To The Lighthouse - Thinking Activity

 

Hello friends,

"I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out;

and I thought how it is worse,

perhaps, to be locked in."

-Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf is considered to be one of the greatest twentieth century novelists and one of the pioneers, among modernist writers using stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength.

She is arguably the major lyrical novelist in the English language. Her novels are highly experimental: a narrative, frequently uneventful and commonplace, is refracted—and sometimes almost dissolved—in the characters' receptive consciousness.

Let's try to answer some of the interesting points assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad sir.

The  lighthouse  symbolizes the  dreams and wishes  of characters in the  novel.

(1)How can you explain that 'what' Virginia Woolf wanted to say (for example, the complexity of human relationship, the everyday battles that people are at in their relationship with near and dear ones, the struggle of a female artist against the values of middle/upper class society etc) can only be said in the way she has said? 

We have in To The Lighthouse a galaxy of fictional characters whose earnest endeavour is to establish, with varying degrees of success, happy and healthy relationship with the people around them. Accepting this as its main theme the novel may justly be called a study of the ways and means by which satisfactory human relationship might be established with the people around them.

In human society words are the main sources of communication between one person and another. Unfortunately words are very often inadequate for the purpose. And hence this is one of the main reasons for the failure to establish healthy and satisfactory human relationships. The difficulty is that very often words cannot express the full complexity of a character’s thoughts and feelings. Then again what the words express is only a fraction of what a character thinks and feels, and as a result they become misleading. These aspects of verbal inadequacy were quite evident to Mrs. Woolf. And many of her characters reveal this inadequacy in a distinct manner. Lily feels this strongly as in the third part of the novel she is seen standing near to Carmichael on the lawn and trying to explain Mrs. Ramsay: 

“And she wanted to say not one thing, but every thing. Little words that broke up the thought and dismembered it, said nothing. ‘About life, about death; about Mrs. Ramsay’

—no she thought one could say nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed the mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches to low.

In the novel we also find that how things trivial or of very little importance are greatly helpful in establishing congenial human relationships. In the beginning of the third or final movement of the book we find Mr. Ramsay the widower coming to Lily demanding sympathy. She really feels very helpless and words fail her in the beginning. Suddenly his boots catch her eyes and she praises his boots. This brings great relief and Mr. Ramsay feels satisfied. Apparently Lily’s remarks may seem silly or comic. But ‘Mr. Ramsay smiled. His pall, his draperies, his infirmities fell from him’. Thus it helped to establish perfect sympathy and understanding between Lily and Mr. Ramsay and Lily ‘felt her eyes swell and tingle with tears’.

Emotional understanding and a genuine sympathetic attitude are greatly needed for satisfactory relationships even between parents and children, and husband and wife. And in the very first scene of the novel we find how far the lack of these mental aspects Mr. Ramsay becomes an intolerable tyrant or a ‘sarcastic brute’ in the eyes of his children. He tells James the dire truth ‘it won’t be fine’—without caring a bit for a young child’s dreams and desires. And James feels like gashing a hole in his father’s breast to kill him there and then. But Mrs. Ramsay with her loving soul and sympathetic understanding wins the heart of the children and is tremendously loved and admired by her children. She undoubtedly soothes them by telling them that the weather might change for the better. But it is only to make the world a better and happier place.

Mrs. Ramsay is also upset in her own way. With her loving heart and sympathetic bent of mind she wants to make people happy in this world and longs for protecting her children from losing the contented innocence of childhood. Hence her husband’s irrational and stern attitude seems to her equally repugnant,

“to pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other people’s feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilization so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency’. 

But very soon after this incident they begin to come together again. It starts with Mrs. Ramsay’s apology. And after this we find that the remaining sections of ‘The Window’ move towards the moment at the end, when the firm asperity of the masculine mind, which she admires in him, curbs her gloomy thoughts and she is able, though indirectly, to assure him of her love.

“And as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she has not said a word, he knew, of course that she loved him”.

We may now rightly assert that To The Lighthouse very reveals a close study of the ways and means by which satisfactory and congenial human relationships might be established.

(2)Do you agree: "The novel is both the tribute and critique of Mrs. Ramsay"? (Key: Take some clues from the painting of Mrs Ramsay drawn by Lily Briscoe and the article by Andre Viola and Glenn Pedersen. Can we read Mrs. R in context of the idea of Ideal Indian Woman

We feel the imposing physical presence of Mrs. Ramsay only in the first part of the To the Lighthouse. After that she is no more in the land of the living. Even then she pervades the whole book. Her influence on other important characters -- especially on Lily Briscoe -- is really very great. It is only to fulfill one of Mrs. Ramsay's cherished wishes that Mr. Ramsay undertakes the journey to the Lighthouse. And it is the vision of this departed soul that inspires Lily Briscoe to take up her brush again to complete her great picture. James Hafley is quite correct when he remarks that Mrs. Ramsay dead is more powerful than Mr. Ramsay living.

The most outstanding trait of Mrs. Ramsay's character is her compassion for the poor and the unfortunate, the great concern and consideration for the children and infinite sympathy for the unhappy and neglected souls. In the very first few chapters we find her busy in knitting stocking for the sick son of the Lighthouse-keeper.

Woolf tells us "Again she felt, as a fact without hostility, the sterility of men, for if she did not do it nobody would do it ...." She wants men and women to be united and become fruitful like herself. At the intellectual level she offers her protection and inspiration to both science and art -- to Lily the painter, to Bankes the botanist, to Carmichael the poet, to Tansley the scholar and above all to her husband the philosopher. For all this, critics like James hold the view that Mrs. Ramsay has been treated as a symbol and has not been individualized by the novelist.

Mrs. Ramsay might have some little flaws in her character such as her susceptibility to flattery. It might be that she wanted to be appreciated while helping others or doing some good deed. But with her extreme civility and goodness, with her irresistible charms and dominating personality, she is a unique character. 

Hence E.M. Forster's views that 

"she could seldom so portray a character that it was remembered afterwards on its own account, as Emma is remembered...."

 seems untenable to us. 

We may conclude by quoting the apt remarks of Joan Bennett: 

"Mrs. Ramsay, Mrs. Dalloway, Eleanor Pargiter, each of the main personalities in Between the Acts, and many others from her books, inhabit the mind of the reader and enlarge the capacity for sympathy. It is sympathy rather than judgement that she invokes, her personages are apprehended rather than comprehended."

Thus novel is both, tribute and critique of Mrs. Ramsay.

(3)Considering symbolically, does the Lighthouse stand for Mrs. Ramsay or the narrator (Virginia Woolf herself who is categorically represented by Lily)?

“So that was the Lighthouse, was it?

No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one thing.”

The Lighthouse symbolizes human desire, a force that pulsates over the indifferent sea of the natural world and guides people's passage across it. Yet even as the Lighthouse stands constant night and day, season after season, it remains curiously unattainable.

Ramsay in To The Lighthouse Virginia Woolf's novel, To The Lighthouse, is full of symbolism that describes the surroundings and the life of Mrs. Ramsay who is the central character. She helps to bring the world out of chaos and darkness with her positive nature and by being the source of light for the other characters.

Mrs. Ramsay emerges from the novel's opening pages not only as a woman of great kindness and tolerance but also as a protector. Indeed, her primary goal is to preserve her youngest son James's sense of hope and wonder surrounding the lighthouse.

Woolf depicts initial and original impressions of things and characters. She exemplifies how Mrs. Ramsay serve as reminders of memories, associations and other senses of meaning that need not be in evident relation to the object at all, but formed within the subjective self. 

Woolf’s interest in multiple perspectives of reality expands into her engagement in different modes of representation. Aspects of life, objects, and people, can be represented in different ways.

(4)What do you understand by the German term 'Künstlerroman'? How can you justify that 'To The Lighthouse' is 'Künstlerroman' novel?

Kunstlerroman' meaning "Artist's Novel" in English, is a narrative about an Artist's growth to maturity. To the Lighthouse is 'Kunstlerroman' novel because in this novel growth in this novel

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. 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. 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.

Lily’s progress in her painting is much like James Ramsay’s journey to the lighthouse. 

Lily Briscoe’s painting is a way for her to express her defiance of the social conventions which men impose on her. Lily lives an unconventional life by her society’s standard. She has no desire to marry. She is serious in her artistic pursuits, and yet the people around her disregard her abilities.

Charles Tansley declares that “women can’t write, women can’t paint”. Even Mrs. Ramsay thinks that no one could “take her painting very seriously”. Nonetheless, Lily disregards the opinions of others. She is very independent-minded and very determined. Lily’s painting reflects her personal vision of the world. Lily is determined to paint the world as she sees it. She will not let the opinions of others interfere with her vision of the world.

(6)"... the wages of obedience is death, and the daughter that reproduces mothering to perfection, including child-bearing, already has on her cheeks the pallor of death. One reminded here of various texts by Lucy Irigaray, in which she attacks mothers for being, however unwillingly, accomplices in the patriarchal system of oppression." (Viola). In light of this remark, explain briefly Lily's dilemma in 'To The Lighthouse'.

Consider the middle section of the book, in which Woolf uses words to sketch the essence of ten years of time's passage for the Ramsay family by focusing on the slow decline of their house in the Isle of Skye. Woolf works obliquely (in other words, indirectly and in a wandering manner) to depict the decay of the Ramsay family without ever actually coming out and showing how the family has interacted over those ten years. And this is really similar to the painting strategy that Lily uses in To the Lighthouse:

Lily's painting of James and Mrs. Ramsay suggests Mrs. Ramsay's character with a few lines and a bit of purple shadowing:

"she had made no attempt at likeness." 

Lily attempts to capture something truthful in her portrait without being too picky about making the painting actually look like Mrs. Ramsay. And in painting the essence of Mrs. Ramsay rather than her physical form, she's not trying to get only Mrs. Ramsay; she's also trying to represent something ineffable or inexpressible about "mother and child [...] objects of universal veneration" 

(8)You have compared the 'beginning' and the 'ending' of the novel and the film adaptation of the novel directed by Colin Gregg (you can see it again in the embedded video below this). Do you think that the novel is more poignant than the movie? If yes, do you ascribe the fact that the power of words is much greater than that of the screen / visuals?

First off, movies are primarily visual, while novels are verbal.

Movies tell stories mainly with images. Novels have, for the most part, one tool and one tool only: language. Picture books include images as well as text, but the older the intended audience, the fewer illustrations tend to appear. In a novel, everything has to be done with words, which are processed in a linear fashion as the reader reads, right to left, one word at a time.

What this means is that a movie can make a huge impact with a single image. 

In the twentieth century, there are two culturally dominant ways of experiencing fiction available to us: the visual forms of film and the prose forms of novel.

Surface v/s interior

Since the camera can only show the surface, the film has to use some other methods to express people’s thought. For example, in the last scene of To The Lighthouse spirit of womanhood and happiness of extend level for Lily Briscoe. However, film can’t reveal Woolf's detailed description about people’s changing attitude.

And finally,

“everybody hoped that it is finished”. 

The film presents this rather complicated course through Briscoe's cold facial expression. Obviously, this is far from enough to describe the proud and disagreeable Briscoe in the novel. 

This difference between film and novel actually gives the audiences and readers different experiences.

(9)How do you interpret the last line of the novel (It was done; it was finished.

Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.) with reference to the ending of the film (After the final stroke on the canvass with finishing touch, Lily walks inside the house. As she goes ante-chamber, the light and dark shade makes his face play hide-and-seek. She climbs stairs, puts her brush aside, walks through the dark and light to enter her room. Gently closes the door - speaks: "Closed doors, open windows" - lies on the bed and with some sort of satisfaction utters: "Dearest Briscoe, you are a fool".) 

To the Lighthouse ends with Lily Briscoe having a revelation about her own work.

As Lily paints, she manages to use her artwork to gain perspective on Mr. Ramsay and everything he stands for. She contains him and sees him for what he's worth. And in the moment that Mr. Ramsay reaches the Lighthouse, thus, as we the readers know, reconciling with his son, Lily sees thaton one truly has power over her modes of artistic production. She can paint whatever she likes, however she likes, because she no longer feels the weight of the social and gender hierarchies that society represented to her.

Even though the painting remains unfinished during the visit described in part one, its idea is taken up again in part three, when Lily returns. She remembers that

 “there had been a problem about a foreground of a picture. . . . It had been knocking about in her mind all these years”. But now “it seemed as if the solution had come to her: she knew now what she wanted to do”. 

Prompted by inspiration, she is able to overcome doubt and start painting, settling into a rhythm where everything falls into place, only to be later arrested and distressed by a thought that

 “she could not achieve that razor edge of balance between two opposite forces; Mr. Ramsay [on the boat, approaching the lighthouse] and the picture”.

It seems that her solution has deceived her, and for a moment, Lily feels despondent, frustrated with “the human apparatus for painting or for feeling; it always broke down at the critical moment”. 

She resolves to wait for the return of her inspiration, and, in the end, it is there for her. As the boat touches the shore, she is struck by a revelation, a sudden knowledge of what is missing and how she should complete her painting.

(10)What does the catalogue named as 'Army and Navy' signify? What does cutting of 'Refrigerator'  signify?

Time is slightly timeless in To the Lighthouse.

Refrigerators slow down and stave off decay. Against that, the refrigerator is also a symbol of change, of technology changing and presumably improving human culture. The refrigerator is an instrument of science, and it occupies the same sphere as the lighthouse. It could be viewed as a domestic lighthouse of sorts.

Let see all kinds of interesting objects and  go to approach the question of “Why a refrigerator?” from another angle. If left to his own devices, James would probably have picked another object to cut out, a gun, a bicycle, a model screw steam boat, or even, say, car. Thinking about the refrigerator in this way sharpens the realization that James is guided in his choice by Mrs. Ramsay. 

Later in the novel, while thinking about how “all these young men parodied her husband,” Mrs. Ramsay turns the pages of the Stores list in the hope of coming upon something else for James to cut out. 

The refrigerator, too, was presumably her choice, and it should therefore be associated with her, and with her role as a preserver and shaper of culture. It is in connection with the refrigerator that she imagines him 

“all red and ermine on the Bench or directing a stern and momentous enterprise in some crisis of public affairs.”