Wider Reading: Prose

Wider Reading: Prose

1. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolfe

   • Modernist novel. Stream of consciousness - progressive
   • Long paragraphs reflect complexity of modern life
     • and also the irregularities of thought
   • In light of Freud's insights - there is a quote for this.
   • Love is both beneficial and destructive
   • James Ramsay hates Mr Ramsay- his father.
     • pg.137 'I shall take a knife and strike him to the heart'
       • Freudian philosophy?
     • 'sat staring at his father in impotent rage'
     • Feels the need to fight for his mother's attention against his father
     • He is the child most criticised by his father bc Mr Ramsay feels that James has robbed him of the affection/sympathy he needs from Mrs Ramsay.
   • KEY THEME: LOVE AS DESTRUCTION
     • "it is precisely that love gives life that it has to destroy"
       • Sheldon Brivic, General OneFile
     • No form of love is exempt from destructiveness (Brivic)
     • 'Mrs Ramsay is 'reminded of the inadequacy of human relations, that the most perfect was flawed'
     • Lily Briscoe thinks of the 'horror' and 'cruelty' of love but believes it is 'necessary' an 'beautiful' nevertheless
     • Love gives purpose amid chaos: Lily thinks when Mr Bankes is gazing at Mrs Ramsay: love is 'like the love which mathematicians bear for symbols, or poets their phrases'
       • which becomes part of 'human gain'
         • all forms of love work together to better the world.
     • V.W.'s diaries
       • On Mr and Mrs Ramsay: 'his eccentricities...coincided with her normalities', likewise when he is 'sane' she is 'romantic and extreme'
         • They reciprocate each other. Harmony.
     • Mr & Mrs Ramsay are 'two different notes' but when 'struck together, seem to give each other as they combine'
       • Mrs Ramsay says 'yes' at the beginning of the novel about going to the lighthouse, but Mr Ramsay disagrees. Consequently, Woolf is showing the reader straight away that Mrs Ramsay represents comfort and emotional side of life, while her husband represents the rational and scientific.