Assignment Paper no 9: The Modernists Literature.

Paper-09

Name: Ramiz M. Solanki

M. A. Sem:- 2

Roll No. 27

Batch: 2017-19

Enrolment No.2069108420180051

Paper No. 09 (Modernist Literature)

Assignment Topic: Contrast in the Characters in ‘To the Lighthouse’

Email Id: ramiz.solanki39@gmail.com

Submitted to: Department of English MKBU

Introduction

                        

                      Virginia Woolf was born in South Kensington, London, and the seventh child in a blended family of eight. Her mother, Julia Stephen, celebrated as a Raphaelite artist’s model, had three children from her first marriage, her father, Leslie Stephen, had one previous daughter; their marriage produced another four children, including the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. While the boys in the family were educated at university, the girls were home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature. An important influence in her early life was the summer home the family used in St Ives, Cornwall, where she first saw the Godrevy Lighthouse, which was to become iconic in her novel To the Lighthouse (1927).

                    To the Lighthouse is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centers on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, the plot of To the Lighthouse is secondary to its philosophical introspection. Cited as a key example of the literary technique of multiple focalizations, the novel includes little dialogue and almost no action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. The novel recalls childhood emotions and highlights adult relationships. Among the book's many tropes and themes are those of loss, subjectivity, the nature of art and the problem of perception.

Some Important Characters in ‘To the Lighthouse’

Mrs. Ramsay

Mrs. Ramsay is the loving and hospitable wife of Mr. Ramsay. She is highly domestic, focusing on her roles as mother and wife. She deeply admires her husband, although she cannot tell him that she loves him. She is responsible and strong, but she dies unexpectedly in her fifties.

Mr. Ramsay

Mr. Ramsay is dominated by rationality and scientific reason. He is in search of truth and greatness, and he fears that he is rather inadequate for not achieving his aims. Neither affectionate nor sentimental, he nevertheless inspires admiration in his wife, although she becomes irritated with his insensitivity.

Lily Briscoe

A young, unmarried painter friend of the Ramsays. She is extremely fond of Mrs. Ramsay and feels a profound sense of emptiness after she dies. She begins a portrait at the beginning of the novel that she cannot finish until the end, ten years later, when the Ramsays reach the Lighthouse.

James Ramsay

The youngest Ramsay child, James is six years old when the book begins. He adores his mother and is violently resentful of his father. He enjoys cutting images out of magazines and wants desperately to go to the Lighthouse when he is young.

Charles Tansley

 

An odious athiest whom none of the Ramsays particularly like, Charles is one of Mr. Ramsay's philosophy pupils. He is insulting and chauvinistic, trying to discourage Lily from painting. He is often concerned with the affairs and status of others and is very self-centered. He finds Mrs. Ramsay quite beautiful and is proud to be seen walking with her.

Augustus Carmichael

 

An unhappy poet who takes opium and achieves little success until after World War I. Because of his controlling wife, he is not fond of Mrs. Ramsay.

Contrast in the Characters.

(Wikipedia)

Bibliography

Contributors, Wikipedia. To the Lighthouse. Ed. Wikipedia Contributors. 18 October 2018. 03 November 2018 <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CiteThisPage&page=To_the_Lighthouse&id=864710293>.

(Wikipedia)

Bibliography

Wikipedia, Contributors. To the Lighthouse. Ed. Wikipedia Contributors. 02 November 2018. 03 November 2018 <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CiteThisPage&page=Virginia_Woolf&id=866979342>.

(Gradesaver)

Bibliography

Gradesaver. To the Lighthouse Charcter List. 22 January 2006. 03 November 2018 <https://www.gradesaver.com/to-the-lighthouse/study-guide/character-list>.

Wikipedia, Contributors. To the Lighthouse. Ed. Wikipedia Contributors. 02 November 2018. 03 November 2018 <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CiteThisPage&page=Virginia_Woolf&id=866979342>.