To the Lighthouse Essay Example for Free

To the Lighthouse Essay Style for the writer as well as for the painter is a question not of technique, but of vision, says French writer Marcel Proust in his book Le Temps Retrouve. Proust belongs to the league of early 20th century writers who rebelled against the structures of Classicism on prose by employing revolutionary styles in the narrative. Critics of Virginia Woolf trace her influence to Proust, among other figures who share her distinct conception of reality and experience albeit the fact that there was no direct correspondence between the two writers. Virginia Woolf is a very individualistic and visionary writer (Friedman, 1955). The apparent similarity between her theory of reality and experience and that of the popular claims of some of her contemporaries can only be accounted for by the fact that Woolf draws much from the zeitgeist. The idea of stream of consciousness, for instance, is not unique to her as Bergson, who authored ‘durational flux’, proposes the same idea that time is a continuous flux which is the theoretical basis for stream of consciousness (Friedman, 1955). Nonetheless, her work remained distinctly hers specifically in terms of her style. It is because for Woolf the creation and fulfillment of a vision rather than a practice of technique matters most. Her bearing as a writer naturally followed her vision, her philosophy on life, reality and truth. In her body of work, she demonstrated what Proust claims to be the fountainhead of style. A very critical essayist, Woolf was very vocal about her vision. In her essay, Modern Fiction, published in 1925, she voices out her opinion on the issue of spiritualism versus materialism by critiquing her contemporary English authors H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett and John Galsworthy. She coined the label ‘Materialists’ from their apparent lack of vision, their concern for trivial, temporal things, which to her escapes Life. She regarded their craft with respect but it was the objective to which their efforts were directed that she strongly opposed. She emphasizes the capturing of the spirit (or, as she put it, â€Å"life or truth or reality, whatever we call it†) to be the essence of art. The absence thereof incites the question whether that piece of literature is worthwhile and enduring. Woolf believes the preoccupation with trivialities is a manifest submission to the tyranny of the classics, the tradition and the canon. This would mean stagnation and death. Woolf puts it better when she writes: â€Å"Movement and change are the essence of our being. Rigidity is death, conformity is death† (Woolf, â€Å"The Common Reader†). Described as essentially a â€Å"lyrical novel†, To the Lighthouse reflects the totality of Woolf’s vision of capturing the evanescence of life into prose (Mayoux 214). Critics of the novel refer to its non-prose qualities, i. e. its deviation from the conventions of unity of time, characterization and linear plot development, to describe novel which has a very thin plot. Williams (204) writes that the novel is more akin to poetry than prose because it attempts to ‘[make] the moment something permanent. † According to him, this is a province of poets, musicians and painters and not of novelists (Williams 204). Interestingly, one of the characters in the novel, Lily Briscoe, is an actual painter and her character gives insight into the workings of the novel. The external plot of the novel is unusually thin for its length. Bennett aptly constructs the summary: â€Å"a group of people plan to sail in a small boat to a lighthouse. At the end some of them reach the lighthouse in a small boat†(200). The novel is divided in three chapters. The first chapter, The Window, begins in summer at a vacation house by the sea, owned by Mr. and Mrs.Ramsay. On that occasion, their family along with a few friends gathered in the house for a party prepared by Mrs. Ramsay. Mrs. Ramsay’s son insists on going to the lighthouse, but Mr. Ramsay disappoints him by announcing that the weather would not permit them. The rest of chapter describes the dinner interspersed with the thoughts of each character. The second chapter, Time Passes, is a description of the house and the memory imprinted in it after the characters introduced in the first chapter went their separate ways. The chapter is devoid of character action except for the incidental visitation of the house cleaners. In the second chapter, Mrs. Ramsay’s death is announced. The third chapter, The Lighthouse, happens years after the first chapter. Mr. Ramsay, together with his children and two of their guests, including Lily Briscoe, revisits the summer house. Lily contemplates the completion of her painting as Mr. Ramsay leads his children on a boat ride to the lighthouse. The novel ends as Lily completes her work.