To the Light House

Virginia Woolf’s fifth novel, To the Lighthouse, was widely praised and has remained the most popular of all her novels. It is considered among the greatest literary achievements of the twentieth century. There is minimal action. The novel works through stream of consciousness and imagery to create an atmospheric and impressionistic record of the characters’ moment-by-moment experiences, tracing the conflict between male and female principles and making a statement about time, death and artistic transcendence. In this, her most autobiographical novel, Virginia Woolf captures the intensity of childhood longing and delight, and the shifting complexity of adult relationships. The novel is set on a Hebridean island, overlooked by a distant lighthouse, where Mrs. and Mr. Ramsay with eight children and assorted guests are enjoying the long summer. Mr. Ramsay is a tragic and self-pitying philosopher whose mind is rational but rather cold. Mrs. Ramsay is a beautiful, warm, creative and intuitive woman, the centre of the household. The novel focuses on the conflict arising from young James Ramsay’s desire to visit the lighthouse and his father’s quenching of this hope. But the summer ends, war and death bring changes. The next journey to the lighthouse is a very different one.