Hi Everyone- Sorry this was so late.
What appeals to me most in Woolf’s novel is the role gender expectations play in communication and the way the characters strive to achieve real intimacy. To explain this, it is important to look at the characters of interest whom acquire this certain urge. Firstly, the ever perfect example of a Victorian dame, whom attains a solid marriage of which defines her existence. However, there is a lack of communication, which appears to keep Mrs Ramsay from having a truly close connection with her husband. To contrast this, Woolf provides her audience with an intriguing character, Lily Briscoe, who is the opposite to Mrs Ramsay in most aspects- she is single, a painter and defies societies expectations of a woman. While Lily does not have the ‘ideal’ life in the eyes of many women in her life, she acquires friendships, which contain real intimacy-something that Mrs Ramsay’s tiresome marriage lacks.
While these two contrasting characters are successful in their ploy to juxtapose ideals in society, Woolf achieves this through other, more intricate means. Through the use of tone, Woolf avoids the stereotypical topic of how rash the women of the Victorian era were, and provides her audience with something much more meaningful and complex. While it would be far more interesting to read a novel with an angry or disapproving tone, Woolf portrays Lily with tenderness, words that are soft and touching. As an audience, we are being reminded of Lily’s urge to escape her tight night, judgmental society. Below is an extract about the social expectations upon Lily and her struggle to come to grips with it:
There is a code of behaviour, she knew, whose seventh article (it may be) says that on occasions of this sort it behoves the woman, whatever her own occupation might be, to go to the help of the young man opposite so that he may expose and relieve the thigh bones, the ribs, of his vanity, of his urgent desire to assert himself; as indeed it is their duty, she reflected, in her old maidenly fairness, to help us, suppose the Tube were to burst into flames. Then, she thought, I should certainly expect Mr. Tansley to get me out. But how would it be, she thought, if neither of us did either of these things? So she sat there smiling. (pg. 74-75)
It is evident in Mrs Ramsay’s case that the burden to be a happily married couple is on both Mr and Mrs Ramsay. Mr Ramsay’s belief in the ‘righteousness’ demands sympathy, for his own emotional needs still does not satisfy his needs. It is characters like Lily, who go against the code of behaviour-giving the reader a rest from the trivial discussions about the expectations of women.
The way in which Woolf creates a sense of consciousness in the novel means the reader is able to connect with the character from the inside- inflections from characters allow us to intimately acknowledge the characters preventing us from passing judgment on them. For instance, Lily says to herself:
…but nevertheless, the fact remained, it was impossible to dislike any one if one looked at them. (pg.70)
While this idea of consciousness is successful in its ability to form relationships between character and audience, it’s counterpart, the stream of consciousness is challenging. Woolf was one of the first authors to use this technique, paving the way for modern writers. The sentences are heavily punctuated, to the point where punctuation is unnecessarily pointed, thus becoming unfriendly to read. However, because this stream of consciousness is consistent throughout, it becomes a type of pattern, almost rhythmic-thus making it easier to read as one adjusts themselves to the concept. For example in Ramsay’s soliloquy:
“Strife, divisions, difference of opinion, prejudices twisted into the very fiber of being, oh, that they should begin so early, Mrs. Ramsay deplored. They were so critical, her children. They talked such nonsense. She went from the dining room, holding James by the hand, since he would not go with the others. It seemed to her such nonsense-inventing differences, when people, heaven knows, were different enough without that.” (pg. 11)
Furthermore, not only does Woolf address the issue of gender expectations, she also expresses how a strictly forbearing society can affect enlightened ‘artistic’ women, such as Lily, in a negative way. Through the use of repetition, it is not only drilled into Lily the character, but also the reader that women are not to be artistic, or more appropriately, can NOT be artistic. While Lily never obeys these idea’s in society and keeps doing what she loves, she does begin to question herself, making her insecure in what she thought she was so confident in.
It is evident that Woolf felt some sense of control and power in men in her era, that women were too often taking the back seat in life-as a result, women were labeled by what they should be doing, what is ‘right’ by their husband and what is ‘right’ by society. Woolf’s writing whilst confusing and sometimes disjunctive, is enlightening to a modern woman and exposes truths that existed in her era and still exist today.
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. London, England: Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire, 1996.
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