NOVEL II Lecture 9

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NOVEL IILecture 9
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SYNOPSIS

• VIRGINIA WOOLf
• Her Major Works- A Quick Look
• Theme of Feminism
• To the Lighthouse

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SYNOPSIS

• 7. Interior Monologue
• 8. Mrs Dalloway and Modernism
• Homosexuality
• Mental illness
• 9. Orlando and Modernism
• 10. Contextual Background
• 11. Another Perspective
• 12. Summary- To the Lighthouse (Chapter 1-9)

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Works

• The Voyage Out (1915) tells the story through
  South America of a rich woman, Rachel Vinrage,
  her love story with Terence Hewett and his sudden
  death due to a tropical fever, when she believes
  that she has reached happiness.
• Night and Day (1919) critical towards society,
  the plot focuses on two women, sweet Katherine
  Hilbert and emancipated Mary Datchet.
• Jacobs Room (1922) tells of a young student at
  the University of Cambridge, his loves and his
  journeys in France and Greece ad of his death
  during the world war I.
• Mrs Dalloway (1925) the story begins and ends in
  a span of 12 hours, during which Mrs Dalloway
  prepares a party.
• To The Light House (1927) tells the excursion of
  a group of characters to one of the Hebrides
  islands. The landscape is the bond that unites
  the characters among themselves and with
  landscape itself.

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Works

• Orlando (1928) is a sort of biography of
  Victoria Sackville-West. In the book are told the
  reincarnations of the protagonist Orlando (that
  at some point changes sex) in various historical
  periods, the vicissitudes of the Sackville-West
  family from the Elizabethan age to the present.
• The Waves (1931) a kind of poem in prose, where
  the impressions of some characters, are presented
  through a series of monologues.
• The Years (1937) marks a partial return to
  traditional storytelling techniques. Narrates the
  story of a generation and their vision of life.
• Between the Acts (1941) reveals as the most
  poetic of the writers novels, which seeks an
  appropriate narrative form for years to attempt
  to faithfully express their world and changing
  perceptions. The book lacks a proper conclusion.

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A ROOM OF ONES OWN

• Intellectual freedom depends upon material
  things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom.
  And women have always been poor, not for two
  hundred years merely, but from the beginning of
  time. Women have had less intellectual freedom
  than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then,
  have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry.
  That is why I have laid so much stress on money
  and a room of one's own
• The main theme is t FEMINISM

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A ROOM OF ONES OWN

• The title anticipates the first interpretation of
  the problem which Woolf develops through book. In
  fact women have never had a room to study, read
  or just think.
• For Woolf fundamental to be an independent
  woman is the room and 500 pounds a year
• The extract about Shakespeare and his talented
  sister Woolf wants to show that, there are
  different opportunities offered to women and men
  and the choice involves different effects
  according to the fact that you are a woman or a
  man.

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A ROOM OF ONES OWN

• Woolf considers writing fundamental to her
  existence and she thinks that to be an artist
  means to have a perfect combination of masculine
  and feminine qualities, so she tries to solve the
  problem by adopting two different styles
• one for her pieces of criticism and essays, which
  were clear, logical, concise ,masculine
• the other one for her works of imagination, which
  were poetic, clear, transparent, flexible,
  rhythmic, femminine.

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A ROOM OF ONES OWN

• She has tried all her life to combine the
  male and the female into an androgynous mind
  calm, stable, not touched by the consciousness of
  sex, but she realizes that this idea is utopian
  because it represents an escape from the
  confrontation with femaleness and maleness
• Who can measure the fervor and violence of the
  heart of a poet when taken and remains trapped in
  a body of a woman?

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To the Lighthouse
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TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

• The novel is highly autobiographical. It is
  based on her childhood recollections of holidays
  in Cornwall, which becomes an isle in the
  Hebrides in the novel.
• There are close links between Virginias
  chidlhood and the Lighthouse
• Mr Mrs Ramsay and their relationship ?
  Virginias own father and mother
• Premature Death of Mrs Ramsay ? death of her mom
• Death of one of Ramsay children in war ? death of
  Victorias own brother
• She writes this novel prompted by a deep
  psychological urge to distance herself from
  obsession of her childhood memories .Memories
  element in the novel, however, are transformed
  and take on a symbolical and universal values.

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The lighthouse

• Its in the centre of the novel and has a
  symbolic rule its alternation of light and
  darkness represents the contradictory aspects of
  life.
• In fact, as the sea, it reflects in the first
  part - the situation of happiness and enjoyment
  of the character.
• Then-in the second one- the destructive aspects
  symbolizes the pain of the family.

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Interior Monologue

• Interior monologue is often confused with Stream
  of Consciousness but the former is the verbal
  expression of a psychic phenomenon.
• Its distinguished by immediacy ? Immediate
  speech is freed from introductory expressions
  like he thought, he remembered, he said.., from
  formal structures and from logical and
  chronological order.
• Interior monologue in the To the Lighthouse is
  characterised by
• The narrator is present within the narration
• The character stays fixed in space while his-her
  consciousness moves freely in time.

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Immediate speech without introductory expressions
Verbal expression of a psychic phenomen
Interior monologue
Lack of chronological order
Narrator present
Action takes place within the characters mind
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Mrs Dalloway and Modernism

• Feminism
• As a commentary on inter-war society, Clarissa's
  character highlights the role of women as the
  proverbial "Angel in the House" and embodies both
  sexual and economic repression.
• She keeps up with and even embraces the social
  expectations of the wife of a politician, but she
  is still able to express herself in the parties
  she throws.
• Sally Seton, who Clarissa admires dearly, is
  remembered as a great independent woman she
  smoked cigars, once ran down a corridor naked to
  fetch her sponge-bag, and made bold, unladylike
  statements to get a reaction from people.
• When Clarissa meets her in the present day, she
  turns out to be a perfect housewife, having
  married a rich man and had five sons

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Mrs Dalloway

• Homosexuality
• Clarissa Dalloway was strongly attracted to Sally
  at Bourton -- twenty years later, she still
  considers the kiss they shared to be the happiest
  moment of her life.
• She feels about women "as men feel but she does
  not recognize these feelings as signs of
  homosexuality.
• She and Sally fell a little behind. T
• hen came the most exquisite moment of her whole
  life passing a stone urn with flowers in it Sally
  stopped picked a flower kiss her on the lips.

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The whole world might have turned upside down!
The others disappeared there she was alone with
Sally. And she felt that she had been given a
present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it,
not to look at it - a diamond, something
infinitely precious, wrapped up, which, as they
walked (up and down, up and down), she uncovered,
or the radiance burnt through, the revelation,
the religious feeling! (Woolf, 36)
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Mrs Dalloway

• Mental illness
• Septimus, as the shell-shocked war hero, operates
  as a pointed criticism of the treatment of
  insanity and depression. Woolf lashes out at the
  medical discourse through Septimus's decline and
  ultimate suicide
• his doctors make snap judgments about his
  condition, talk to him mainly through his wife,
  and dismiss his urgent confessions before he can
  make them.

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• Similarities in Septimus's condition to Woolf's
  own struggles with manic depression (they both
  hallucinate that birds sing in Greek, and Woolf
  once attempted to throw herself out of a window
  as Septimus finally does) lead many to read a
  strongly auto-biographical aspect into Septimus's
  character. Woolf eventually committed suicide by
  drowning

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Mrs Dalloway

• Existential issues
• When Peter Walsh sees a girl in the street and
  stalks her for half an hour, he notes that his
  relationship to the girl was "made up, as one
  makes up the better part of life."
• By focusing on character's thoughts and
  perceptions, Woolf emphasizes the significance of
  private thoughts, rather than concrete events, in
  a person's life. Most of the plot points in Mrs.
  Dalloway are realizations that the characters
  make in their own heads.

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• Fueled by her bout of ill health, Clarissa
  Dalloway is emphasized as a woman who appreciates
  life.
• Her love of party-throwing comes from a desire to
  bring people together and create happy moments.
  Her charm, according to Peter Walsh who loves
  her, is a sense of joie de vivre, always
  summarized by the sentence, "There she was."
• She interprets Septimus Smith's death as an act
  of embracing life, and her mood remains light
  even when she figures out her marriage is a lie.

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Orlando and Modernism

• TRANSLATION OF LIFE INTO LITERATURE the life of
  a writer which is the story of writing the
  turning of life into text and vice versa, which
  characterises biography in general the problem
  of literary representation , which tries to turn
  world into word.
• TRANSFORMATION oscillation from one state of
  being another, in stases of flux and repetition.
  She links forms and concepts of subjectivity to
  historical periods and explores the relationship
  between durable and mutable selves.
• ANDROGYNY the sexual ideal is a combination of
  male and female attributes which are known and
  given from the start.
• DEPTH OF UNCONSCIOUS Orlando lives through the
  centuries but never contains the totality of
  time. The self is composed not only of multiple
  identities but of multiple temporalities, and
  the existence of the unconscious suggests a
  continuity of identity through time.

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To The Lighthouse

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Context

• Virginia Woolf was born on January 25, 1882, a
  descendant of one of Victorian Englands most
  prestigious literary families.
• Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was the editor of
  the Dictionary of National Biography and was
  married to the daughter of the writer William
  Thackeray.
• Woolf grew up among the most important and
  influential British intellectuals of her time,
  and received free rein to explore her fathers
  library.

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• Her personal connections and abundant talent soon
  opened doors for her. Woolf wrote that she found
  herself in a position where it was easier on the
  whole to be eminent than obscure.
• Almost from the beginning, her life was a
  precarious balance of extraordinary success and
  mental instability.

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• As a young woman, Woolf wrote for the prestigious
  Times Literary Supplement, and as an adult she
  quickly found herself at the center of Englands
  most important literary community.
• Known as the Bloomsbury Group after the section
  of London in which its members lived, this group
  of writers, artists, and philosophers emphasized
  nonconformity, aesthetic pleasure, and
  intellectual freedom, and included such
  luminaries as the painter Lytton Strachey, the
  novelist E. M. Forster, the composer Benjamin
  Britten, and the economist John Maynard Keynes.

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• Working among such an inspirational group of
  peers and possessing an incredible talent in her
  own right, Woolf published her most famous novels
  by the mid-1920s, including The Voyage Out, Mrs.
  Dalloway, Orlando, and To the Lighthouse.
• With these works she reached the pinnacle of

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• Woolfs life was equally dominated by mental
  illness. Her parents died when she was youngher
  mother in 1895 and her father in 1904and she was
  prone to intense, terrible headaches and
  emotional breakdowns.
• After her fathers death, she attempted suicide,
  throwing herself out a window. Though she married
  Leonard Woolf in 1912 and loved him deeply, she
  was not entirely satisfied romantically or
  sexually.

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• For years she sustained an intimate relationship
  with the novelist Vita Sackville-West. Late in
  life, Woolf became terrified by the idea that
  another nervous breakdown was close at hand, one
  from which she would not recover.
• On March 28, 1941, she wrote her husband a note
  stating that she did not wish to spoil his life
  by going mad. She then drowned herself in the
  River Ouse.

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• Woolfs writing bears the mark of her literary
  pedigree as well as her struggle to find meaning
  in her own unsteady existence.
• Written in a poised, understated, and elegant
  style, her work examines the structures of human
  life, from the nature of relationships to the
  experience of time.
• Yet her writing also addresses issues relevant to
  her era and literary circle.

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• Throughout her work she celebrates and analyzes
  the Bloomsbury values of aestheticism, feminism,
  and independence.
• Moreover, her stream-of-consciousness style was
  influenced by, and responded to, the work of the
  French thinker Henri Bergson and the novelists
  Marcel Proust and James Joyce.

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• This style allows the subjective mental processes
  of Woolfs characters to determine the objective
  content of her narrative.
• In To the Lighthouse (1927), one of her most
  experimental works, the passage of time, for
  example, is modulated by the consciousness of the
  characters rather than by the clock.

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• The events of a single afternoon constitute over
  half the book, while the events of the following
  ten years are compressed into a few dozen pages.
• Many readers of To the Lighthouse, especially
  those who are not versed in the traditions of
  modernist fiction, find the novel strange and
  difficult. Its language is dense and the
  structure amorphous.

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• Compared with the plot-driven Victorian novels
  that came before it, To the Lighthouse seems to
  have little in the way of action.
• Indeed, almost all of the events take place in
  the characters minds.

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• Although To the Lighthouse is a radical departure
  from the nineteenth-century novel, it is, like
  its more traditional counterparts, intimately
  interested in developing characters and advancing
  both plot and themes.
• Woolfs experimentation has much to do with the
  time in which she lived the turn of the century
  was marked by bold scientific developments.

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• Charles Darwins theory of evolution undermined
  an unquestioned faith in God that was, until that
  point, nearly universal, while the rise of
  psychoanalysis, a movement led by Sigmund Freud,
  introduced the idea of an unconscious mind.

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• Such innovation in ways of scientific thinking
  had great influence on the styles and concerns of
  contemporary artists and writers like those in
  the Bloomsbury Group. To the Lighthouse
  exemplifies Woolfs style and many of her
  concerns as a novelist.
• With its characters based on her own parents and
  siblings, it is certainly her most
  autobiographical fictional statement, and in the
  characters of Mr. Ramsay, Mrs. Ramsay, and Lily
  Briscoe, Woolf offers some of her most
  penetrating explorations of the workings of the
  human consciousness as it perceives and analyzes,
  feels and interacts

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Another Perspective

• Published in 1927, To the Lighthouse is
  sandwiched between Virginia Woolfs other two
  most famous novels, Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and
  Orlando (1928).
• In our opinion, Woolf is totally at her best
  here, as she engages with her ongoing themes of
  memory, family, and fiction.

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• To the Lightbouse takes on some elements of
  Woolfs own life she felt stifled by her father
  in much the same way that Mr. Ramsay squeezes the
  life out of his children.
• And the sudden deaths of her mother and her
  sister Stella left her in deep mourning (echoes
  of Mrs. Ramsay and Prues deaths in To the
  Lighthouse).

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• But, Woolf herself got fed up with critics who
  insisted on reading the Ramsays as direct
  representations of the Stephens (Stephen was
  Woolfs maiden name).
• To the Lighthouse is also an extended meditation
  on the relationship between art and life, and on
  late Victorian family structures. (Source Mark
  Massey, Introduction, To the Lighthouse.
  Orlando, Florida Harcourt Books, 2005,

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• What makes To the Lighthouse important in
  literary terms is Woolfs ambitious formal
  experimentation.
• Shes really working her signature style in this
  novel, as she takes two days, separated by ten
  years, to evoke a whole picture of the Ramsay
  family life.

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• Her run-on sentences and meandering paragraphs
  work to replicate what her characters are
  thinking in addition to what theyre doing.
• Woolf is a great example of the Show Dont Tell
  School of Narration. Instead of sketching us a
  stiffly realistic portrait of her characters,
  Woolf goes for the emotional impact of their
  internal landscapes.

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Summary- To the Lighthouse

• Part One spans approximately seven hours and
  takes up more than half the book. Its set at the
  Ramsays summer home, where the Ramsays and their
  eight children are entertaining a number of
  friends and colleagues.
• The novel begins with James Ramsay, age six,
  wanting to go to the Lighthouse thats across the
  bay from the Ramsays summer home.

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• His mother, Mrs. Ramsay, holds out hope that the
  weather will be good tomorrow so they can go to
  the Lighthouse, but Mr. Ramsay is adamant that
  the weather will be awful. Charles Tansley, one
  of Mr.
• Ramsays visiting students, chimes in and
  supports Mr. Ramsays view that the weather will
  be rotten. Hes a very socially awkward young man
  who is obsessed with his dissertation.

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• Numerous small bits of action occur. For example,
  after lunch, Mrs. Ramsay takes pity on Mr.
  Tansley and asks him to accompany her into town.
  By the end of the trip, Mr. Tansley is in love
  with the much older, but still beautiful, Mrs.
  Ramsay (by the way, she is 50).

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• Later, as she sits in a window and reads a fairy
  tale to James, Mrs. Ramsay remembers that she
  must keep her head down for Lily Briscoes
  painting.

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• (If youre wondering who Lily is, we are in the
  same boat. Although, we gather shes a family
  friend.) Mrs. Ramsay has the fleeting thought
  that Lily will have a hard time getting married,
  but she likes Lily anyway and decides that Lily
  should marry William Bankes, an old friend of Mr.
  Ramsays.

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• William Bankes, who is also visiting the Ramsays,
  comes up to Lily and the two of them go for a
  walk.
• They talk about Mr. Ramsay. Meanwhile, Mr. Ramsay
  walks along the lawn and worries about mortality
  and his legacy to humankind, and then pesters
  Mrs. Ramsay to soothe his ego.

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• Mrs. Ramsay does calm her husband, and then
  starts worrying about Paul (the Ramsays guest),
  Minta (another guest), Nancy Ramsay (daughter),
  and Andrew (son), who are not yet back from the
  beach.
• She hopes that Paul has proposed to Minta.

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• At dinner, Mrs. Ramsay triumphs. The food is
  delicious she is beautiful Mr. Bankes has
  stayed for dinner and Pauls proposal to Minta
  has been accepted.
• She wishes she could freeze the moment but knows
  it is already part of the past. She tucks her
  youngest two children into bed and then sits with
  her husband as he reads.

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• They make small talk and she knows he wants her
  to say, "I love you," though she refuses.
• She gets out of it by smiling at him and telling
  him that he was right the weather will be bad
  tomorrow and they will not be able to visit the
  Lighthouse.

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• Part Two compresses ten years into about twenty
  pages.
• All the traditionally important information in a
  story (read what happened to the characters) is
  briefly imparted in brackets. We learn that Mrs.
• Ramsay, Prue Ramsay (daughter), and Andrew Ramsay
  (son) have died.

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• Mrs. Ramsay died at night Prue died in
  childbirth (after first getting married) and
  Andrew died when a shell exploded in France. Oh,
  right.
• There also happens to be a war going on World
  War I which gets glossed over in favor of
  extended descriptions of the weather and the
  summer h

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• Part Three takes place at the summer house and
  begins with Mr. Ramsay and two of his children,
  Cam and James, finally going to the Lighthouse,
  and Lily working on the painting of Mrs. Ramsay
  that she never finished. Via Lilys thoughts, we
  hear that she never married, but remained good
  friends with William Bankes. Paul and Mintas
  marriage fell apart.
• Mr. Ramsay, Cam, and James actually make it to
  the Lighthouse. Lily finishes her painting.
  Throughout this last part of the novel, its
  clear that Mrs. Ramsay is sorely missed.

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Chapter 1

• James Ramsay, age six, gets super-excited when
  his mom tells him that if the weather is good
  tomorrow, then they can take a trip to the
  Lighthouse.
• Essentially, wordy Woolf says, in a 101-word-long
  sentence, that James is so excited about the
  Lighthouse, everything in the present is colored
  by his expectant joy of tomorrows trip.When Mr.
  Ramsay says that the weather will be terrible,
  James is seized with a rampant desire to kill his
  father with an axe, a poker, or whatevers
  available.

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• James likes his mother much better than he likes
  his father, clearly.Mr. Ramsay doesnt mind
  disappointing James he wants his children to
  learn early that life is tough.
• Mrs. Ramsay, who is knitting, insists that the
  weather will be fine. She is knitting stocking
  and compiling a number of odds and ends to give
  to the Lighthouse keepers because she feels sorry
  for them.

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• Charles Tansley, who gets a lot of flak for being
  an atheist, supports Mr. Ramsays point of view
  that the weather will be awful.
• This is in keeping with his generally
  disagreeable character and constant sucking up to
  Mr. Ramsay.Everyone leaves the dinner table as
  soon as lunch is over.Mrs. Ramsay can see that
  Mr. Tansley is feeling left out, so she asks him
  to accompany her on her errands. He agrees to.

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• On their way out, Mrs. Ramsay stops and asks Mr.
  Carmichael, who is sitting on the lawn, if he
  wants anything, but he doesnt.
• On their walk into town, Mrs. Ramsay makes Mr.
  Tansley feel much better about himself so much
  so that he wants to do something manly and
  chivalrous for her, like carry her bag, but she
  insists on carrying it herself.

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• Mrs. Ramsay sees an advertisement for a circus,
  and says that they should all go.Mr. Tansley
  repeats her words but they dont come out right,
  and soon his whole sob story spills out his
  father worked a lot, he had a lot of siblings,
  they never went to the circus, now hes doing a
  dissertationblah blah blah.

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• Mrs. Ramsay thinks that hes an insufferable bore
  whos obsessed with all that academic jargon, but
  she now sees that this is his way of recovering
  from the fact that hes never been to the circus.
• The two of them come to the quay and Mrs. Ramsay
  exclaims at the beautiful view. She says her
  husband loves the view, and that loads of artists
  come to paint it.

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• The two of them watch one of the artists, and
  Mrs. Ramsay draws a comparison between the
  artists method and the method used in her
  grandmothers day.
• (Basically, everyone nowadays paints like this
  guy named Paunceforte.)Mrs. Ramsay goes inside a
  house to talk to some woman, and as Mr. Tansley
  waits in the drawing room his emotions intensify
  into deep feelings of love for Mrs. Ramsay.

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• Hes convinced that she a mother of eight
  children, and 50 years of age is the most
  beautiful woman ever.
• Hes now absolutely determined to carry her
  bag.As they walk back, Mr. Tansley is on Cloud
  Nine because hes walking next to the most
  beautiful woman ever and hes carrying her bag.
  He feels like a real man.

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Chapter 2

• Mr. Tansley tells James that theres no way they
  can go to the Lighthouse, but he softens his
  tone, out of respect for his beloved Mrs. Ramsay.
• Mrs. Ramsay thinks to herself that Mr. Tansley is
  an awful man to keep bringing that up. She
  actually calls him an "odious little man," which
  is a pretty good insult.

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Chapter 3

• Mrs. Ramsay consoles her little boy, saying that
  the weather might still turn fine tomorrow.
• She does this not because she actually believes
  it, but because she can see that James really
  wants to go to the Lighthouse.
• Mrs. Ramsay begins turning the pages of a
  catalog, looking for a rake or mowing machine.

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• Mrs. Ramsay is startled when the men stop
  talking, and concludes that Mr. Tansley has been
  cast off by the rest of the men. She is fine with
  this because Mr. Tansley has hurt James with all
  of his bad weather comments, anyway.
• Mrs. Ramsay remembers that she has promised to
  keep her head down for the portrait that Lily
  Briscoe is painting. She thinks briefly that Lily
  will never get married, then bends her head again.

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Chapter 4

• A man who is not identified but we later find
  out is Mr. Ramsay comes out of the house
  shouting lines from Lord Tennysons The Charge of
  the Light Brigade, and almost knocks over Lily
  Briscoes easel.Lily is relieved that he runs
  away.
• She really hates it when anyone looks at what
  shes painting.But then, she has this moment
  where she listens to incoming footsteps and
  figures out that they belong to William Bankes.
• Shes fine with William Bankes seeing her
  painting in fact, she and William are
  buddy-buddy.

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• Mr. Ramsay stares at them William Bankes
  suggests that he and Lily take a stroll.
• They walk over to where they can see the
  beautiful water of the bay, and feel united in
  watching the waves. How romantic.

68

• Mr. Bankes thinks about the difference between
  his and Mr. Ramsays lives. He and Mr. Ramsay
  were once good friends, but their lives took
  different paths Mr. Ramsay has a wife and many
  children, whereas Mr. Bankes is childless and a
  widower.
• Mr. Bankes believes that Mr. Ramsay is a great
  man, but at the same time understands that the
  "spice" has gone out of their friendship.

69

• As Mr. Bankes begins walking back to the house,
  he sees Cam, the Ramsays youngest daughter,
  throwing a rebellious temper tantrum against her
  nursemaid, who wants the girl to give away a
  flower.
• Mr. Bankes is amazed that the Ramsays manage to
  raise eight children on philosophy (meaning that
  Mr. Ramsay works in philosophy and cant possibly
  make enough money).

70

• In his mind, each of the eight children is
  connected with a different superlative. We hear
  four of them Cam the Wicked, James the Ruthless
  (hes the one that wanted to axe his dad two
  chapters ago), Andrew the Just, and Prue the
  Fair.
• So, in spite of the aforementioned difficulty
  keeping track of whos who, we at least know that
  these four are Mr. and Mrs. Ramsays kids.

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• Lily thinks of Mr. Ramsays work, which Andrew
  ("the Just") equates to "a kitchen table when
  youre not there."
• Dont worry if youre not getting Woolfs drift.
  Its all philosophical stuff about the nature of
  reality.

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• Lily and Mr. Bankes discuss Mr. Ramsays work.As
  the two of them walk back, a shot rings out and a
  flock of starlings take flight.
• Mr. Ramsay yells, "Someone had blundered!" He
  then turns and slams his private door.

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Chapter 5

• Mrs. Ramsay takes her stocking and measures it up
  against Jamess leg as she, in a flash of
  inspiration, decides that William and Lily should
  marry.
• James fidgets deliberately, jealous that the
  stocking is for the Lighthouse boy.

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• Mrs. Ramsay looks up, confused, and reflects on
  the room they are in, and then the whole house.
  Its getting shabbier and shabbier every summer,
  she concludes.
• She speaks sharply to her boy and he straightens
  up. The stocking is too short.

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• We get a couple of paragraphs about Mrs. Ramsays
  beauty how shes not aware of it, and how she
  has a certain personality that is inseparable
  from her beauty.Mrs. Ramsay continues knitting
  the stocking, kisses her little boy, and suggests
  that they go cut out some pictures.

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Chapter 6

• With the phrase "someone had blundered" ringing
  in her ears, Mrs. Ramsay watches her husband
  approach.She can sense that hes distraught, and
  gives him time to collect himself.
• The two of them chat about Charles Tansley and
  the possibility of going to the Lighthouse
  tomorrow. Mrs. Ramsay thinks its possible. Mr.
  Ramsay does not, and is irritated that his wife
  disagrees.

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• Mr. Ramsay thinks that female minds are
  irrational.Mrs. Ramsay thinks that its indecent
  for Mr. Ramsay to crush hope.Mrs. Ramsay bends
  her head and Mr. Ramsay then feels bad. He
  promises to ask the Coastguards.

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• Mr. Ramsay leaves, still murmuring "someone had
  blundered" under his breath only now its more
  joyful.
• Mr. Ramsay walks up and down around the garden,
  and thinks for a long time about how to be
  amazing.

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Chapter 7

• Now we get a really, really long paragraph from
  Jamess point of view about how much he hates his
  father. This is, after all, "James the Ruthless.
• Mr. Ramsay comes over and declares that hes a
  total failure.Mrs. Ramsay strokes his ego until
  he finally leaves to watch the kids play cricket.

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• Mrs. Ramsay sort of crumples after her husband
  leaves, but turns back to the fairy tale she is
  reading to James.
• Shes angry because she doesnt like feeling
  better than her husband.Augustus Carmichael
  shuffles by and Mrs. Ramsay asks if he is going
  indoors.

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Chapter 8

• Mr. Carmichael does not respond, and we get an
  extended ramble down Mrs. Ramsays Memory Lane.
  We suggest that you take a deep breath right now.
  Ok, here we goMr. Carmichael takes opium, which
  the children say stains his beard.
• Mrs. Ramsay thinks Mr. Carmichael is obviously
  unhappy and comes to stay with the Ramsays each
  year as an escape.Mr. Carmichael doesnt trust
  her Mrs. Ramsay blames his deceased wife.

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• Mrs. Ramsay goes out of her way to be nice to
  him. She suspects that her desire to be helpful
  and nice is merely vanity, and that Mr.
  Carmichaels rejection of her efforts reveals the
  pettiness in her character.
• And were back. Mrs. Ramsay continues reading The
  Fisherman and his Wife to James.

83

• Mr. Ramsay stops, looks at his wife and kid, nods
  approvingly, and continues walking.As he walks,
  he thinks. You may ask, what is he thinking
  about?
• In a sentence He wonders what would happen if
  Shakespeare had never existed, and from there
  somehow concludes that the greatest good of
  society requires a class of slaves.

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Chapter 9

• Mr. Ramsay walks to a piece of land which he
  cant seem to avoid. The sea is eating it away.
• And now we have a metaphor! The sea is human
  ignorance.Mr. Ramsay always needs praise.
• Lily puts away her painting things and Mr. Ramsay
  walks back to the house, stopping once to look
  back at the sea.

85

• Lily and Mr. Bankes criticize Mr. Ramsay as Lily
  puts away her brushes.
• Lily is about to criticize Mrs. Ramsay as well
  when she sees the look of complete adoration that
  Mr. Bankes, age 60, turns on Mrs. Ramsay.
• Watching Mrs. Ramsay gives Mr. Bankes the same
  feeling he gets when solving a scientific problem.

86

• As Lily wipes her brushes, she is cheered by the
  thought that people can love this way.
• She looks at her picture and nearly has a nervous
  breakdown because its bad!Lily recalls Mr.
  Tansleys words that women cant paint or write.
• Lily joins Mr. Bankes in staring at Mrs. Ramsay.

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• Lily begins to think about Mrs. Ramsay,
  considering what comprises Mrs. Ramsays unique
  identity.
• Mr. Bankes stops watching Mrs. Ramsay and looks
  at Lilys painting.Lily braces herself.
• Mr. Bankes asks the meaning of the purple
  triangle.

88

• Lily says that its meant to represent Mrs.
  Ramsay reading to James.
• They talk briefly about light and dark and
  composition.
• Lily feels that she has shared something very
  intimate with Mr. Bankes .

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Review Lecture 9

• VIRGINIA WOOLf
• Her Major Works- A Quick Look
• Theme of Feminism
• To the Lighthouse

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Review Lecture 9

• 7. Interior Monologue
• 8. Mrs Dalloway and Modernism
• Homosexuality
• Mental illness
• 9. Orlando and Modernism
• 10. Contextual Background
• 11. Another Perspective
• 12. Summary- To the Lighthouse (Chapter 1-9)

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Agenda Lecture 10

• Discussion continue (Chapter 10-19)
• List of Characters
• Analysis of major Characters