The three guineas described in the title are the most distinct symbol in the text. Each coin—worth a small amount of money—represents the support she is able to pledge toward an organization or an idea. If she feels that the organization or idea deserves her support, then she is willing to donate a guinea to it. Each of the book’s three parts becomes a discussion and a mediation on whether one particular organization is deserving of Woolf’s support: the women’s college, the women’s professional society, and the anti-war organization of the unnamed correspondent.

Within the text, money represents freedom. Woolf spends a great deal of time equating financial independence to freedom. The ability to fund an education and then earn a fair wage through a career is, to her, central to the equal treatment women should receive. However, due to the patriarchal nature of society, women do not have this freedom. A single guinea, then, becomes an important image: If women are not being compensated fairly and lack the financial capital required to donate to causes, the pledging of even a small amount of money takes on as much significance as a much larger donation made by a man.