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Write critical analysis of the three parts of To the Lighthouse

by Virginia Woolf (P.U. 2007)


Introductory
Virginia Woolfs early novels were written in conventional chapters and the others either
continuously- or without any break or in sections marked by a gap or a number as, within the
parts, To The Lighthouse is. And To The Lighthouse happens to be the only novel of Mrs. Woolf
which has a three-fold division. It is divided into three separate parts, each of which has been
given a title: The Window, Time Passes and TheLighthouse.
In the first part, The Window, we find Mrs. Ramsay planning a trip to the Lighthousesituated
near-by their small island the next day for James, her youngest child who is so much eager for
this expedition. But Mr. Ramsay with some secret conceit of his own accuracy of judgement
and Mr. Tansley with his odious habit of saying disagreeable things dash the young childs hope
to the ground. They tell bluntly that the weather is not likely to be good enough for the trip. And
the journey is not made. In this section we also get, more or less, a full and varied view of the
personality and character of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay through the eyes of Lily Briscoe, William
Bankes, young James and the guests assembled in that summer-house in the Island of Skye in
the Hebrides.
Time Passes
The second movement, Time Passes, is rather a short interlude that makes up part two. In this
section we find memory beginning its task and this is very powerfully operative in the mind of
old Mrs. McNab the charwoman. A period of ten years elapses. During this period the empty
summer-house becomes a prey to ruin and decay. The actors of the piece grow in age and some
of them, including Mrs. Ramsay, pass away from the stage of this world.
The Lighthouse
In the final movement we find people back to the old summer-house once again. Late Mrs.
Ramsay is seen very powerfully and mysteriously through the eyes of LilyBriscoe. She is very
much alive in the stream of consciousness of Lily and seems to influence the lives of other
members more powerfully even after her death. And in the end we find Mr. Rarnsay landing at
the lighthouse rock with Cam and James and Lilyhaving her vision to complete the picture.
Plan of Triple Arrangement
Mrs. Woolfs diary reveals that the triple arrangement was in her mind almost from the first idea
she had of the book. She has mentioned it there as father and mother and child in the garden,
the death, the sailing to the Lighthouse. And she has further mentioned: I conceive the book in
three parts: I. At the drawing room window; 2. Seven years passed 3. The voyage.
Autobiographical Basis

In fact this tripartite arrangement had is origin in one of Mrs. Woolfs characteristic trains of
thought. The Pattern can be seen as a reflection of her own life. She had to experience periods of
intense and exciting creative activity, followed by agonisingdepression after finishing a novel,
and from this depression she could gradually recover with the help of rest and the attentions of
her husband. So, in To The Lighthouse this pattern seemed particularly meaningful
to Virginia Woolf, because of the personal nature of the sources of her novel. It seems she turns
into fiction her own attempts to come to terms with her obsession with the past and her father
and mother, making an attempt both to see everything in perspective and also to represent it in
art. Thus we find her doing this in the figure of Lily, who to some extent must reflect her own
character, and whose vision at the end of the book embraces both Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay: Mrs.
Ramsay is manifested in the shadow at the window which brings the picture into harmony, and
Mr. Ramsays arrival at the Lighthouse completes an adventure with which Lily has entered into
imaginative sympathy.
Relation of the Three Parts
But we hardly require such autobiographical knowledge to understand the relationship of the
parts of this novel. Lilys final vision has its full meaning in terms of the life of the Ramsays
which has been presented to us in the book. In fact the symbolic movement has weight because
of the cumulative effect of the three sections. So in The Window we see people going about
their daily life, responding directly to the people and scenes around them, and also reflecting
upon their quality. In Time Passes we find the novelist stepping back from the circle of activity
until it seems a mere speck in the perspective of eternity. Ultimately in The Lighthouse we are
brought back to mixture of action and reflection.
Sense of Completeness
At the end of the final movement of To The Lighthouse we find Lily and Carmichael, the painter
and the poet, sitting on the lawn of the same old summer-house and absorbed in silent
communication between the house and the sea. Lily turns from one to the other sending her
thoughts back to Mrs. Ramsay as she looks at the house and outwards to Mr. Ramsay as she
follows the course of the boat. Commenting on this Davenport has aptly remarked She thus
forms a tenuous thread between past and present, between husband and wife, by recreation of
past experience and of the spirit of Mrs. Ramsay, and the imaginative involvement with Mr
Ramsays symbolic voyage, she unites the two in her mind, and so achieves her sense of
completeness, of having seen it clearly, if only for a moment. The two actions, the arrival at
the Lighthouse and the last stroke of the brush, are also united; both are acts of completion and
it is obvious that they are meant to happen together.
Conclusion: The Musical Analogy
It may be noted that the ternary form, where the third section returns to the first is a basic form
in music and as such may have had a rhythmic appropriateness of VirginiaWoolfs ideal of her
novel enclosing her subject, or forming a circle. And, in fact, she said of To The Lighthouse in
her diary I feel as if it fetched its circle . pretty completely this time.

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