Title: NOVEL II Lecture 9
1NOVEL IILecture 9
2SYNOPSIS
- VIRGINIA WOOLf
- Her Major Works- A Quick Look
- Theme of Feminism
- To the Lighthouse
3SYNOPSIS
- 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)
4Works
- 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.
5Works
- 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.
6A 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
-
7A 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.
8A 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.
9A 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?
10To the Lighthouse
11 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.
12 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.
13Interior 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.
14Immediate 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
15Mrs 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
16Mrs 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.
17The 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)
18Mrs 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.
19- 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
20Mrs 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.
21- 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.
22Orlando 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.
23To The Lighthouse
24Context
- 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.
25- 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.
26- 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.
27- 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
28- 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.
29- 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.
30- 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.
31- 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.
32- 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.
33- 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.
34- 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.
35- 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.
36- 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.
37- 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
38Another 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.
39- 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).
40- 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,
41- 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.
42- 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.
43Summary- 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.
44- 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.
45- 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).
46- 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.
47- (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.
48- 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.
49- 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.
50- 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.
51- 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.
52- 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.
53- 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
54- 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.
55Chapter 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.
56- 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.
57- 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.
58- 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.
59- 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.
60- 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.
61- 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.
62- 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.
63Chapter 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.
64Chapter 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.
65- 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.
66Chapter 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.
67- 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.
71- 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.
72- 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.
73Chapter 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.
74- 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.
75- 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.
76Chapter 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.
77- 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.
78- 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.
79Chapter 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.
80- 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.
81Chapter 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.
82- 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.
84Chapter 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.
87- 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 .
89Review Lecture 9
- VIRGINIA WOOLf
- Her Major Works- A Quick Look
- Theme of Feminism
- To the Lighthouse
90Review 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)
91Agenda Lecture 10
- Discussion continue (Chapter 10-19)
- List of Characters
- Analysis of major Characters