Chapter 1 Summary

The narrator has been asked to present a lecture about women and fiction. She opts instead to lecture about a woman's need for a room of her own.

She asks the reader to call her Mary Beton or Mary Seton or Mary Carmichael as she sits on a riverbank and wonders what the words "women and fiction" mean. Maybe it simply means, she thinks, making some remarks about certain women writers. On the other hand, it might mean something about what women are like or even women and the fiction they write. On the other hand, perhaps it means fiction about women. It could mean some of all of these. The problem with any of these possibilities is the difficulty in coming to a conclusion, which is the main responsibility of a speaker. Therefore, she will attempt to explain how she came to...