Significance of 3 Sections of the Novel

‘The Lighthouse’

Sections

The WindowTime Passes

The Lighthouse

INTRODUCTION

The passage of time, for example, is modulated by the consciousness of the characters rather than by the clock.The events of a single afternoon constitute over half the book, while the events of the following 10ys are compressed into a few dozen pages.Many readers of ’To the Lighthouse’ , especially those who are not versed in the traditions of modernist fiction, find the novel strange and difficult.Its language is dense and the structure amorphous.

Compared with the plot-driven Victorian novels that came before it, To the Lighthouse seems to have little in the way of action. Indeed, almost all of the events take place in the characters’ minds.

 

This style allows the subjective mental processes of Woolf’s characters to determine the objective content of her narrative.

Section l – “The Window”

Part One spans approximately seven hours and takes up more than half the book. It’s set at the Ramsay’s summer home, where the Ramsey's and their eight children are entertaining a number of friends and colleagues.

His mother, Mrs. Ramsay, holds out hope that the weather will be good tomorrow so they can go to the Lighthouse, but Mr. Ramsay is adamant that the weather will be awful. Charles Tansley.

(Continued…) “The Window”

Numerous small bits of action occur. For example, after lunch, Mrs. Ramsay takes pity on Mr. Tansley and asks him to accompany her into town. By the end of the trip, Mr. Tansley is in love with the much older, but still beautiful, Mrs. Ramsay (by the way, she is 50).

(Continued…) “The Window”

Later, as she sits in a window and reads a fairy tale to James, Mrs. Ramsay remembers that she must keep her head down for Lily Briscoe’s painting.

(Continued…) “The Window”

To the end of the part, Mrs. Ramsay gets out of it by smiling at him and telling him that he was right – the weather will be bad tomorrow and they will not be able to visit the Lighthouse.

(Continued…) “The Window”

Section ll – “Time Passes”

Section ll – “Time Passes”

Part Two compresses ten years into about twenty pages.

All the traditionally important information in a story (read: what happened to the characters) is briefly imparted in brackets. We learn that Mrs. Ramsay, Prue Ramsay (daughter) and Andrew Ramsay (son) have died.

Mrs. Ramsay died at night; Prue died in childbirth (after first getting married); and Andrew died when a shell exploded in France. Oh, right.

(Continued…) “Time Passes”

Section lll – “The lighthouse”

It takes place at the summer house and begins with Mr. Ramsay and two of his children, Cam and James, finally going to the Lighthouse.Lily completed the panting that she never finished.Lily never married, but remained good friends with William Bankes.

Section lll – “The lighthouse”

Significance of the section ‘Lighthouse’

Lighthouse section instructs us thatNothing is ever only one thing.How Lighthouse appeared to James when hewas a boy and how it appears to him now thathe is a man.Seems something else and meaning somethingElse is the case in everyday life.This section reveals us the Dual aspect of life.

Conclusion

Window:Not a transparent but a separating sheet of glass between reality and Mrs. Ramsay.Imperfection of our Knowledge.Distance an extraordinary power.

Time Passes:Ravages of war, man against man.Mortal Man is helpless against Nature, the Prominentand dominant force.

Lighthouse:Molding nature of Human after achieving something.Contradictions, dual aspect in life. Destinations thatseem surest are, sometime, most unobtainable.