Summary of the Articles related: To the Lighthouse

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Warmly welcome to my blog on the summary of the different articles related to the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.

Mythic Patterns in To The Lighthouse

Joseph L. Blotner's essay, "Mythic Patterns in To the Lighthouse," argued that Mrs. Ramsay should be understood as a "primordial goddess" composed of "the major female characters of pagan myth." He also made a case for the importance of Freudian thought in the novel.Virginia Woolfs To the Lighthouse functions in part as a mythic text-that is, one that employs not a simple narrative structure, but rather a layout reliant, at least in part, on mythical allusions-one must first demonstrate that the central characters of the novel do bear at least some resemblance to deities or figures from antiquity. 

Of the characters in To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Ramsay is one of the most clearly mythical figures. She likened Demeter, goddess of agriculture and fertility, whose daughter, Persephone, Hades famously abducted, thereby creating the mythical explanation for the changing of the seasons. While Woolf herself never makes a direct allusion to equate the two, the text of To the Lighthouse makes plain that Mrs. Ramsay is to be understood symbolically when Lily, the novel's artist protagonist, observes her with her husband: 

"For Mrs. Ramsay was wearing a green shawl, and they were standing close together. .. And suddenly the meaning which, for no reason at all ... descends on people, making them symbolic, making them representative, came upon them, and made them in the dusk standing, looking, the symbols of marriage, husband and wife" (Woolf 110-111 ). 

To be sure, this passage invites symbolic, or mythical, readings that attend to Mrs. Ramsay's ~-deification and likeness to Demeter. The most obvious evidence of such deification comes through Woolf's physical descriptions of Mrs. Ramsay, as well as other characters' reactions to her, for, as Joseph Blotner rightly observes in his article "Mythic Patterns in 'To the Lighthouse,"

"Mrs. Ramsay has many physical attributes of a goddess" 

(Blotner 551 ). 

Woolf portrays Mrs. Ramsay as stunningly beautiful, and regally composed through the eyes and thoughts of her other characters. Mr. Tansley, a friend of Mr. Ramsay notable primarily for his espousing of egocentric male thought, takes pride in even being in her presence. 

Fluidity vs Masculinity: Lily's Dilemman Woolf's To The Lighthouse

To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Ramsay's daughters are presented as sporting with "infidel ideas . . . for there was in all their minds a mute questioning of deference and chivalry," and, somewhat puzzlingly, they are also credited with "manliness in their girlish hearts" (pp. 10-11). The girls, in spite of the very strong pressure to conform coming from their mother, "addressing herself particularly to her daughters" (p. 9). As a matter of fact, of the three daughters named, two of them, Nancy and Rose, are so to speak non-existent in the novel, and the third, Prue, occasionally mentioned, dies from too complete an obedience to her mother's wishes. Lily was an orphan, with a mother never alluded to and a shadowy father off Brompton Road, Lily does function as an adopted, but marginalized, daughter.

She stands painting "on the edge of the lawn," while Mrs. Ramsay reflects that what Lily may think simply "did not matter". Her fight against patriarchy and its ministering figure of the "Angel in the House" will be [End Page 271]. Lily is statistically more present than Mrs. Ramsay. Gender-oriented criticism has recently restored the balance in her favor, but often with diverging conclusions, so that it now seems appropriate to assess the new perspectives, taking as their main theoretical support analyses by Melanie Klein and by Julia Kristeva. At the same time, as To the Lighthouse is a kind of Künstlerroman, it is fairly easy to follow Lily's progression and setbacks from the morning of her return to the island in part III. 

Vision in To The Lighthouse by Glenn Pedersen

the vision of two female protagonists Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe and their views about life and marriage. nobody really takes her as a painter and she has to struggle not only against her hostess’s feeling that “one could not take her painting very seriously” but also against Charles Tansley’s whispering in her ear that “women can’t paint, women can’t write”.. Lily achieves her vision about life of Mrs. Ramsay and her attitude toward her family. “SOMEONE had blundered." The vision of Lily Briscoe reveals that it was Mrs. Ramsay. 

Superficially Mrs. Ramsay is a beautiful, positive creature, but gradually unveiled as the vision of Lily Briscoe unfolds, she is revealed as the negative force which usurps the lighthouse and thus prevents the integration of the family while she lives.Lily Briscoe, as for Mrs. Ramsay, the Lighthouse symbolizes her vision of life. When Mr. Ramsay lands on the shore of the Lighthouse, Lily simultaneously finishes her painting which expresses her vision of life. Fulfillment of Lily Briscoe's vision completely establishes the nature of the Ramsay family, and added leitmotivs and images of window and lighthouse, land and sea, repeat the theme on the symbolic level until at the end the unity of the painting is complete when Lily Briscoe has had her vision.

Citations:

Blotner, Joseph L. “Mythic Patterns in to the Lighthouse.” PMLA, vol. 71, no. 4, 1956, pp. 547–562. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/460631. Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.

Viola, André. “Fluidity versus Muscularity: Lily's Dilemma in Woolf's ‘To the Lighthouse.’” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 24, no. 2, 2000, pp. 271–289.

Pedersen,Glenn."Vision in the Lighthouse." PMLA, vol.73, no.5, 1958, pp.585-600. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/460303

Accessed 22 oct. 2020.

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