Virginia Woolf Two Meals Analysis

Virginia Woolf describes both a meal at a men’s college, and a meal at a women’s college, drawing out sharp differences. While the men were spoiled with delicacies, the women were served boring and unappealing dishes. Through Woolf’s structure, language, detail and tone, she portrays her attitude towards the place of women in society. She uses comparison and contrast to show the immense inequality between the two colleges.
In terms of narrative structure, Woolf starts out both passages as the meal starting out. In describing the men’s college she says, “ ...tell you that the lunch on this occasion began with soles, sunk in a deep dish, over which the college cook had spread a counterpane of the whitest cream” (passage I). She goes into

deep detail, describing the elegance of the meal, and creates vivid imagery for the reader. As she starts out the description of the women’s college she states, “ Here was my soup. Dinner was being served in the great dining-hall” (passage II). In contrast to the description of the men’s college, she uses very simple words, suggesting the plain meal that the women are served. As both passages progress, Woolf uses a chronological structure to portray the steps in which each of the meals are served. The first passage is filled with detail, creating a longer and more vivid effect for the reader. The second passage contains short sentences that portray Woolf's attitude towards women’s place in society. She sees the men as being treated like royalty, as the women are receiving a very mundane meal, and being treated much lower. The reader can tell that Woolf disagrees with this treatment because of her negative description of the mealtime at the college.
Wolf suggests both positive and negative connotation within both passages through her word choice.

In Passage one, Woolf’s diction greatly contributes to the elegant scene that she portrays. Woolf uses words like “whitest,” “rich,” “sharp,” and “sweet” (passage I) to portray how ornate the meal is. These words all suggest positive connotation, making the reader visualize the beauty of the meal. On the contrary, Woolf manipulates the language in passage two to portray how much worse the conditions are at the Women’s college. Words that suggest negative connotation in passage two are “plain,” “transparent,” “muddy,” and “dry.” These words were strategically placed by the author to vividly portray the differences between the colleges. Woolf’s word choice emphasizes women’s lower place in society to the reader. Virginia Woolf offers contrasting tones when describing the different colleges. For the men’s college in passage one, Woolf develops an elegant tone when describing all of the details of the lavish feast. For the women’s tone in passage is very crude. She offers little detail, and keeps everything very simple and plain. There seems to be sadness in her transparent description. This portrays her viewpoint on the unequal treatment of women.
Virginia Woolf uses striking imagery to portray the realities of meals in both a men’s college and a women’s college. Although the structure is the same in both passages, the difference in the language, details, and tone serve to create a sharp contrast between the colleges. Woolf depicts her viewpoint of the treatment of women as being discriminatory and

biased.