The Characters Hidden Values and Needs in To The Lighthouse Essay

The Characters Hidden Values and Needs in To The lighthouse Woolfs chosen role as an author is to uncover the hidden value and needs of her characters psychologies, and by extension of this, those of her readers all(prenominal) frequent realization of the characters is a real and vividly personal epiphany, the like of which real-life persons do non tolerate such a feel for on a day-to-day home the characters are in a very real sense mayhap too self-aware to be considered real. (Tansley and Lily at the dinner table each understand their situations perfectly.) The underlying message Woolf seems to be seeking to present is that this self-knowledge is non necessarily inherently of any worth Tansley, for instance, is unable to control his appetency to subjugate others in his accept mind to prop up his own insecure self-esteem his realization of this fact is non an em government agencyment to deviate the fact. Lily feels restrained in a similar fashion years by and by their u tterance, Tansleys words (p94) women cant write, women cant paint, though cushioned with the knowledge that clearly it was not true to him but for some reason helpful (also p94), still cannot be completely discounted from her mind. Lilys struggle to marshall her memories into a cohesive and enduring deposit of canvas is a metaphor for the intensity of human experience the import being that ultimately it does not matter for that intensity will not be retained even then, no matter the struggle erst captured the reality of the situation fades, and it is time to move on. Her efforts are symbolic of the inability for the power of memories and emotions to be lastingly captured so strong is this urge that her desire to form a meaning upon events perpetuate... ... birth been more verbose and less nebulous in form (in MS ... more explanation is given p233, in MS, Tansleys atheism is more emphasized and contrasted with Lilys belief p227 and there are records of many an(prenominal) o ther editing outs or smoothing revision.) It is not difficult to imagine that Woolf would have been exceptionally gratified by a comment which she made about another author in a critical essay that a work offered (p248) a complete presentation of life ... as forever and a day he creates carelessly, without a word of comment, as if the parts grew together without his willing it, and stony-broke into ruin again without his caring. Woolfs version is more forced but perchance this is what is necessary for a work of such questing magnitude. Seeming spontaneity requires patience. flora Cited Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse, Penguin Twentieth Century Classics, 1992