Criticism
Jane Elizabeth Dougherty
Dougherty is a doctoral candidate at In an essay, Virginia Woolf wrote, "examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad of impressions-trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel." Woolf's character Lily Briscoe struggles with the myriad and momentary nature of reality throughout Woolf's fifth novel, To the Lighthouse. As Suzanne Raitt notes in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Lily shares "the novel's strange obsession with solutions." Lily tries to find a shape within the chaotic nature of existence and achieve an artistic vision that will give her a sense of the meaning of life. In the course of her struggle, many of the novel's themes are illuminated: the nature of reality, the search for completion, the role of women, and the relationship of art and life.
As an artist, Lily struggles to express herself creatively. Her creativity is hampered by the continued interruptions of the outside world, which occur both within her physical space and within her mind:
She would not have considered it honest to tamper with the bright violet and the staring white, since she saw them like that, fashionable though it was, since Mr. Paunceforte's visit, to see everything pale, elegant, semi-transparent. Then beneath the colour there was the shape. She could see it all so clearly, so commandingly, when she looked: it was when she took her brush in hand that the whole thing changed. It was in that moment's flight between the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her who often brought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception to work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child. Such she often felt herself — struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage; to say: "But this is what I see; this is what I see," and so to clasp some miserable remnant of her vision to her breast, which a thousand forces did their best to pluck from her.
Among the "thousand forces" which try to "pluck" Lily's vision from her is the conflict between the experience of living and the theory of existence, which is represented by the Ramsays. Mrs. Ramsay is a character who seems comfortable with the ebb and flow of daily life; as Thomas A. Vogler comments in his introduction to Twentieth Century Interpretations of To the Lighthouse, "the 'life' character (like Mrs. Ramsay) lives or represents the human reality of the story." By contrast, Mr. Ramsay tries to come to "objective" truths about the nature of reality. As A. D. Moody writes in the same volume, Lily's "abstract aesthetic problem becomes an analogy for her main concern, and the novel's, which is to bring Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay, and the worlds they represent, into a harmonious relation." As an artist, Lily tries to find larger truths about human existence, as does Mr. Ramsay, but as a woman, she is confronted with the subjective and personalized nature of existence, as is Mrs. Ramsay. Appropriately, Lily feels that when she stays with the Ramsays, she struggles to find harmony between opposites:
For at any rate, she said to herself, catching sight of the salt cellar on the pattern, she need not marry, thank Heaven: she need not undergo that dilution. She would move the tree rather more to the middle.
Such was the complexity of things. For what happened to her, especially staying with the Ramsays, was to be made to feel violently two opposite things at the same time; that's what you feel, was one; that's what I feel, was the other, and then they fought together in her mind, as now. It is so beautiful, so exciting, this love, that I tremble on the verge of it, and offer, quite out of my own habit, to look for a brooch on the beach; also it is the stupidest, the most barbaric of human passions, and turns a nice young man with a profile like a gem's (Paul's was exquisite) into a bully with a crowbar (he was swaggering, he was insolent) in the Mile End Road. Yet, she said to herself, from the dawn of time odes have been sung to love; wreathes heaped and roses; and if you asked nine people out of ten they would say they wanted nothing but this — love; while the women, judging from her own experience, would all the time be feeling, This is not what we want, there is nothing more tedious, puerile, and inhumane than this; yet it is also beautiful and necessary.
Lily's own thoughts and perceptions are interrupted by, and in conflict with, the expectations of her society. In particular, she feels inadequate both as a woman and as an artist, because it is not expected that she can be both. She knows that as a woman she is supposed to be fulfilled by love and marriage, yet in her experience that is never the case. She appreciates Mrs. Ramsay's ability to be nurturing, but does not feel that she can fulfill Mrs. Ramsay's role. As Raitt states, Lily "experiences her conflicts over femininity primarily in the context of her relationship to Mrs. Ramsay." Yet she also feels inadequate as a painter, because men like Charles Tansley tell her that "women can't paint. Women can't write." Lily struggles to define herself as a creative woman in a culture that does not acknowledge that women can be creative.
As a female artist, Lily longs to bring together seemingly opposed forces and to find a "solution" to the problem of life's incoherence. For example, she asks how is it possible to analyze all the conflicting information that one gets about another person and decide that one likes or dislikes that person. As Thomas Matro explains in PMLA, "Lily's ambivalence, suspension and subsequent 'explosion' stem from her felt inability to know another person and from the necessity she yet feels to form a clear, consistent opinion." After dinner, for example,
she felt rather inclined just for a moment to stand still after all that chatter, and pick out one particular thing; the thing that mattered; to detach it; separate it off; clean it of all the emotions and odds and ends of things, and so hold it before her, and bring it to the tribunal where, ranged about in conclave, sat the judges she had set up to decide these things. Is it good, is it bad, is it right or wrong? Where are we all going to? And so on. So she righted herself after the shock of the event, and quite unconsciously and incongruously, used the branches of the elm trees outside to help her stabilize her position. Her world was changing: they were still. The event had given her a sense of movement. All must be in order. She must get that right and that right, she thought, insensibly approving of the dignity of the trees' stillness, and now again of the superb upward rise (like the beak of a ship up a wave) of the elm branches as the wind raised them.
Lily longs to see things without emotion, objectively. She is able to reorient herself by situating herself in relation to the trees outside, which she sees as objective because they are unchanging. In the passage, she progresses from thinking abstractly about "the thing that mattered," which she cannot identify and about which she asks, "is it right or wrong?" to righting herself by focusing on the unchanging nature of the trees, to deciding she must get them right in her painting. By using the word "right," the narrator shifts Lily, and the reader, from abstract conceptions of rightness to natural, eternal rightness to an aesthetic rightness in which rightness is defined as the ability to see clearly. But that is not the final step on Lily's artistic quest; though she says that she must get what she sees on canvas, the narrator shows how, through her use of the word "right," Lily is still clinging to a kind of aesthetics based on objectivity, an unchanging and universal "truth." Lily thinks the natural world is unchanging, but in the second section of the novel, "Time Passes," the narrator shows us how the natural world slowly encroaches on, and nearly destroys, the house. Lily thinks that she must get what she sees "right," but in the third section, "The Lighthouse," she discovers that what she sees is her own particular vision, not a universal truth.
In the section called "The Lighthouse," Lily decides to finish the picture she had started ten years earlier, but is interrupted by Mr. Ramsay:
Yes, it must have been precisely here that she had stood ten years ago. There was the wall, the hedge, the tree. The question was of some relation between those masses. She had borne it in her mind all these years. It seemed as if the solution had come to her: she knew now what she wanted to do.
But with Mr. Ramsay bearing down on her, she could do nothing. Every time he approached — he was walking up and down the terrace — ruin approached, chaos approached. She could not paint.
Lily associates chaos with being unable to paint, unable to hold things in their proper places. Mr. Ramsay makes her unable to paint because, with his insatiable demands for sympathy, he makes it impossible for Lily to listen to her own feelings. She is once again confronted with the "dilution" of other people, with the attempt to hold together two opposing forces: her own feelings and those of another person. It is only when Mr. Ramsay leaves that she can return to her painting.
As she paints, Lily falls into a kind of trance in which she imagines Mrs. Ramsay, for whom she has been crying out, is sitting beside her. She remembers how Mrs. Ramsay united her with her "opposite," Charles Tansley:
The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one. This, that, and the other; herself and Charles Tansley and the breaking wave; Mrs. Ramsay bringing them together; Mrs. Ramsay saying, 'Life stand still here'; Mrs. Ramsay making of the moment something permanent (as in another sphere Lily herself tried to make of the moment something permanent) — this was of the nature of a revelation. In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves shaking) was struck into stability. Life stand still here, Mrs. Ramsay said. 'Mrs. Ramsay! Mrs. Ramsay!' she repeated. She owed it all to her.
Whereas earlier Lily had thought that her artistry depended on "getting it right," and that the natural world was unchanging, she now sees, with Mrs. Ramsay's help, that the job of the artist is to make a moment permanent by capturing it in art. In coming to this realization, Lily is able to see her resemblance to Mrs. Ramsay, to see that she really is a woman, as Mrs. Ramsay was, but a woman whose female identity is expressed in art rather than in relationships. Lily is at last able to mourn for Mrs. Ramsay, realizing that the "solution" to the problem of "wanting and not having" is to understand that all of life is momentary and that the best that humans can do is to say "life stand still here" and capture a moment in memory or in art. At the end of the novel, Lily feels that she is able to unify opposing forces, achieve completion, express her own personal truths, and to be both a woman and an artist. Through Lily, Woolf shows that in creative self-expression, humans may achieve a sense of completion and unify the disparate elements of life.
Source: Jane Elizabeth Dougherty, in an essay for Novels for Students, Gale, 2000.
What Do I Read Next?
- Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf's 1925 novel about a day in the life of the titular character, is not only a personality study, it is also a commentary on the ills and benefits society gleans from class. We spend a day with Clarissa as she interacts with servants, her children, her husband, and even an ex-lover, as she plans and executes one of her celebrated parties. Mrs. Dalloway shows the full emergence of Woolf's distinctive writing style that she would refine to greater heights in To the Lighthouse.
- A Room of One's Own is Woolf's 1929 essay about the difficulties facing women authors. Woolf uses the constrained economic choices that women face to explain why "Shakespeare's sister" failed to write any plays, and to argue that creativity is dependent on independence.
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Jamse Joyce's 1916 novel about the development of Stephen Dedalus, is told in a groundbreaking stream of consciousness style. Reading this book along with To the Lighthouse provides a clearer picture of Woolf's important literary innovations.
- E. M. Forster's 1924 A
Passage to
- Michael Cunningham's 1998
Pulitzer Prizewinning novel, The Hours, is about Virginia Woolf.
Cunningham tells the story of three women, including Woolf, as their lives
are threaded together by the novel Mrs. Dalloway. One gray suburban
- Portrait of a Marriage
is Nigel Nicholson's 1973 account of the marriage of his parents, Harold
Nicholson and Vita Sackville-West. Vita was one of Woolf's closest
friends, and, like her, was bisexual. She caused scandal when she became
involved with another woman. Nicholson's biography provides an intimate picture
of the domestic and social pressures facing the artistic women of the
- Hons and Rebels is
Jessica Mitford's 1961 autobiography about her early childhood (also
published in
AUTHORS BIOGRAPHY
The complexity of Woolf's writing in To the Lighthouse has become almost proverbially intimidating, as suggested famously in the title of Edward Albee's 1962 play, who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Written from multiple perspectives and shifting between times and characters with poetic grace, the novel is not concerned with plot. Instead, it paints a verbal picture of the members of the Ramsay family and their friends. In the first section, the character of Mrs. Ramsay is the lens through which most of the perspectives are focused, and her son's desire to go "to the Lighthouse" is the organizing impetus from which the picture takes shape. In the central section, the Lighthouse stands empty as the narrative marks the passage of time and the death of many of the characters. In the third and final section, with Mrs. Ramsay dead, the remaining family and friends finally get to the Lighthouse, and the novel becomes a meditation on love, loss, and creativity.
PLOT SUMMARY:
Plot Summary
The Window
The action of To the Lighthouse takes place on two days, separated by
ten years. The novel begins on a September evening in the Meanwhile, Lily Briscoe is painting Mrs. Ramsay and James; she decides to show what she has accomplished to William Bankes, an old friend of Mr. Ramsay. As they are looking at the picture, Cam Ramsay (daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay) runs past, nearly upsetting the easel. Meanwhile, guests Minta Doyle and Paul Rayley are walking with Andrew and Nancy Ramsay; after the four become separated,
Minta, Paul, Nancy, and Andrew have not yet returned when everyone sits down to dinner. When they enter, Minta says that she has lost her brooch. Mrs. Ramsay decides that Minta and Paul must have gotten engaged, and Lily uses a salt shaker to remind herself that she will move a tree in her picture the next day. At the end of the meal, another guest, Augustus Carmichael, and Mr. Ramsay recite the poem "Luriana Lurilee" in tribute to Mrs. Ramsay.
After dinner, Mrs. Ramsay finds that
With the children asleep, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay sit quietly together. Mrs. Ramsay tells Mr. Ramsay that Paul and Minta are engaged. Mr. Ramsay wants Mrs. Ramsay to tell him she loves him, but instead she tells him that his weather forecast was accurate and they won't be able to go to the Lighthouse the next day after all. She feels she has triumphed by not telling him she loves him.
Time Passes
Time moves forward and the nights become colder and wilder. During one of
those cold, wild nights, Mrs. Ramsay dies. Prue Ramsay marries, then dies in
childbirth. Andrew Ramsay dies in
The Lighthouse
Mr. Ramsay has coerced Lily has a vision of Mrs. Ramsay sitting on the beach with her, and thinks of the disastrous marriage of the Rayleys, which has only been righted by Paul's affair with another woman, and of her cherished friendship with William Bankes. Lily continues to cry out for Mrs. Ramsay. In the boat, Macalister's boy cuts a square out of the mackerel and throws it back into the sea.
After Mr. Ramsay finishes the book he has been reading, they reach the Lighthouse. James and
Characters
Andrew the Just
William Bankes
William Bankes is an old botanist friend of Mr. Ramsay's who has come to
stay at the Ramsay home. The years since the two first became friends have
changed both men, and Bankes is jealous and resentful of Mr. Ramsay. Mrs.
Ramsay senses Bankes's loneliness and wants to pair him off with Lily Briscoe.Bankes is a childless widower, and tries to assuage his envy of the Ramsay household by suggesting that his old friend's philosophical work is secondhand and past its prime. He is, however, drawn to Mrs. Ramsay's beauty and the warm domesticity of the Ramsays' lives. Rejected by little
Bankes is intellectually open, willing to understand and appreciate Lily's abstract painting, which suggests the essentially positive character that is hidden beneath his bitterness. The two become very good friends. He dies during the middle section of the novel, and Lily looks back on her friendship with him and remembers him as a good and profoundly lonely man, whom she will always love.
Lily Briscoe
Lily is an artist who stays with the Ramsay family in the first section of
the novel, and returns with them to their Scottish summerhouse in the final
section. She is a Post-Impressionist painter, descendant of a poor family, and
has spent most of her life taking care of her father. In many ways, Lily is the
chorus figure of the book — providing the histories of the characters and
commenting on their actions. The beginning and completion of her painting form
the frame of To the Lighthouse, and her final line, "I have had my
vision," is the final line of the novel, acting as Woolf's own comment on
her book.Lily, a lonely character who never marries, is both consumed by her art as well as in need of love and connection. She is "in love with the Ramsays," seeing them as the embodiment of the affection that is missing from her life, and especially adores Mrs. Ramsay. Just as she is unable to show love, she is phobic about allowing her art to be seen. When William Bankes sees her painting, they form a connection, and talk about the Ramsays. Both of them find things to fault about the family because they are so jealous of them, but both secretly understand each other's feelings. Lily does not like Mr. Ramsay because of the way he treats his wife, and she sees him as emotionless and too logical. She is taken aback when she and Bankes run into Mr. Ramsay spouting poetry on the lawn. Later, she realizes that she has misjudged him and that he is a man of strong emotion who adores his wife.
In the final section of the novel, Lily stands watching the Ramsays sail to the Lighthouse. While she tries to paint, memories and intense emotions surface. The desolation of the Ramsays that has occurred and the years of loss overcome her, and she cries out for Mrs. Ramsay. As Mr. Carmichael joins her, Lily realizes that Mr. Ramsay must have reached the Lighthouse. With this resolution achieved, she puts the final line on her painting and says, "It is finished." She has had her vision.
Cam the Wicked
Augustus Carmichael
Augustus Carmichael is a charismatic man who stays with the Ramsays when the
family is in
Minta Doyle
Daughter of the Ramsays' upper-class acquaintances, Minta is a guest at the
Ramsays' summer home. Her parents are stuffy and very traditional, the subjects
of many jokes between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay. Minta, however, is very different —
an energetic, scruffy young woman whom Mrs. Ramsay calls "a tom-boy."
She wonders what Minta's parents make of this modern girl who gads about with
holes in her stockings. Minta and Paul Rayley get engaged and celebrate with
the Ramsays. Ten years later, when the Ramsays return to
James the Ruthless
Mrs. Mcnab
Mrs. McNab is the housekeeper of the Ramsays' summer home. She is the only
person who is actively in the "Time Passes" section, tending to the
house as it gradually fills with dust and the Ramsays meet their fates. She is
the only character who takes some of the flowers home with her. The family has
simply been sending money to her to clean, and never write or visit. Mrs. McNab
often thinks of Mrs. Ramsay, and when she hears that the house may be sold, she
locks the house and leaves. After receiving a letter stating that the family
may be coming for the summer, she cleans the house from top to bottom.
Prue the Beautiful
Andrew Ramsay
Andrew, one of the Ramsay sons, is killed in the trenches of World War I. He
is a brilliant young man, with a genius for mathematics and an interest in
zoology.
Cam Ramsay
Because the Lighthouse holds such harsh memories for them, neither she nor James wish to go to it, but they agree to their father's wish out of duty. As they drift out she looks back at the house and feels love and pride for her father, but cannot help thinking about the past and the people that are now gone. Mr. Ramsay teases her about not knowing the points of the compass, but sees that she is frightened. He wants to make her feel better, and
James Ramsay
James Ramsay is the youngest child of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay. As a little boy
he is an extremely sensitive child who idolizes his mother. Wracked by intense
emotions, he fantasizes about killing his father in order to have Mrs. Ramsay
to himself. His desire to go to the Lighthouse is the focus of the novel's
first section. His mother tries to make his wish come true, while his father
and Charles Tansley insist that the weather will prevent them. He does not get
his wish.When they return to the summer home ten years later, James is bitter. He feels it is too late to get to the Lighthouse now, and Mr. Ramsay's need to make the trip seems to James to be a fruitless endeavor. He still hates his father for the way he perceived his mother was treated. Though James tells himself he feels nothing for his father, it is clear he desperately wants his approval. As they wait for another breeze to get them to the Lighthouse, James remembers feeling angry with his mother, and then is consumed by rage for his father when he looks at him reading. While he thinks about his mother, the wind picks up, and they move on.
As the group gets closer to the Lighthouse, Mr. Ramsay opens up the lunch, and James finally realizes that his father is lonely, "which was for both of them the truth about things." When they pass over where three men drowned,
Jasper Ramsay
A son of the Ramsays, Jasper likes to shoot birds in his free time.
Mr. Ramsay
Mr. Ramsay is the father of the family. He is the most misunderstood character
in the book, a man whose children hate him because they think he is viciously
unemotional and cold. They and Lily think of him as stern and sarcastic — a man
who "never altered a disagreeable word to suit the pleasure or convenience
of any mortal being, least of all his own children." Mrs. Ramsay has a
very different picture of him. She knows how insecure he is about his abilities
as a philosopher and a provider. He is a man who acknowledges the shortcomings
of his own skills, knowing that he will never be able to go beyond
"Q" in the "alphabet" of great thinking. He is also
possessed of many more emotions than his children give him credit for, and is
not the exclusively rational man that Lily Briscoe first sees. Her view of him
is turned upside down when she runs into him on the lawn reciting poetry and
acting it out. Later at the dinner table, Mr. Ramsay talks to Minta and
everyone is able to see the charming, attractive man that he can be.When the Ramsays return to
Mrs. Ramsay
Mrs. Ramsay is the mother of the Ramsay family who dies during the middle
section of the novel. A beautiful, caring woman, she means all things to all
people, and each character of To the Lighthouse has a different
perception of her personality. Lily sees her as a mother, and doesn't think she
has ever inspired romantic passion. William Bankes and Charles Tansley adore
her, and think she doesn't realize how beautiful she is. The children see her
as the "Lighthouse" of their lives — the stable, warm force that
protects and guides them. Mr. Ramsay adores and resents her because of her huge
capacity for love. Sometimes he feels he would have been a greater thinker if
he had no wife or children, but underneath he knows that he is utterly
dependent on her.In her own mind, Mrs. Ramsay is far more complex. She loves her husband, but alternates between pitying and reverencing him, knowing that his intellectual powers are waning and that people will eventually realize that he depends on her too much. She loves to make other people happy and is constantly encouraging love matches, expediting the engagement of Minta and Paul, and trying to match Lily and William Bankes. At the same time, she becomes jealous when attention is focused on others, feeling resentful and left out when Minta and Paul celebrate their engagement. She is used to being loved and relies on it, but is aware of this, and it is balanced by her generous impulses and love. She is happiest when loving, and wishes that she could "always be holding a baby." Her compassion leads her to worry about the plight of the poor, and she is constantly doing charitable things — knitting stockings for the Lighthouse keeper's sick child and taking food to poor people in the area.
After her death she remains the "Lighthouse" of the Ramsay family, the most powerful force in the lives of Lily,
Nancy Ramsay
Prue Ramsay
One of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay's eight children, Prue dies in childbirth.
Roger Ramsay
Another Ramsay offspring, Roger is referred to as a "wild
creature" by his mother.
Rose Ramsay
Rose is a daughter of the Ramsays, who "had a wonderful gift with her
hands."
Minta Rayley
Paul Rayley
Paul Rayley is a guest of the Ramsays who is courting Minta Doyle. Mrs.
Ramsay does not respect his intelligence much, and thinks that he's a
"boobie." He and Minta get married, and he is irresponsible, spending
his time in meetings and coffeehouses. He begins an affair with a "serious
woman, with her hair in a plait" who shares his interests. Because of
this, he and Minta develop a comfortable marriage.
The Atheist Tansley
Charles Tansley
Charles Tansley is a student of Mr. Ramsay, visiting the Lighthouse while he
does his dissertation. The product of a lower-middle-class home, he has worked
himself up the educational and social scale, and remains uneasy about his
status. This makes him overeager to prove himself, and the Ramsay children
think of him as a pompous prig. Inclined always to agree with whatever Mr.
Ramsay says, it is really Mrs. Ramsay who becomes the focus of Charles's
attention. He, like all of the characters, is in love with her. She pities him
the poverty of his childhood — he has never even been to a circus — but
dislikes him for his thoughtless behavior to her son James. Tansley's
insecurity often leads him to be unnecessarily harsh, and he tells Lily that
women have no business being painters.
Themes
War
In To the Lighthouse, the Great War takes place during the "Time
Passes" section. The structure of the novel reflects the impact of World
War I on European society. Part One is set in the golden haze of prewar
innocence and love. Mr. Ramsay entertains himself by reciting Lord Tennyson's
poem The Charge of the Light Brigade, a poem about death during the
Crimean War, which valorizes the heroism of the then-unprecedented loss of a
cavalry unit. Tennyson's celebration of patriotism and glorious death would be
rejected by the traumatized survivors of the Great War who had witnessed death
on a scale unimaginable to the Victorian poet. As Wilfred Owen wrote, World War
I ended "that great lie — Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori [it is sweet
and proper to die for one's country]." Owen himself would not make it home
from the war.During the middle section of Woolf's novel, the scarifying time period of 1914 to 1918 is represented by the death that comes to many of the characters, including Mrs. Ramsay and Andrew, who is killed in combat by a shell. Part Two is con-cerned with survivors, with a shell-shocked culture attempting to come to terms with its losses. The war marks an end to many of the old ways of life, a change in social climate and the first rumblings of collapse for the British institutions so important to the older characters, especially the Indian Empire.
Philosophy
Debates about philosophy, particularly theories about visual reality, figure
prominently in To the Lighthouse. In the first section of the novel,
"The Window," Mr. Ramsay, an Throughout the novel, the characters reflect on objects and people that are "not there," especially Mrs. Ramsay. Mrs. Ramsay's effect on everyone and everything is like the imaginary "kitchen table" of Andrew's explanation. Her continuing impact even after death is contrasted with the cold logic of Mr. Ramsay's philosophy, which denies these kinds of connections between reality, mind and personality. Lily's painting style shows a different kind of reality in which objects and perception can be different for every person. As she explains to William Bankes, her view of Mrs. Ramsay does not look like its subject because it is abstract. However, it is still "like" Mrs. Ramsay because she is trying to paint the emotional and spatial impact of the woman.
Like Woolf's stream of consciousness narrative style, Mrs. Ramsay's reality changes depending on how she is feeling — making William Bankes either a tyrant or a pitiful person according to her emotions at the time. While Mr. Ramsay blindly wrestles with skepticism on masculine philosophical grounds, Mrs. Ramsay and Lily show maternal and painterly domestic eyes at work, creating a distinctly female "epistemology" — or theory about the nature and limits of human knowledge.
Freudian Psychology
The character of James Ramsay is central to the narrative impetus of To
the Lighthouse. His desire to go on the trip, and the conflicting reactions
of parents form the structure and title of the novel, and are drawn in patterns
established by Freudian theories. As a child, James is very hostile to his
father and adores his mother. His mother promises that the day will be pleasant
enough for them to sail, while his father promises that it will rain and make
sailing impossible. James wishes for an "axe , or a poker, any weapon that
would have gashed a hole in his father's breast and killed him, there and
then." Every time that his father distracts Mrs. Ramsay's attention from
him, James feels similar homicidal urges.This desire to kill his father to keep his mother's attention corresponds to Freud's Oedipal complex. This famous theory is based on the Greek myth of Oedipus, who accidentally murdered his father and wed his mother. Freud said that all males go through an Oedipal stage in which they want to kill their fathers and marry their mothers. In order to grow to emotional maturity, they must get over this impulse and embrace their fathers, as James eventually does.
Perception and Consciousness
In To the Lighthouse Woolf uses a "decorated process of
thought" in which the physical world around a character takes on their
form of thought. As a result, the world that surrounds the characters has a
symbolic status with different and specific meanings for each character.
Throughout the novel, the personality and consciousness of each person
expresses itself in the way that the world seems when they stand in it. The
most important symbol of the book is the Lighthouse itself. Just as it
dominates the bay, the Lighthouse dominates Woolf's novel, both physically and
symbolically. The characters each see it differently, depending on their
emotions and needs.For Mrs. Ramsay, the Lighthouse represents her isolation as well as warmth and comfort, an integral part of the rhythm of her days that allows her to nurture and be nurtured. The Lighthouse is not just a building, it is "something immune which shines out." For Lily Briscoe, the true "lighthouse" of the novel is Mrs. Ramsay herself — a beacon that casts an organizing light on the whole family and continues to illuminate and connect them even after her death. Mr. Ramsay's presence makes the Lighthouse a "stark tower on a bare rock," which symbolizes his unemotional logic. For James, the Lighthouse is a shifting symbol that seems to represent his mother, even as it is representative of the stark rationalism of his father. His analysis of the situations sums up the thematic point: "So that was the Lighthouse, was it? No the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one thing."
Style
Stream of Consciousness
The narrative technique that Woolf uses for most of To the Lighthouse
is normally called stream of consciousness. This technique was a product of
Modernism, a literary movement characterized by introspection, self-awareness
and an openness to the unconscious. Associated primarily with Woolf and James Joyce,
this technique was a way of representing the whole mind of an individual, not
just conscious thought. It is based on the psychological theory that human
minds are made up of many layers of awareness, from highly articulated rational
thought, to emotional responsiveness, all the way to the animal pre-speech
level of need and instinct. The basis of the technique is the notion that all
of these layers are present in the mind of a human at any given moment — a
"stream of consciousness" composed of the flow of sensations,
thoughts, memories, associations, and reflections. If the exact pattern of the
mind ("consciousness") is to be described, then these varied,
disjointed, and illogical elements must find expression in a flow of words,
images and ideas similar to the unorganized flow of the mind. In To the
Lighthouse Woolf describes the technique while talking about Lily Briscoe:To follow her thought was like following a voice which speaks too quickly to be taken down by one's pencil, and the voice was her own voice saying with out prompting undeniable, everlasting, contradictory things
Woolf's characteristic version of the stream of consciousness puts a new spin on the technique. Instead of being an attempt to capture the complexities of one individual mind, her novel is an attempt to capture the minds of a large group of people as they interact over time. This is achieved by the constant shifting of point of view and narrative chronology — often within the same paragraph or line.
Free Association
Part of the stream of consciousness style of Woolf's novel, free association
is a term that describes the connections, or associations, that a person's mind
makes between seemingly random things. A major part of the Freudian method of
analysis is to ask people to say the first thing that comes to mind when they
are given a word or object. By looking at the kinds of associations that occur,
the analyst can find patterns in the randomness that reveal much about the
character of the patient.In To the Lighthouse, Woolf uses this free association style to reveal her characters. Charles Tansley, for example, sees Mrs. Ramsay next to a picture of Queen
Psychology
The theories of the new Freudian psychology are used throughout the novel.
The narrative structure is a literary version of the emphasis that psychology
places on the subjective reality of emotions and desires. Freudian psychology
suggests that emotions, needs, and instincts are more important in
understanding personality than rational thoughts. In keeping with this theory,
rational thought is shown to be useless to describe characters throughout To
the Lighthouse. When, for example, William Tansley tells himself that he
doesn't like Mrs. Ramsay because she is "fifty at least," his
"freely-associated" emotions tell the real story. Also part of
Freudian theory is the emphasis placed on childhood experiences and emotions in
the formation of adult personality. Mrs. Ramsay sums this up when she says,
"Children never forget."
Historical Context
World War I
World War I began in 1914, the result of an unresolved and perilous series
of Balkan Crises. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, the intense
territorial dispute between Austro-Hungary and World War I revealed a new and horrifying form of warfare that took place in the trenches and the air, both innovations. It was also the most technologically advanced war, relying on a number of new inventions, such as machine guns, mortar bombs, and barbed wire. Most scarring was innovations in biological weaponry. Death by mustard gas in the bunkers and trenches created a profound sense of shock in the surviving troops and horrible deaths for the fallen. Movingly documented by English War Poets like Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, the Great War sent thousands of emotionally and physically shell-shocked men back to their homes.
Modernism
Modernism is a literary, artistic, and philosophical movement that began at
the end of the nineteenth century. Modernists feel that earlier forms of art
have reached their goals and become uninteresting, and they reject the realism of
the nineteenth century. In response to older forms, the new art and literature
was consciously nonrepresentational and experimental, refusing to portray
significant action, and emphasizing human reactions and interpretations instead
of physical realities. Freudian psychology was often incorporated into the new
writing and art, since it overturns previous philosophies and makes the
internal life of a person the most important aspect of reality.The new art exploded into an unwelcome world in 1913, at The Armory Show. This international exhibition of modern art took place at the 69th Regiment Armory in
The Twenties
The Twenties were characterized by what Joseph Wood Krutch called the
"Modern Temper." This was the new intellectual and social climate
that rejected many of the traditional beliefs in progress, patriotism and art,
at the same time as it looked for new forms of politics. Following the Russian
Revolution of 1917, Marxism and socialism had gained a new importance in
European thought. With Lenin in power and the genocidal legacy of Stalinism still
unimaginable, the The Wall Street Crash plunged the World into economic depression in 1929 and exacerbated social divides. In 1927, however,
Compare & Contrast
- 1910s: Unrest grows in
Tsarist Russia as the oppressive state cracks down on reformers and
activists.
1920s: The Bolshevik revolution has taken place, and Lenin is in power. His New Economic Policy is being instituted, which allows greater economic freedom and a measure of controlled capitalism.
Today: Communist - 1910s: After World War
I the 1919 Treaty of Versailles establishes an international body that
will arbitrate disputes. It also demands that
1920s: The
Today: The United Nations has been in place since 1945, and has learned from the fate of the - 1910s: The British
Labour Party is a new creation, struggling to find a support base. Many
members of the British intellectual scene are in sympathy with its
socialist ideology. After the Russian Revolution, the ruling classes of
1920s:
Today: The Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Tony Blair, is the governing party in - 1910s: The British
Women's Suffrage movement demands the right to vote.
1920s: British women over thirty are granted the right to vote in 1918. American women win their battle in 1919. It is a long struggle that is resisted by many men —
Today: Generations of legal rights have still not resulted in equality between men and women. In
Critical Overview
To the Lighthouse was a critical success as soon as it was published,
and won Woolf the Prix Femina in 1928. Initial reviews and criticism
focused on the novel's stylistic innovations, praising Woolf's artistic
refinement of the stream of consciousness narrative. Louis Kronenberger, for
example, announced in The New York Times, "here is prose of an
extraordinary distinction in our time: here is poetry." Woolf's death in
1941 prompted a flood of books and articles that celebrated her mastery of
prose style. Eric Auerbach's important 1946 study of art and literature Mimesis:
The Representation of Reality in Western Literature elevated Woolf's novel
to the status of great literature and gave her the tag "Brown Stocking"
(a play on the phrase "bluestockings" which was used to describe a
group of intellectual women authors in the eighteenth century). Putting To
the Lighthouse at the top of the modern literary canon, he praised the
achievements of its narrative style over the works of her contemporaries,
calling it the "creation of something new and elemental."In the 1950s and 1960s, critical focus centered on symbolism, looking at myth, philosophy, and history as the unifying strategies of the novel. In The Glass Roof: Virginia Woolf as Novelist, James Halfley suggested that both Mrs. Ramsay and the Lighthouse were, "cosmic symbols" that represented a "vital synthesis of time and eternity." Along the same lines, Joseph L. Blotner's essay, "Mythic Patterns in To the Lighthouse," argued that Mrs. Ramsay should be understood as a "primordial goddess" composed of "the major female characters of pagan myth." He also made a case for the importance of Freudian thought in the novel.
The 1970s and 1980s marked a revolution in Woolf studies — a move away from quasi-Jungian analysis based on her symbolism, and a new focus on the role of gender and art in To the Lighthouse instead. Where the older critics found unity in the work, these new voices found disharmony and con-flict. Emphasis was placed on the roles of gender and class, reflecting the general critical trends of the late 1970s and 1980s. Irene Dash, Deena Kushner, and Deborah Moore looked at the novel from a sociological stance, examining the challenges women face between "being mothers and being artists," from the perspectives of a mother, daughter, and artist, in "How Light a Lighthouse for Today's Women?" Jane Lilienfeld, in "'The Deceptiveness of Beauty': Mother Love and Mother Hate in To the Lighthouse" performed a biographical reading, suggesting that the relationship between Lily Briscoe and Mrs. Ramsay is an outlet for Woolf's feelings about her relationship with her mother, Julia Stephen.
Another critic, Elaine Showalter, caused controversy by arguing that the novel reveals Woolf's abandonment of feminism for a retreat into mysticism, in A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing. Claiming that Showalter's analysis revealed her tendency to "traditional humanism," Toril Moi's hugely influential 1985 book Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory countered this by suggesting that Woolf's novel, "rejects the metaphysical essentialism underlying patriarchal ideology, which hails God, the father or the phallus, as its Transcendental signified," both in its shifting-consciousness narrative style and in the rejection of Mr. Ramsay's logic. Rachel Bowlby's important study, Virginia Woolf: Feminist Destinations, used Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theories to read the novel, suggesting that, "To the Lighthouse makes evident the mapping of human subjectivity in terms of figurations inseparable from sexual difference."
Reflecting the general shifts in academia, the 1990s has seen a stronger emphasis on post-colonial and historically contextual readings of To the Lighthouse. These approaches stress the novel's relationship to the major historical contexts of its setting — World War I, the General Strike, and the
Author Biography
One of the greatest literary figures of the twentieth century, Virginia
Woolf was born in Woolf's career as a novelist began in 1915, when she published The Voyage Out. Though stylistically conventional, it showed an emphasis on character rather than plot which would characterize Woolf's work. This novel was followed by Night and Day in 1919 and Jacob's Room in 1922, books in which her writing became increasingly experimental. The 1925 publication of Mrs. Dalloway marked the emergence of Woolf's mature, creative voice, with her use of the free association of ideas in her characters' minds. The novel that many regard as her finest publication, To the Lighthouse, came out in 1927. By this time she had honed her techniques of nonlinear narrative style, interior monologue, and impressionistic renditions of life, and the book became an instant classic.
Woolf went on to write
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