister of Shakespeare would have been forgotten. Women cannot be like Shakespeare not because it is biologically impossible. It is because our society makes it impossible....