A Voice From Women:the Feminist Interpretation On To The Lighthouse

To the Lighthouse (1927) is one of Woolfs representative works and it is demonstrated unique feminist ideas of Woolf. In the novel, Woolf portrays two female characters:Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe, who respectively represent an angel in the house and an independent new woman. Through depicting the two characters, the novel illustrates Lily’s hardship and confusion during the course of pursuing being self and individual liberation in Woolf’s age. On the one hand, Woolf focuses on description of women’s living conditions at that time; on the other hand, she also practices their own feminist theory. The thesis exposes the current situation of the opposite duality between the male and female and overturns the assimilated criterion on the judgment of female images in the traditional male-dominated society. Meanwhile, the paper puts forward the harmonious pattern between the male and female in the novel creation.The thesis offers feminism explanation and distinctive features between these two types of female representation to show the hardships and struggle on the basis of close reading of the text. The thesis consists of the introduction, four chapters and the conclusion. Chapter one is a brief introduction of Woolf, her works and contribution to British literature. It illustrates the aims and significance of writing the paper and lists previous critical reviews of this novel to provide a broad background for the analysis. Being focus of the paper, the following four chapters are textual analysis from several aspects to illustrate feminism in To the Lighthouse and strive to fully grasp the unique content of her novel. First of all, from the classified analysis of this novel, it can unearth potential symbolic metaphors on feminism. Secondly, the thesis gives a description of the role of women in society and family life. Thirdly, it focuses on the analysis of feminism about the main female characters in the novel because Woolf completely breaks the traditional writing and makes her characters present different features. Fourthly, it concludes some metaphors of writing skills to elaborate feminism. Lily Briscoe has to resolve her own insecurities and come to peace with the memory of the deceased Mrs. Ramsay and prove to herself that women can paint. The conclusion summarizes a detailed analysis of profound connotations on concept of life, death and history in order to gain a deeper understanding. Feminism of this novel has extremely rich connotation and extension. The analysis indicates the ideal woman Woolf is pursuing is one who is independent, unattached to the male but harmonious with the male.