City University: To the Lighthouse - Modern Fiction Analysis

This essay analyzes Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse', focusing on the central theme of the lighthouse and its symbolic representation of human desire and the often unattainable nature of aspirations. The author explores how the lighthouse, initially a distant and alluring object, transforms in meaning for various characters, particularly James Ramsay, highlighting the disparity between idealized expectations and reality. The essay examines the novel's exploration of desire, disappointment, and the changing perspectives of individuals over time. It also discusses how the lighthouse symbolizes the challenges of achieving one's goals, mirroring the characters' struggles and the novel's overarching themes of change, perception, and the search for truth through different viewpoints. The analysis includes references to the novel's characters, plot points, and critical interpretations by various scholars to support its arguments.

Running head: MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY FICTION
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY FICTION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors note

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MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY FICTION
This paper focuses on one of the central theme of the novel, To The Lighthouse by
Virginia Wolf’s, the lighthouse which is lying across the bay over the indifferent sea is
intimately personally connected in some or the other way each of the characters of the novel. It
was at first at one point, far away, infinitely interpretable, illuminating and inaccessible. It is
considered as a destination front which the title has been taken by the novel, also the lighthouse
illustrates that the destination seems and feels to be surest are supposedly to be the most
unobtainable (Woolf).
That misty image to which James was attracted to and desired and dreamt of visiting has
left him shattered and unhappy by from its close look and therefore James desire left
unattainable, when he visited the lighthouse as an adult. As, Mr. Ramsay is completely sure and
certain about his wife’s love for him and therefore he wishes to hear from her speaking about
words to the end in ‘the window', however, Mrs. Ramsay find it impossible to say these words.
Such attempts which led to failure appeared at some kind of solid surface, for instance, Lily’s
first painting trial and Mr. Ramsay and Mrs. Ramsay attempted witness the marriage between
Minta and Paul, these resulted only in more and more attempts along with further excursions
instead of taking rest. This lack of attainability is something that is strongly representation and
symbolisation of the lighthouse, which is standing still in its potent position through season after
season and all day and all night (Woolf).
James who desired to visit the lighthouse from close found out after getting a closer look
that it is nothing like what the desired to see, he realized that it is not the misty and shrouded
destination of his childhood which he fascinated about. Instead he begins to reconcile two
contradictory and competing images regarding the tower, as the tower appeared totally different
to him when he was a child but now when he is a grown up man, the tower seems like a mere

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structure to him which is not at all fascinating anymore. He realised at last that both the images
of the lighthouse are contributes to his senses, and adds to the essence of his memory that
nothing remains same everything changes over time, sometimes the object and sometimes the
vision. This is a sentiment which echoes the determination of the novel in order to arrive at the
truth through various vantage and contradictory points (Güneş).
The Lighthouse in the nove The Lighthouse, symbolizes desire of human, it is a force and
an energy which throbs on an indifferent sea of the regular world along with providing guidance
to the people’s channel across it. Yet the Lighthouse is standing still in its place all day and all
night in a constant position, season after season, it stays curiously unattainable. The novel begins
with frustrated desire of James regarding visiting the Lighthouse; and Mrs. Ramsay watches the
lighthouse in such a way as if she is denying Mr. Ramsay the love profession which he desires so
badly in the end of the first chapter. By the third chapter James ultimately succeeded in reaching
the lighthouse which he used to stare at from a far distance for such a long time, almost after a
decade he reached a place he want to go, but after witnessing the lighthouse up close and seeing
the structure of the piece which he was so eagerly wanting to have a close look at, is finally
resulted to be in vein, because it was nothing like what it used to look like from distance. James
was supremely disappointed by the fact that the lighthouse was nothing what he has imagined for
such a long time (Kaehele, Howard).
The lighthouse used to fascinate James for the distance view of, it used to attract him and
from across the bay when he was a child. Even when the at the time when it has became possible
to sail right to the lighthouse and the structure to which it was attached to, still he lost his desire
and crave for place of his dream as when he grown up his vision towards the world and his
requirement has changed. One of the central theme of the novel is represented through the

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feeling of desire of visiting the lighthouse, which ultimately servers nothing, the title follows
itself the sense of desire and experiences. Life is also of such kind, where one shifts through the
life precipitate by wanting and desiring through the things which another want and yet it seems
and finds difficult to reach them (Nussbaum).
Hence, in conclusion it can be considered that the desires of the human life human lives
are signified by the desire of James's desire for visiting the lighthouse. This represents the fact of
desiring something so desperately can ultimately end up disappointing as just by looking at it
from a distance does not prove that it would be exactly what the person has desired. Like what
James desired for the lighthouse, life also depicts such desires to be of no use, because things
human desires from a far or from outside always do not make justice with the kind of thought
they are being desired with rather came out to be totally opposite and can be heart breaking and
disappointing to an extent. Because the ultimately truth factor lies in the change, whether it is the
change in the vision of the people or be it the change in the object itself, nothings remains the
same nothing is permanent and constant rather everything keeps on changing in some or the
other way.

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References:
Güneş, Ali. "Symbolism in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse." Hacettepe Üniversitesi
Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 16.2 (1999).
Kaehele, Sharon, and Howard German. "" TO THE LIGHTHOUSE": SYMBOL AND
VISION." The Bucknell Review 10.4 (1962): 328.
Nussbaum, Martha Craven. "The window: knowledge of other minds in Virginia Woolf's To the
Lighthouse." New Literary History 26.4 (1995): 731-753.
Woolf, Virginia. "To the lighthouse." Collected Novels of Virginia Woolf. Palgrave Macmillan,
London, 1992. 177-334.