Virginia Woolf’s novel bursts with ideas flying at you about the nature of life, art, family, communication and relationships, but instead of contemplating about those ideas I find myself struck by Virginia Woolf’s unique and frustrating style. Woolf once again employs her characteristic stream-of-conscious style to tell an autobiographical fiction based on her parents.

The story revolves around Mr and Mrs. Ramsay, their eight children, and a host of family friends, which includes artists and intellectuals meeting in their holiday home in Scotland across from a lighthouse. The novel is broken into three parts: the first part introduces us to the characters and their days at the vacation home when life was relatively happy; the second part is a short interlude in which ten years pass that includes the beginning of World War I, the death of Mrs Ramsay, and the death of two of their children; while the third part is about the remaining children and Mr Ramsay journeying to the lighthouse in which they contemplate their losses and changes. While Lily Briscoe, a friend of the family and female painter, from the first part contemplates her relationship with Mrs Ramsay and what her loss means to everyone.

Mr Ramsay is presented as domineering, egotistical, and tyrannical (especially by his children), yet also loving and caring in his own way (by his wife and friends). As an intellectual, his worst fear is that his work will be forgotten in the dustbins of history. The intellectuals of the novel are Charles Tansley and William Bankes. William, an old friend of Mr Ramsay, cannot understand why his friend gave up the pure intellectual life and chose to get married. Charles Tansley is a major misogynist. Mr Ramsay fears he is a failure. He represents the intellectual compromising with a family life. At points in the narrative he wonders if he would’ve been more successful in reaching his intellectual goals if he hadn’t had a family, but then dismisses those thoughts.

Mrs Ramsay is Mr Ramsay’s moral support, bolstering his ego and reassuring him when he suffers narcissistic bouts of failure, but at the end of the novel hints through Lily Briscoe’s perspective that she too is as emotionally manipulative as her husband. She represents the highest life as one of domesticity, living to support her family, and specially cultivated social moments (like giving successful dinner parties). The good life for her is producing a perfect Boeuf en Daube for a dinner party where all her guests her happy. She loves to play the part of match-maker, setting up Paul and Minta, and thinks William Bankes’s life is meaningless without a wife and children.

Lily Briscoe is a neutral female character who engages in “manly” occupations like painting. She suffers from the misogyny of Charles Tansley, who implies that women cannot pain to relieve his own doubts about his intellect. The differences between men and women, particularly male intellect versus female emotion, as well as masculine neediness and female willingness to soothe male doubts, are constant gender stereotypes repeated throughout the novel. Lily Briscoe attempts to reject them, but often succumbs to gender roles to appease Mrs Ramsay who wants to successful social parties. Lily observes all the characters around her and philosophizes about the meaning of their actions, while she attempts to create her artistic masterpiece with her limited abilities. Along with Carmichael the poet, she is associated with art.

Woolf deals with her usual theme that stems naturally from the stream-of-conscious style: the difficulty of knowing someone. Each character is seen differently by every other character. We are slightly different people depending on who it is that is viewing us. Many different sides of us exist. My fiance views me differently than my sister does; likewise my boss views me differently than my best friend does, not only because these relationships are different, but even the way I act, talk, and react to each is slightly different. The focal point of these different perspectives are the different character’s thoughts on Mr Ramsay and Mrs Ramsay. Mr Bankes contemplates how relationships change over time thinking about how he isn’t as close with Mr Ramsay, while also fearing his long-standing friendship with Mr Ramsay has weakened because he himself is growing old and boring.

The central question of the novel is expressed by Lily Briscoe: What is the meaning of life? Another way of putting this question in relation to how the novel explores it is: what type of life is best, the intellectual one studying great ideas, the domestic social one cultivating meaningful relationships and favorite moments, or a life dedicated to art. The novel answers this with the final sentence: “Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.” Social life and intellectual life are shown to be incomplete and transitory (ideas and intellectual trends change, family members die, which is the fate of Mrs Ramsay), while art at its best lasts forever. It is shown as the best way to leave lasting contributions to humanity after a person’s death.

For a second opinion on the novel, you might want to check out one of my new favorite blogs, Tony’s Reading List, who offers his reactions to the book.

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