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Character analysis of “To The
Lighthouse”
Name:-
Charmi Vyas
Sem :- 3
Roll No. :-
3
Paper Name
:- 9, The Modernist Literature
About Virginia Woolf :-
Born into
a privileged English household in 1882, author Virginia Woolf was raised by
free-thinking parents. She began writing as a young girl and published her
first novel, The Voyage Out, in 1915. She wrote modernist classics
including Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and Orlando,
as well as pioneering feminist works, A Room of One's Own and Three
Guineas. In her personal life, she suffered bouts of deep depression. She
committed suicide in 1941, at the age of 59.
From the time of her birth until 1895, Woolf spent her
summers in St. Ives, a beach town at the very southwestern tip of England. The
Stephens’ summer home, Talland House, which is still standing today, looks out
at the dramatic Porthminster Bay and has a view of the Godrevy Lighthouse,
which inspired her writing. In her later memoirs, Woolf recalled St. Ives with
a great fondness. In fact, she incorporated scenes from those early summers
into her modernist novel To the Lighthouse (1927).
Literary Work:-
Several
years before marrying Leonad, Virginia had begun working on her first novel.
The original title is Melymbrosia. After nine years and innumerable
drafts, it was released in 1915 as The Voyage Out. Woolf used
the book to experiment with several literary tools including compelling and
unusual narrative perspectives, dream-states and free association prose. Two
years later, the Woolf’s bought a used printing press and established Hogarth
Press, their own publishing house operated out of their home Hogarth House.
Virginia and Leonard published some of their writing, as well as the work
of Sigmund Freud, Katharine Mansfield and T.S. Eliot.
A year
after the end of World War I, the Woolf’s purchased Monks House, a cottage in
the village of Romello in 1919, and that same year Virginia published Night
and Day, a novel set in Edwardian England. Her third novel Jacob's
Room was published by Hogarth in 1922. Based on her brother Thoby, it
is considered a significant departure from her earlier novels with its
modernist elements. That year, she met author, poet
and landscape gardener Vita Sackville-West, the wife of English
diplomat Harold Nicolson. Virginia and Vita began a friendship that developed
into a romantic affair. Although their affair eventually ended,
they remained friends until Virginia Woolf's death.
In
1925, Woolf received rave reviews for Mrs. Dalloway her fourth
novel. The mesmerizing story interweaved interior monologues and raised issues
of feminism, mental illness and homosexuality in post-World War I
England. Mrs. Dalloway was adapted into a 1997 film, starring
Vanessa Redgrave, and inspired The Hours, a 1998 novel by Michael
Cunningham and a 2002 film adaptation. Her 1928 novel, To the
Lighthouse, was another critical success and considered revolutionary for
its stream of consciousness storytelling. The modernist classic examines
the subtext of human relationships through the lives of the Ramsay family
as they vacation on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.
Woolf
found a literary muse in Sackville-West, the inspiration for Woolf's 1928
novel Orlando, which follows an English nobleman who mysteriously
becomes a woman at the age of 30 and lives on for over three centuries of
English history. The novel was a breakthrough for Woolf who
received critical praise for the groundbreaking work, as well as a
newfound level of popularity.
In
1929, Woolf published A Room of One's Own, a feminist essay based
on lectures she had given at women's colleges, in which she examines women's
role in literature. In the work, she sets forth the idea that “A woman must
have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Woolf pushed
narrative boundaries in her next work, The Waves (1931), which
she described as "a play-poem" written in the voices of six different
characters. Woolf published The Years, the final novel published in
her lifetime in 1937, about a family's history over the course of a generation.
The following year she published Three Guineas, an essay which
continued the feminist themes of A Room of One's Own and
addressed fascism and war.
Throughout
her career, Woolf spoke regularly at colleges and universities, penned dramatic
letters, wrote moving essays and self-published a long list of short stories.
By her mid-forties, she had established herself as an
intellectual, an innovative and influential writer and pioneering
feminist. Her ability to balance dream-like scenes with deeply tense plot lines
earned her incredible respect from peers and the public alike. Despite her
outward success, she continued to regularly suffer from debilitating bouts of
depression and dramatic mood swings.
Suicide
and Legacy:-
Woolf's
husband, Leonard, always by her side, was quite aware of any signs that pointed
to his wife’s descent into depression. He saw, as she was working on what would
be her final manuscript, Between the Acts (published
posthumously in 1941),that she was sinking into deepening despair. At the
time, World War II was raging on and the couple decided if England was
invaded by Germany, they would commit suicide together, fearing that Leonard,
who was Jewish, would be in particular danger. In 1940, the couple’s
London home was destroyed during the Blitz, the Germans bombing of the
city.
About novel “ To The Lighthouse :-
This
book is without a plot. What story there is can be summarized quickly: Mr.
Ramsay is a philosopher and his wife is a famous beauty, both in middle age,
are staying with their eight children and various guests at their summer
holiday home in the Hebrides, islands off Scotland. Conflicts arise and fall in
Part One, especially between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay, but also within individual
characters’ minds. We see the shifting flow of thought and relationships from
various points of view. The day culminates in a dinner in which union is
triumphantly achieved, at least for a moment. In Part Two, things fall apart;
time ravages the house, and we learn in passing that Mrs. Ramsay has shockingly
died. Moreover, a daughter, Prue, has died in childbirth, and a son, Andrew,
has been killed in First World War. Blackness and chaos lift at last as the
housekeepers get to work on the dilapidated house and discuss the family’s
coming return. Part Three is a revisiting of Part One; now Mr. Ramsay is back
at the holiday house with some of the remaining children and original guests,
including the artist Lily Briscoe. Mrs. Ramsay’s absence is enormous, as is the
question of how to find union again, and the living characters struggle with
both. In the end, a tenuous connection is made once more between the
characters, and between past and present.
Major characters of
the novel :-
1.
Mr.
Ramsay
2.
Mrs.
Ramsay
3.
Lily Briscoe
4.
James
5.
Cam
6.
Paul Rayley
7.
Minta Doyle
Charater Analysis “To The Lighthouse” :-
Mrs. Ramsay
The wife of Mr. Ramsay and
mother of eight, Mrs. Ramsay is an advocate for marriage and family. She is
deeply involved with her roles as wife, mother, hostess, benefactor and muse.
She supports the domestic and emotional needs of her husband, children, and
guests and is particularly sensitive to her husband's continuing demands for
reassurance and love. Mrs. Ramsay encourages women to fulfill society's
traditional gender roles and believes marriage and family are necessary for
fulfillment. Her unexpected death forces her family and friends to navigate the
world without her, but she leaves a lasting influence on all.
Mr. Ramsay
Mrs. Ramsay's husband and father
of eight, Mr. Ramsay published a significant book in his field at 25. After his
early success, he has failed to gain more recognition. His lack of professional
success has helped make him insufferably needy, irritable, and
ill-tempered—traits he demonstrates by slamming doors, throwing plates, and
other attention-grabbing, childish behavior. He constantly seeks praise and
attention, especially from women: at 61 to ease the pain of his failures and at
71 to soothe the pain of heartbreak.
Lily Briscoe :-
Free-spirited Lily Briscoe is
intense, thinking she is in love with the Ramsays, the island, the house, and
perhaps Paul Rayley. Despite her independence and unwillingness to follow a
traditional life, Lily is insecure about her work and her choices. She grows
impatient with Charles Tansley, who insists women cannot be artists, and is
envious of beautiful and seemingly serene Mrs. Ramsay, who appears to get
everything she wants. Years later after Mrs. Ramsay's death, Lily returns to
Scotland to confront her loss and paint her picture again, this time finishing
it.
James
James Ramsay plays a key role in
the novel because he is the character that wants to sail to the lighthouse as
the novel begins. Always seeking to protect her children from disappointment,
Mrs. Ramsay tries to preserve his sweet innocence by shielding him from his
father's gruff, but accurate, comments about bad weather that will prevent the
excursion. James carries a long and serious grudge toward his father, initially
for stealing his mother's attention and later for not demonstrating love as his
mother had.
Cam
Cam is rebellious, refusing to
listen to her nursemaid and mother. Like Lily Briscoe, she is independent, but
her youth prevents her independence from taking real form. Because of a later
pact with James to withstand their father's dominance, her neutrality causes
conflict between the siblings as she relents in her resolve against their
father, seeing him at his most charming. She shares in and understands James's
pleasure when Mr. Ramsay finally compliments him for his sailing.
Paul Rayley
At Mrs. Ramsay's
encouragement, simple and handsome Paul Rayley proposes to Minta Doyle, with
whom he has been spending a lot of time. To Mrs. Ramsay's satisfaction, Paul is
a refreshing alternative to academics, whom she finds boring. When Lily, who
thinks she loves Paul, asks to accompany him to look for Minta's brooch, he
laughs at her, hurting Lily's feelings.
Minta Doyle
A charismatic tomboy, Minta
Doyle evokes Mrs. Ramsay's jealous feelings because of her youth, beauty, and
Mr. Ramsay's attention. Fearless, Minta rushes into things with no thought of
the consequences: wearing a precious heirloom to the beach, accepting Paul
Rayley's proposal. These rash actions cause her pain (she cries over the
brooch) and threaten the harmony of others (she is late to dinner and makes
others late because they search for her brooch).
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