Is the imagined sister of William Shakespeare Woolf creates her to show how a woman with talent equal to Shakespeare would not, because of the structure of society, be able to achieve the same success. Judith's life is fraught with tragedy – first pressured by her family into an early marriage, she must escape to London to free herself to pursue art, but is turned away with scorn from every theatre she approaches. She becomes pregnant, which makes a life of writing impossible, and she eventually kills herself. But later in the essay, Woolf brings back the ghost of Judith Shakespeare and tells the young women in the audience that they have the power to be the voice that Judith never had.