To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

To the Lighthouse

-        Virginia Woolf

    Virginia Woolf was the prominent novelist of the Morden age. She has used the technique of stream of consciousness in her writings. In this technique she drives the reader into the mind of character. The reader can empathize with the feeling of characters.

         “To the Lighthouse” is a novel divided into three parts. The first part is “The window” which includes the introduction of characters with their nature. The deep psyche of characters and their thoughts are presented with their behavioural pattern. The second part is “Time Passes” which is very short but in novel ten years passes. And there are many deaths. For more information read the original work. In the third part character reaches the goal of their life or we can say ultimately they reach to the lighthouse.

  

      The novel has two women characters who contradict with each other.  Mrs. Ramsay is a housewife with having strong Victorian mindset and Lily Briscoe has a vision of modern women. Both are different but they have strong attachment with each other. The novel includes development of Lily Briscoe as an artist. She was a painter and at the end she reaches to her lighthouse. She had her vision. There is also an important point in the novel about women’s criticism. Mrs Ramsay can be criticized because of her nature of over caring and pampering her husband. Charles is the other character who criticized Lily’s art of painting by saying that “Woman can’t write, woman can’t paint.”

        

     The novel has strong symbolism and themes. There are symbols like bore’s skull, Rose’s fruit basket, refrigerator, fisher man’s wife, lighthouse, summer house, and Lily’s painting. Themes of the novel are art of preservation and 

transience of life and work and restorative effect of art.

  For detailed analysis of Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe’s characters - click here.