Analysis Of To The Lighthouse By Virginia Woolf

Language has been used in many writing’s to convey the authors point. In the memoirs, Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) the author uses many rhetoric in the passage such as allegory, anecdote, and rhetorical question. The author uses rhetoric to write the passage so that she can convey the last significance of the moments of her pass.

In the excerpt from A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf argues that women writers face unfair educational, financial and social disadvantages. Throughout the excerpt, she hopes to persuade readers that in a patriarchal society, a woman must have privacy and financial independence in order to fulfill her literary potential. To accomplish this goal, Woolf effectively appeals to logos, pathos and ethos; however, her emphasis on establishing credibility most successfully persuades her readers.

In the novel To The Lighthouse Virginia Woolf uses literary techniques in order to express the character’s thoughts and emotions. Woolf incorporated her own experiences into her work in order to cope with lifes struggles. She had based the major characters in the novel off of her family and herself. For example Mrs. Ramsay was based off of her mother and Lily Briscoe represented herself. Virginia Woolf wrote in a new style of writing that was popular during the world wars called modernism. Modernism lasted roughly from the 1910’s into the 1960’s. This period of writing focused more on the inner self than nature, like the Romantics before them had. Modernist writers were influenced by those who raised questions about the rationality of the human mind, such as Sigmund Freud. By analyzing the stream of consciousness technique and indirect interior monologue along with narrated time Woolf expresses the character’s inner mind and perception.

In “One Writer’s Beginnings,” by Eudora Welty, a short story writer. She recalls early experiences of her interest in books that later impacted her craft in becoming a writer of fiction. Welty’s language conveys the intensity and value through these experiences. Also, her use of syntax, diction, and flashbacks helps evoke her being into literature.

Throughout her life, novelist Virginia Woolf suffered with mental illness, and she ultimately ended her life at age 59. As art often imitates life, it is not surprising that characters in Woolf’s works also struggle with mental illness. One of her novels, Mrs. Dalloway, recounts a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a high society woman living in London, and those who run in her circle. As the novel progresses the reader sees one of the characters, Septimus, struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by serving in war. At the end of the story, he commits suicide. While there is no explicit articulation of any other character suffering from mental illness in the novel, Septimus is not alone. Through her thoughts and actions, we can deduce that Clarissa also endures mental and emotional suffering. Though Clarissa does not actually attempt to end her life in the novel, her mental and emotional suffering lead her to exhibit suicidal tendencies. To prove this, I will examine Clarissa’s thoughts and actions from a psychological perspective.

The book Night written by Ellie Wiesel is an autobiography about his experiences during the holocaust in 1944. He is a survivor and was only 12 at the time. Ellie had three sisters named Hilda, Bea and Tzipora. His parents ran a store in Transylvania where Ellie spent most of his childhood in. Ellie 's mentor who everyone referred to as Moishe the Beadle is poor men who taught and helped Ellie study the cabbala. Early in the war, Moishe was expelled from Sighet as well as all the other foreign Jews. A few months after, everything was back to normal for Ellie and everyone else. His teacher, Moishe the Beadle then returns from his near death experience and warns everyone that the Nazi will soon come after them. No one really listened to him and did not believe that stories he told or didn’t want to believe them. Soon after this, the anti-Semitic Measures had the entire Sighet Jews move into ghettos that were supervised. With everyone living in fear, the Wiesel family remained calm and did not complain once.

All writers have to develop a love for the written word at some point in their lives. For some the point is an exact point that they can pinpoint and for others they have loved literature for their entire lives. Eudora Welty was a semi-successful writer but her memoir is considered one of her better books. In an exert of her memoir, titled “One Writer’s Humble Beginnings”, she writes of how she loved books for as long as she can remember and her mother’s influence on that infatuation. In her memoir Eudora Welty writes of the impact of adult and especially parental figures on a child and uses rhetorical language in isolated scenes to convey that message.

The written word has become a domain for people of all ages and eras to learn from. Within the last century or so, there has been a procession of memorable writers with important messages to understand and learn from. It takes diligence when reading to understand what the author is saying within the context of their lives. Sometimes, the context of the reader’s life makes the writer’s story more memorable. In The Best American Essays of the Century, by Joyce Carol Oates, just in the range of 35 years, from 1901 to 1935, readers are told about things experienced, told, or imagined. Each essay tells a story or a lesson in the form of the written world. Although the authors most likely lived very different lives compared to each other, each essay portrays similar ideas or themes that can be interpreted by the readers. Only through writing can ideas, such as these, be preserved and shared with others in completely different situations as the author was. These essays’ themes have made them timeless, being able to apply to the past, the present, and the future. Within the first fifteen essays of this collection, the themes: the present is made from events in the past, strength can be stemmed from bad surroundings, and judgment is inevitable from those around us, are evident and important for readers to discover in order to understand the historic credibility behind them.

In a passage from the Eudora Welty autobiography, One Writer’s Beginnings, she revisits early experiences of reading, and books that impacted her creativity as a fiction writer. Welty’s language conveys the intensity and value of her experiences.

Throughout childhood and adolescence, there are numerous events and situations that impact the rest of the person’s life. While these experiences can leave impressions on the individual's life ranging from future profession to possible criminal record, the way an author creates his work is almost always related to their childhood upbringing. Between topics, symbols, motifs, and themes, authors are more than likely to write from prior experience, which in most cases comes from youth life. Rick Riordan for example, author of numerous children’s literary series demonstrates various examples of how his early life affected numerous aspects of his literature.

In her memoir “One Writer’s Beginnings,” Eudora Welty, a short story-writer and novelist, explains in vivid and eloquent detail, by a series of memories, how she became a writer of fiction. The memoir is structured in three central parts: “Listening,” “Learning to See,” and “Finding a Voice.” Throughout each part, Welty writes a highly detailed and impactful memory and then adds a paragraph of reflection and the lessons she learned from that instance in her life. After reading these three parts, the reader is informed of Welty’s purpose. Her purpose is to educate the reader of the importance of memory.

She pioneered the stream of consciousness, as well as displaying the character’s innermost thoughts (Cersonsky). She also challenged the literary concept of time. In her work, To the Lighthouse, Woolf relies on the course of everyday life more heavily than major events. In fact, part one covers only seven hours in the lives of the Ramsay family. It recounts the story of a family that lives across the bay from a large lighthouse. It concludes with the realization that her vision was attained.

Imagination and creativity is part of the many influences that attribute to the writings in the Romantic Era. It influenced writers and poets to expand their art to a new horizons and veer away from the Enlightenment Era of tradition and logic. The use and significance of memory and dreams in the Romantic Era helped strengthen the inner emotions within writings, present ideas outside of traditional expectancies, and display the authors creativity and individuality throughout their writings. These works have resonated throughout history and British Literature inspiring new and old writers to explore within themselves and inside their imagination to create art that portrays their personalities in their work.

This was soon followed by the death of her mother and the inevitable estrangement and death of her father. Due to these events, Woolf became close to her sister, Vanessa; whom both shared to goal of escaping the “constraints of Victorian womanhood” (Hussey 377). This mainly stemmed from the sisters not being able to go to traditional school like their brothers. Not being mainstreamed into the school system provided Woolf with few friends and lead to many of her mental disabilities. After the death of her father, Woolf attempted suicide for the first time by jumping out a window. Soon after this event, her doctor and family members deemed Woolf mentally unstable. This led to Woolf’s passion of writing, it allowed her to explore her mania-depression on a deeper level. Her mental issues also led to her feminist tendencies, in which she eventually turned against men completely, even her husband Leonard.

As we read, Woolf’s novel, to the Lighthouse we see different aspects of art being used and how it is being used. Lily Briscoe plays a huge role in art in the story. She is working on a painting throughout the book but she does not want anyone to see it (Woolf 17-18). She feels that it is not good enough. However, Mrs. Ramsay, William Bankes and Charles Tansely seem to have different opinions about the painting. During Mrs. Ramsay’s dinner party, Lily realizes what she needs to do to fix her painting but does not until the end of the story. The painting itself grows and changes throughout the book, just as Lily grows and changes as a person as she lives her life (Woolf 102).