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Title: NOVEL II Lecture 9


1
NOVEL IILecture 9
2
SYNOPSIS
  • VIRGINIA WOOLf
  • Her Major Works- A Quick Look
  • Theme of Feminism
  • To the Lighthouse

3
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)

4
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.

5
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.

6
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

7
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.

8
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.

9
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?

10
To 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.

13
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.

14
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
15
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

16
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.

17
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)
18
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.

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

20
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.

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.

22
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.

23
To The Lighthouse

24
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.

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

38
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.

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.

43
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.

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.

55
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.

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.

63
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.

64
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.

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.

66
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.

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.

73
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.

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.

76
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.

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.

79
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.

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.

81
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.

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.

84
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.

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 .

89
Review Lecture 9
  • VIRGINIA WOOLf
  • Her Major Works- A Quick Look
  • Theme of Feminism
  • To the Lighthouse

90
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)

91
Agenda Lecture 10
  • Discussion continue (Chapter 10-19)
  • List of Characters
  • Analysis of major Characters
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