Gender Roles and Conflicts Expressed in Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse".

Moreover, the fluidity, represented by the thoughts of the characters, is enhanced by the form of the novel: Mrs Dalloway is not divided into chapters; thus, it does not leave behind a sense of completeness. It is largely intertwined with the narration of Clarissa and that of the other characters and the action largely takes place in the mind. This is presented in form of free indirect discourse: the narrative conveys the thoughts of the selected character. This leaves the readers with an impressionistic story. To demonstrate how different characters bring about unequal messages, here is an illustration from the work: when Clarissa is strolling the streets of London, she and Septimus both see the same car. The vehicle leads them to different thoughts: for Septimus it is seeing in it the power of the modern world, which “was about to burst into flames” (13) or rather the oppressive relationship of technology and war, which ultimately leads to his suicide. He is bound by the internal, his suffering thoughts cannot help but to be captured in the memories of the World War I he fought in. For Clarissa, hearing the noise of the car provokes her to think she has heard “a pistol shot in the street” (12) (which later turns out to be true). By using such a form of representation, Woolf points to the invisible connections of people in a dehumanised, yet technology-bound, world, which create between them a form of interaction that serves as compensation for what Septimus (and

Back in the day almost everyone viewed woman to be the person who cleans, cooks, has children, and obeys her husband. Even woman themselves had this view hammered into their minds at such a young age, the views that women are inferior to men. This stigma of woman can be found traced throughout Virginia Woolf’s essay of two meals, a meal for men and a meal for women at a college. She uses numerous composition techniques and effectively disperses them throughout her narrative. By doing so, she accurately demonstrates her views on society’s stigma of a woman's role in an eloquent manner.

Lily herself feels “her own inadequacy, her insignificance” (Woolf 19). It is difficult for Lily to accurately transfer the scenes that she saw onto her canvas. “It was in that moment’s flight between the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her who often brought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception to work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child” (Woolf 19). Charles Tansley’s words, “women can’t paint, women can’t write...” (Woolf 48) echo in Lily’s head, causing her to further doubt her ability and whether or not her painting will be accepted. Charles Tansley represents some of the views of women during that period of time. Many men believed that women could not write or create art (Woolf 48).

Instead of relying on another power that is above her, she takes her fate into her own hands and tries to save her own home. This self reliance develops early, and can also be seen much later in her life. When she is twenty-seven, Lily learns that her husband has a secret second family. She leaves him immediately and manages to annul the marriage. Although he had taken all of her money from their joint bank account, she does not go back to her parents in Arizona or try to find another husband to take care of her. Instead, she begins preparing for her future alone. “Since I obviously couldn't count on a man to take care of me, what I needed more than ever was a profession. I needed to get my college education and become a teacher . . . the time flew by, and when both the dispensation and the acceptance letter arrived, I had enough money for a year of college” (p. 90). Instead of wondering what to do and moping about her ex-husband, Lily is practical and knows what she wants to do next. She also mentions that she cannot depend on a husband to take care of her. If she did not have to fend for

Although women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries faced oppression and unequal treatment, some people strove to change common perspectives on the feminine sex. John Stuart Mill, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Virginia Woolf were able to reach out to the world, through their literature, and help change the views that society held towards women and their roles within its structure. During the Victorian era, women were bound to domestic roles and were very seldom allowed to seek other positions. Most men and many women felt that if women were allowed to pursue interests, outside traditional areas of placement that they would be unable to be an attentive

Mullen describes Lily’s situation as “Lily Bart has been predominantly framed as a tragic victim caught within the irresistible market forces of capitalism and the fatal contradictions of gender and class politics” (45). The novel, “The House of Mirth” filled with nuances of gender and class politics. Mullen points out a weakness in Lily’s character, her position in the forces of the capitalist circle. The females in the novel face the pressures from the social circle as well. Lily is a product of her culture and upbringing. Success is measured by the capital worth and how one would survive in their social class. Unfortunately, Lily didn’t have to chance to remain in her former social class circle, after trying to pay off her debts. She died the night that she received her

Yet, this very society that demand its women be superficial creatures that merit worth only by appearance is also one which immediately rejects a woman who seems intent on marrying a man with wealth-the one course open to women who wish to be accepted in society.  This may be where one of Lily's character qualities prevents her from being able to join such a society.  She is no good at hiding her desire to marry a man of wealth.  In fact, she even tells Selden, her true love, that she "is very expensive" and "must have a great deal of money" (Wharton  31).  These kinds of admissions make Lily appear to be the one thing this superficial society cannot bear-a scheming adventuress out to snag a rich

Her father is described as a neutral figure and her memory of him is hazy at best. This lack of a father figure led to Lily’s attitude towards men. Because of this Lily always denies herself suitable marriages because she always feels she can do better. Lily is conflicted between the man she loves and the man with money. She loves Seldon but she deems him too poor for her perfect marriage. After much thought, Lily decides to marry Peter Gryce who is exceedingly wealthy but is too late as he is already engaged at the time of her decision. Lily cannot decide between love and money both of which are important aspects of her life. She is unwilling to compromise between the two which eventually leads to her downfall. Lily needs to marry a man with wealth and a stable status in high New York society because she needs a source of income to supplement her own unstable wealth.

The comparative study of texts and their appropriations reflect the context and values of their times, demonstrating how context plays a significant role. Virginia Woolf’s novel modernists Mrs Dalloway (1925) and Steven Daldry’s post modernists film The Hours (2002), an extrapolation, explore the rapid change of social and philosophical paradigms of the 20th century, focusing on women whose rich inner lives are juxtaposed with their outer lives. They place the characters in their respective context, to respond to, the horrors of the consequences of war and AIDS and the vagaries and difficulties of relationships, sexuality and mental illness. Through their differing intertextual perspectives the film and novel represent similar values, within different contextual concerns.

Woolf believes that women are different from men both in their social history as well as inherently, and that each of these differences has had important effects on the development of women 's writing.

Lily Briscoe is a character that can be viewed as unique. Unique in the sense that she was living in an era when women were expected to take on the domestic role and fulfill the role as a traditional woman. Lily did not live up to those expectations. She struggled to stay true to herself and found it a difficult task to conform to society’s conventions as it relates to gender roles and expectations. The novel “To The Lighthouse” takes place in the 19th century during that time often referred to as the Victorian era. During the Victorian era, the expectation was that individuals should follow strict gender roles and people who did not follow those roles were frowned upon. Women were expected to take care of their husband and children, take care of the home and make themselves available to fulfill their family’s needs. Men on the other hand were expected to provide for the family, work outside of the home and do “manly” things. They were considered to be the breadwinner for their family. As one reads throughout the novel, you are able clearly identify Lily’s struggles with society’s expectations of her as a woman and the difficult task of staying true to oneself as she visits and shares with the Ramsay family.

She worships Mr. Ramsay and has the time appropriate attitude that she is not "good enough to tie his shoe strings".(P.32) As Mr. Ramsay makes demands on her, she always outwardly succumbs to his needs or desires. When he wants sympathy, she is there filling the house for him; when the children have needs, she places there needs ahead of hers. She empathizes when necessary, and does all that she can to be there for them. All this she attributes to her being a woman, as if this were the only role a woman should take, later supported in her conversations with Lily and Paul about marriage. Although she may question this philosophy inwardly, on the surface she sees this as her role, "they came to her, naturally, since she was a woman", and she is there for them.(p.32)

  Clarissa Dalloway, the central character in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, is a complex figure whose relations with other women reveal as much about her personality as do her own musings. By focusing at length on several characters, all of whom are in some way connected to Clarissa, Woolf expertly portrays the ways females interact: sometimes drawing upon one another for things which they cannot get from men; other times, turning on each other out of jealousy and insecurity.

Lily’s progress in her painting is much like James Ramsay’s journey to the lighthouse. Lily Briscoe’s painting is a way for her to express her defiance of the social conventions which men impose on her. Lily lives an unconventional life by her society’s standard. She has no desire to marry. She is serious in her artistic pursuits, and yet the people around her disregard her abilities. Charles Tansley declares that “women can’t write, women can’t paint” (Woolf). Even Mrs. Ramsay thinks that no one could “take her painting very seriously” (Woolf). Nonetheless, Lily disregards the opinions of others. She is very independent-minded and very determined. Lily’s painting reflects her personal vision of the world. Lily is determined to paint the world as she sees it (Kelley 66). She will not let the opinions of others interfere with her vision of the world. She sees the jacmanna as “bright violet” and the wall as “staring white”, even though it was “fashionable” to see everything “pale, elegant, semitransparent” (Woolf). She is “struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage; to say: ‘But this is what I see; this is what I see’” (Woolf).

In 1990 Judith Butler first published her book Gender Troubles, where she questions gender roles. Butler theorizes that gender, as in male and female, is a type of societal/gender colonialism created to keep people who do not fall within the gender roles from being part of the mainstream society. In her 1999 preface, in which she addresses the impact her book had in the decade since its original publication, Butler expresses the concern she had with the “heterosexual assumption in feminist literary theory (61).” Butler utilizes the works of other feminist philosophers to further demonstrate the inconsistency, and disconnect between fighting for women rights and fighting for human rights. Judith Butler makes an interesting argument on the failure to recognize the spectrum of gender, however, she makes a compelling argument on the use of language perpetuating a patriarchal society.