three pounds

Author's name: William Shakespeare

Three Pounds offers a three-part answer to a question posed to Woolf by a lawyer: "How can a woman prevent war and protect intellectual freedom?" Despite Woolf's despair as she witnesses Europe on the brink of another world war, she uses this imaginary letter as a platform to defend women's role in preventing war with her impassioned tone and persuasive arguments. She asserts the right of women to establish their own institutions and determine their course. She relentlessly exposes the racist, capitalist, patriarchal system of her time and the relationship between male dominance, nationalism, and fascism. She does not limit herself to tracing the complex and intertwined relationship between war and the desire for power and wealth. Rather, she attributes all of this to the latent male desire to control the world through the use of intimidation and fear.