Question

She had the quickest fancy, a gift like her brother's, for the tune of words. Like him, she had a taste for the theatre. She stood at the stage door; she wanted to act, she said. Men laughed in her face. The manager—a fat, loose-lipped man—guffawed. He bellowed something about poodles dancing and women acting—no woman, he said, could possibly be an actress. He hinted—you can imagine what. She could get no training in her craft. Could she even seek her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets at midnight? Yet her genius was for fiction and lusted to feed abundantly upon the lives of men and women.

–A Room of One’s Own,
Virginia Woolf

How does the rhetorical question develop the central idea?

The question is used to make the point that inequality experienced by women extended beyond the theatre.
The question is used to emphasize the girl’s innocence by reminding readers that she is too young to engage in social activities at night.
The question is used to make readers question why women were not allowed to participate in theatrical productions.
The question is used to create a metaphor that makes a direct comparison between male and female actors.

Answer 1

The first option. The rhetorical question highlights that the restrictions on women went beyond the stage—showing broader social inequality (they couldn’t even eat in taverns or wander at night), not just exclusion from acting.