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Virginia Woolf English U350-315

Virginia Woolf 's To The Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf is one of the leading modernist literary figures of the twentieth century . Although she is generally considered as a feminist Woolf herself disapprove of the term as she felt it suggested as an obsession with women and women 's ' concerns . She prefers to be referred to as a humanist instead . Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group between the two world wars

Her inspiration for writing To The Lighthouse (1927 ) may be linked to

her childhood recollections . According to her memoirs as mentioned by Marsh (1998 , Woolf 's most colorful childhood memories were of St Ives in Cornwall , where the family spent every summer until 1895 . Marsh describes that Woolf 's family stayed in their home called the Talland House , which looked out over the Porthminster Bay . Memories of the family holidays and impressions of the landscape , especially the Godrevy Lighthouse , drove her in writing this novel . It is believed that she also based the summer home in Scotland after the Talland House and the Ramsay family after her own family

To the Lighthouse (1927 ) is laid down on two days ten years apart . The plot focuses around the Ramsay family 's anticipation of and reflection upon a holiday visit to a lighthouse and the ensuing resolution of familial tensions . One of the most important themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she made a great effort to put the family drama in a nutshell . Aside from this , the novel is likewise a reflection upon the lives of a nation 's inhabitants in the midst of war , of the people left behind

To the Lighthouse pursues and continues the tradition of modernist novelists such as Marcel Proust and James Joyce , where the plot becomes secondary only to philosophical introspection while the prose can be indirect and difficult to follow . The novel contains not much dialogue and almost no action which was mostly written as thoughts and observations of the major characters . Foremost among these characters is Lily Briscoe , whose observations on the Ramsay family form the backbone of the book

Lee (Introduction to "To the Lighthouse , illustrates that the novel brings to mind the power of childhood emotions and highlights the temporary characters of adult relationships

Through her representation of Lily Briscoe in To The Lighthouse Virginia Woolf looks forward to the major premises of feminist epistemology . Lily 's departure from the Angel of the House demonstrates her reclamation of the body ' and her rejection of the Cartesian concept of the separation of mind and body . Instead of being submissive to a husband , Lily reveals a move towards a more independent woman because she remains unmarried and strives to make her own living as an artist , rather than clean the house and raise the children which is said to be typical of women during that period . As an artist , Lily 's job is...

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