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Feminism in Virginia Woolf's to the lighthouse
Issues in virginia woolf's to the lighthouse summary
Issues in virginia woolf's to the lighthouse summary
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Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse has been described as a Künstlerroman or artist novel. It traces the development of an artist, much like the Bildungsroman traced the development of a child into adulthood (Daughtery 148). The main artist of the novel is Lily Briscoe. As the novel progresses, Lily comes to terms with art and with life. To the Lighthouse is, in many ways, a quest novel (Daughter 148). This is evidenced by the title, which includes the preposition “to”. Nearly all the characters in the novels have a goal which they are aiming for. For example, in Part I, James Ramsay wants nothing but else but to go on an expedition to the lighthouse. Mr. Ramsay muses about how to reach the letter “R”. Lily sets sail with her canvas and her paint to find independence and to gain insight into the meaning of life (Kelley 112).
Throughout Part III, the Ramsays’ trip to the lighthouse is juxtaposed against Lily’s progress on her painting. In many ways, James Ramsay’s goal and Lily Briscoe’s goal are very much alike. They both wish to declare their independence from conventional authority. James Ramsay has always harbored a hate for his father and a resentment of his authority. At the opening of the novel, Mr. Ramsay says that the weather may prevent their trip to the lighthouse. James wants to plunge a knife into his father’s heart. He hates his father “for the exaltation and sublimity of his gestures; for the magnificence of his head; for his exactingness and egotism” (Woolf). Ten years later, James is still determined to fight against his father’s “tyranny” (Woolf). Mr. Ramsay forces James and Cam to join him on an expedition to the lighthouse. This time, James resists; he is sullen throughout the whole trip. However, along the w...
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...econd, she drew a line there, in the centre”. Her big, bold stroke symbolizes the letter “I” (Daughtery 134); it is like her signature to her own declaration of independence. That line also bridges the mass on the right with that on the left (Woolf). Lily Briscoe defines and preserves her “vision” of the world (Woolf).
Primary Source
Woolf, Virginia. “To the Lighthouse.” Project Gutenberg Australia, Oct. 2001. Web. 6 Feb. 2012. .
Secondary Sources
Bloom, Harold. Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.
Daugherty, Beth Rigel, and Mary Beth Pringle, eds. Approaches to Teaching Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2001. Print.
Kelley, Alice van Buren. To the Lighthouse: The Marriage of Life and Art. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987. Print.
Lily’s idea of home is having loving parent/mother figures who can help guide her in life. Because of this desire, she leaves T. Ray and begins to search for her true identity. This quest for acceptance leads her to meet the Calendar Sisters. This “home” that she finds brightly displays the ideas of identity and feminine society. Though Lily could not find these attributes with T. Ray at the peach house, she eventually learns the truth behind her identity at the pink house, where she discovers the locus of identity that resides within herself and among the feminine community there. Just like in any coming-of-age story, Lily uncovers the true meaning of womanhood and her true self, allowing her to blossom among the feminine influence that surrounds her at the pink house. Lily finds acceptance among the Daughters of Mary, highlighting the larger meaning of acceptance and identity in the novel.
Woolf’s pathos to begin the story paints a picture in readers minds of what the
Meyer, Michael, ed. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. Print.
Virginia Woolf, an original, thought-provoking feminist author, influenced women to fight for equality and to question the opportunities for women in literature. With her diaries, novels and poems, she stunned her readers with something they have not seen much before: women rebelling. Woolf was frustrated with women and the untouched and suppressed skills they harbor. She once said, “Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their created force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics” (Feminist 595). Woolf sought to eliminate the perceived ideas of women and enlighten readers of the skills that women possess.
In their own way, these two narratives cross and share a common end point. In each case, it is the cohesive, independent female identity that has the potential to dissolve the figure of the patriarch. The egotism and self-conciousness of Gabriel and Woolf’s patriarch alike are absorbed and replaced by a grey, impalpable, indifferent world. Both the outcome of Woolf’s reality and Joyce’s fiction are uncertain. The future is hopeful but may just prove a bleak continuation of the present. The fog and ambivalent snow may disperse and melt, and a system of difference will remain.
Woolf, Virginia. "A Room of One's Own." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams et al. 7th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2000. 2153-2214.
Levenback, Karen L. Virginia Woolf and the Great War. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 1999. Print.
In Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse”, the struggle to secure and proclaim female freedom is constantly challenged by social normalcy. This clash between what the traditional female ideologies should be and those who challenge them, can be seen best in the character of Lily Brisco. She represents the rosy picture of a woman that ends up challenging social norms throughout the novel to effectively achieve a sense of freedom and individuality by the end. Woolf through out the novel shows Lily’s break from conventional female in multiply ways, from a comparison between her and Mrs.Ramsey, Lily’s own stream of consciousness, as well as her own painting.
Work Cited Woolf, Virginia. A. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc., 2005.
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. 1927. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1951. pp 131-133.
In this paper, I examine the concept of “a central oyster of perceptiveness, an enormous eye”, the device through which Woolf sees the London street in “Street Haunting”. I will then move on how the principles of movement, transition, focus, digression and concentration of this eye apply to narrative movement in Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Introduction by D.M. Hoare, Ph.D. London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1960
Mrs. Ramsay embodies the traditional, ideal woman. She is a wife and mother. She sees her role as being a supporter to her husband, her children, and to the people around her. Mrs. Ramsay is occupied with matronly duties, such as knitting socks and running errands. She is devoted to her children. She sympathizes with James, understanding his disappointment at not being able to go to the lighthouse. She looks through a catalog for pictures for him to cut out. She also reads fairy tales to James. Mrs. Ramsay is a kind and devoted mother.
A lighthouse is a structure that warns and navigates ships at night as they near land, creating specific signals for guidance. In Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, the Lighthouse stands a monument to motivation for completion of long-term goals. Every character’s goals guides him or her through life, and the way that each person sees the world depends on goals they make. Some characters’ goals relate directly to the Lighthouse, others indirectly. Some goals abstractly relate to the Lighthouse. The omnipresent structure pours its guiding light over every character and every action.
Mary’s journey begins on her visit to “Oxbridge,” where she Woolf is said to give her lecture on “Women and Fiction.” Woolf then provides the reader and Mary with her thesis: a women must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction (1). At this point, Mary is sitting at the edge of a pond at “Oxbridge,” a fictional university meant to suggest a combination of the names Oxford and Cambridge, two major British Universities. Mary begins to think about the projected thesis statement, when she is interrupted by a beadle (security guard). He informs her that women are not allowed to sit in the area unless accompanied by a male student.