A Feminist Study On Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse

As a female novelist and essayist,Virginia Woolf,whohas exerted a great influence over other writers,shows great concern over feminism in her literary works.To the Lighthouse is one of them.What Woolf suffered in her early years contributed to the germination of her feminist consciousness in her young mind.To the Lighthouse reveals the living conditions of Victorian women,and also reflects Woolf's strong desire for women's rise.As Woolf's masterpiece of feminism,To the Lighthouse is full of Woolf's feminist thoughts.This thesis intends to study the female roles in the novel from two aspects,and then explore Woolf's feminism.This thesis is divided into five parts.Part One briefly introduces Virginia Woolf and her work To the Lighthouse and states the theoretical and practical significance of this research.The studies of literature review both at home and abroad come next in the second part.Part Three presents the theoretical frame work and research methodology of the thesis,based on Virginia Woolf's feminist theory and Ezra Pound's image theory.Qualitative research is used as the research method for further analysis.Part Four analyses Mrs.Ramsay's feminist consciousness from two aspects of family and society.She is a good wife and mother in her family.However,she always shows her desire to break the patriarchal society when she faces guests.Although her intention does not come true in the end,the new woman Lily achieves Mrs.Ramsay's desire by eliminating the gender gap through painting and eventually becomes androgynous.The fifth part analyses the connotation of feminism reflected on the characters through the images closely related to the roles,such as “lighthouse”,“window”,“color”,“sea” and “angel in the house”.Through these images,we can see that the typical Victorian women represented by Mrs.Ramsay are quite different from the new women represented by Lily.Therefore,we can gain further insight into Woolf's desire for the rise of women in a patriarchal society,and her proposed way of reconciliation,namely,androgyny.In conclusion,in order to interpret Woolf 's feminist thoughts comprehensively,we should not only analyse the feminist consciousness shown by the roles,but also needto expound the feminism shown by images in her novel.This thesis tries to analyse Woolf's feminism in To the Lighthouse from two aspects,so that readers may have a deeper understanding of Woolf 's thoughts and comprehend her androgyny theory from a broader perspective.What 's more,we can also apply it to modern society,since it is of great practical significance for building a more harmonious relationship between men and women,and such a society as well.