To the Lighthouse
Formulation of an Artist
As one of the earliest and most influential feminist writers of the last century, Virginia Woolf has offered her readers many different topics of interest such as discrimination, social exclusion and roles of gender in a Enlgish society. Woolf was born on the 25th of January, 1882 to a notable historian, author and critic and her mother renowned beauty. Woolf, one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century, started writing professionally in 1990 for the Times Literary Supplement. She touched the topics of stream of consciousness along with the underlying psychological and emotional motives of character. Woolf’s To the Lighthouse has made her a mature, self-fulfilled modern writer. The novel argued Woolf’s personal stand to answer whether “women can’t paint, women can’t write,” that reflected the English prejudice of the role of women in the family and society (Woolf 48). Woolf used Lily’s character throughout the book the let the reader know the progression in becoming an artist. Woolf’s use of Lily throughout the novel showed the upbringing of an incomplete character. Lily along with her painting became a complete object at the end when she realized the reasons behind her need to become an artist, a unique person and above all learn to take advantages of moments and vision in life.
In the first section of the book, Lily was not portrayed as the visionary artist that she becomes at the end of the novel with “I have had my vision” as she makes the symbolic trip to the Lighthouse. In “The Window” at the beginning of the novel Lily is portrayed an inexperienced struggling to overcome her own insecurities: “She could have wept. It was bad, it was bad, it was infinitely bad! She could have done it differently of course; the colour could have been thinned and faded; the shapes etherealized; that was how Paunceforte would have seen it” (27). Lily was trying to figure out her own vision and identity in her paintings in
As one of the earliest and most influential feminist writers of the last century, Virginia Woolf has offered her readers many different topics of interest such as discrimination, social exclusion and roles of gender in a Enlgish society. Woolf was born on the 25th of January, 1882 to a notable historian, author and critic and her mother renowned beauty. Woolf, one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century, started writing professionally in 1990 for the Times Literary Supplement. She touched the topics of stream of consciousness along with the underlying psychological and emotional motives of character. Woolf’s To the Lighthouse has made her a mature, self-fulfilled modern writer. The novel argued Woolf’s personal stand to answer whether “women can’t paint, women can’t write,” that reflected the English prejudice of the role of women in the family and society (Woolf 48). Woolf used Lily’s character throughout the book the let the reader know the progression in becoming an artist. Woolf’s use of Lily throughout the novel showed the upbringing of an incomplete character. Lily along with her painting became a complete object at the end when she realized the reasons behind her need to become an artist, a unique person and above all learn to take advantages of moments and vision in life.
In the first section of the book, Lily was not portrayed as the visionary artist that she becomes at the end of the novel with “I have had my vision” as she makes the symbolic trip to the Lighthouse. In “The Window” at the beginning of the novel Lily is portrayed an inexperienced struggling to overcome her own insecurities: “She could have wept. It was bad, it was bad, it was infinitely bad! She could have done it differently of course; the colour could have been thinned and faded; the shapes etherealized; that was how Paunceforte would have seen it” (27). Lily was trying to figure out her own vision and identity in her paintings in