What are the main symbols in 'To the lighthouse? What do they signify?
Name: Malek Hinaben Ibrahimbhai
Paper no. : 9 The Modernist literature
Roll no. : 8
Semester: MA Semester 3
Year: 2019-21
Enrollment no. : 2069108420200026
Email Id: hinamalek21@gmail.com
Submitted to: Department of English M.K. Bhavnagar University
Topic:
Question:1 What are the main symbols in 'To the lighthouse? What do they signify?
Introduction:
Lighthouse symbolizes human desire, a force that pulsates over the indifferent sea of the natural world and guides people's passage across it. To the lighthouse is written by Adlinr Virginia Woolf. She was an English Author, writer, Publisher, essayist and short story writer. She is regarded as a famous figure this era.
Mrs. Dalloway(1925)
To The Lighthouse (1927)
Orlando (1938)
This is the very interesting and famous novel written by Woolf. This book is divided into three section:
'The window'
'Time passes'
'The lighthouse'
To the lighthouse a novel at all is to go against Woolf's own intentions, slightly: she believed that a new word ',elegy was her own suggestion) more satisfactory summed up what she is trying to do in this nov….sorry, in this book, call it what you will.
On the Isle of Skye. The son, James, wants to take a boat out to the lighthouse (hence the title), but his father, the distant Victorian patriarch Mr Ramsay, isn't sure the weather will allow it perhaps tomorrow (but probably not even then). The second section, "Time Passes', is at odds with the first section in reducing ten years of 'action' into a relatively short middle section.
"The Lighthouse', sces James- now grown into a young man - finally making the trip to the lighthouse, ten years after he'd originally wanted to make the journey.
There are some symbols of 'To The lighthouse':
Lighthouse: Titular Significance
Lily's painting
Ramsay's Summer House
The Hour's Skull
Rose's arrangements of the grapes and pears
The Sea, the Storms, the rock, reefs and shallow water
The window
This is the most important symbol in the novel, As it is included in the title, The Lighthouse is also a symbol. This symbol is interpreted by different critics in different ways. It reflects the life of mankind. Building of The Lighthouse is showing something. As we see the building of the Lighthouse is tall, huge and big and stands alone on a rock or island. It has light and darkness. During the night time it gives Light to ships and seafarers.
It stands alone and tall in both light and darkness and it, along with its beacon, is a focal point which Symbolizes strength, guidance and safe harbor; it is a Spiritual hermit guiding all those who are traveling by sea.
Finally "the Lighthouse had become almost invisible. hand nmelied away intea blue haze And with this she is finally relieved. and her painting is finished. As the lighthouse disappears and. Lily got some ideas to finish her picture. Thus. This sSuggest that the lighthouse is also inspirable her and she got her vision.
For, lames the Lighthouse also symbolises the strongest feeling. At the beginning of the novel it was the ambition of James to go to the Lighthouse at the end of the novel they reached at the Lighthouse.
See that,
'The lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with yellow eyes….'
And at the end of the novel, Mr. Ramsay admires the effort of James. And their relationship becomes stronger. Thus the lighthouse is a symbol of goodness. The lighthouse surrounded by sea always describes and clarifies the human condition in some way. If we see from the perspective of the general way that the lighthouse is symbols for something goodness.
F.L. Overcarsh finds the novel as a whole an allegory of the old and New Testaments: Mrs. Ramsay is Eve, the Blessed virgin and Christ; Mr. Ramsay is among other things God the Father; the lighthouse is Eden and Heaven.
The lighthouse as symbol has not one meaning, that it is a vital synthesis of time and eternity: an objective correlative for Mrs. Ramsay’s vision, after whose death it is her meaning.
v Lily’s Painting
Lily’s painting is another and important symbol of this novel. Lily’s painting represents a struggle against gender convention, represented by Charles Tinsley’s statement that: “women can’t paint or write.” That picture symbolizes the condition of women during those days. It shows woman’s struggle of women in patriarchal society. She desires to express Mrs. Ramsay’s essence as an individual wife and mother in her painting.
The reflection of Woolf's character can be found in Lily’s character. It is often suggested that Lily Briscoe is a semi-autobiographical character representing Woolf herself and her artistic process. The process of Lily’s painting throughout the novel can be seen as not only a symbol of the artistic dilemma faced by the modern artist, but especially o a female artist.
At the beginning of the novel, Lily is clearly self-conscious about her art - when looking at her painting, she sees only what could be different about it, constantly comparing it to how other painters would have depicted it, not wanting others to look at it.
Lily’s Picture: Lily sees that Mrs. Ramsay’s gift of harmonizing human relationships into memorable moments is “almost like a work of art” and in the book art is the ultimate symbol for the enduring ‘reality’.
Ramsay’s Summer House
Ramsay’s summer house is also one of the important symbols of the novel. This is a crucial symbol to understand. This is the place where all deeds happen. Ramsay’s House is a place where Woolf and her characters explain their belief and observation. During her dinner party, Mrs. Ramsay sees her house display her own inner notions of shabbiness and her inability to preserve beauty. The house stands for the collective consciousness of those who stay in it. From the dinner party to the journey to The Lighthouse, Woolf shows the house from every angle.
These forces are given action verbs usually reserved for more human beings - "creeping", "toying", "musing", "nosing, "rubbing" – finally these airs "all together gave off an aimless gust of lamentation to which some door in the kitchen replied; swung wide; admitted nothing; and slammed to".
The fact that the house is the primary image through which the effects of time are conveyed, even though time has profound effect on the Ramsay's - Mrs. Ramsay, Prue, and Andrew all die - represents the irrelevance of humanity on the grand scale of time and how nature alone ultimately persists, which is yet another common modernist theme.
There are several other images throughout the novel that serve as symbols for death, colonialisation, sex, but these three are the most predominate throughout the novel, so hopefully this explanation can help give a general overview of Woolf's use of symbolism and the ideas being portrayed through her symbols.
The Boar’s Skull
This is one of the important and mysterious symbols of the novel. It shows the reality and universal truth. It leads toward the right way of life. That death is the ultimate reality.
If we see in the play ‘Hamlet’ we can find that there is also a scene of the Grave Digging Scene. We can see that there is also a symbol of the ultimate reality of life that A great person was dead and their body converted into ashes. Thus we can say that Death is the ultimate truth, no one can avoid it. Thus the symbol of the boar's skull is symbolized with death. Boar’s skull points out about the futility of life and death.
Rose’s arrangement of the grapes and pears (The Fruit Basket)
The arrangement of fruits in the basket by Rose symbolized some truth of life and death. Metaphorically it gives a message. Rose arranges a fruit basket for her mother’s dinner party that serves to draw the partygoers out of their private suffering and unite them. she refuses to disturb it—the pair is brought harmoniously, if briefly, together. The basket testifies both to the “frozen” quality of beauty that Lily describes and to beauty’s seductive and soothing quality. The absence of the fruit basket in 3rd part signifies the transitory nature of beauty, art and truth.
The Sea, the Storms, the rock, reefs and shallow water
• The Sea
The symbol of Sea appears throughout the novel. The Sea shows the instability of time and life. The water of the sea is symbolic one. The sound of waves of sea can be heard throughout the novel. It symbolizes the eternal flux of time and life, in the midst of which we all exist; it constantly changes its character. Sometime Sea is beautiful but it may also be dangerous and also can become violent to destroy everything.
• The Storm
The Storm symbolizes something horrible in life and death. As can see that in the storm there is an element of Air and Wind. It contains both the things in it. The Storm symbolized agitated thoughts and emotions. Metaphorically, storms are our inner Demons which torment both our mind and subconscious.
· The rock, Reefs and Shallow water
These symbols are showing certainty of life. The rock show life is too hard to live. It gives suffering, as Mrs. Ramsays survived her life. The rocks, reefs and shallow water symbolized the final danger and miseries which seem to accompany the end of any turbulent voyage.
The Window
The Window, a view to oneself: It is from the window that we have the little of the part-I of To the Lighthouse. It is not transparent but a separating sheet of glass between reality and Mrs. Ramsay’s mind. Mrs. Ramsay experiences such moments of revelation and integration at watching the window.
Conclusion
At the near of our destiny you may be near to death or danger, because in Christianity it shows that there is a way to hell near the gate of heaven. If you have done good deeds throughout your life it may be possible that you may be in hell, perhaps you may have done good deeds in your life, your life may be in misery or in good condition.
Citation:
Pedersen, Glenn. “Vision in to the Lighthouse.” PMLA, vol. 73, no. 5, 1958, pp. 585–600. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/460303. Accessed 16 Oct. 2020.
To the Lighthouse. By Hugh Stoddart. Dir. Colin Gregg. Perf. Rosemary Harris, et Shallcross. 1983. CD. 1 December 2020.
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. New York, Columbia University Press, 1998. Pdf. 30 November 2020.
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