Feminist Agenda in “To the Lighthouse”

Introduction
One of the most prominent literary figures of the twentieth century, Woolf is
widely admired for her technical innovations in the novel, most notably her
development of stream-of-consciousness narrative. In To the Lighthouse (1927)
Woolf sought to come to terms with her parents' stifling Victorian marriage and
events of her own childhood, as well as to explore such feminist issues as the
necessity, or even desirability, of marriage for women and the difficulties for
women in pursuing a career in the arts. A striking mix of autobiographical
elements, philosophical questions, and social concerns, To the Lighthouse is
generally considered to be Woolf’s greatest fictional achievement.
What is Feminism?
Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social
movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political,
economic, personal, and social equality of sexes. This includes seeking to establish
educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for
men.
Three phases of Feminism
In her book “A Literature of Their Own” Elaine Showalter writes on English
women writers. She says that we can see patterns and phases in the evolution of a
female tradition. Showalter has divided the period of evolution into three
stages. They are:
1. The Feminine,
2. The Feminist, and,
3. The Female stages.
The Feminine
The first phase, the feminine phase dates from about 1840-1880. During
that period women wrote in an effort to equal the intellectual achievements of the
male culture. The distinguishing sign of this period is the male pseudonym. This
trend was introduced in England in the 1840’s. It became a national characteristic
of English women writers. During this phase the feminist content of feminine art is
typically oblique, because of the inferiority complex experienced by female
writers.
The Feminist
The feminist phase lasted about 38 years; from 1882 to 1920. The New
Women movement gained strength—women won the right to vote. Women
writers began to use literature to dramatize the ordeals of wrong womanhood.
The Female
The latest phase or the third phase is called the female phase ongoing since
1920. Here we find women rejecting both imitation and protest. Showalter
considers that both are signs of dependency. Women show more independent
attitudes. They realize the place of female experience in the process of art and
literature. She considers that there is what she calls autonomous art that can come
from women because their experiences are typical and individualistic. Women
began to concentrate on the forms and techniques of art and literature. The
representatives of the female phase such as Dorothy Richardson and Virginia
Woolf even began to think of male and female sentences. They wrote about
masculine journalism and feminine fiction. They redefined and sexualized external
and internal experience.
Female Characters in the Novel
After reading Virginia Woolf’s, “To the Lighthouse”, readers are left with
the disturbing reality of the role of a woman during this time period. The
characters of Mrs... Ramsay and Lily Briscoe portray these demeaning roles. Both
are giving different polar areas of the woman in the novel. They are portrayed with
the stream of conscious technique. There are other minor female characters too.
However, instead of completely giving in to the domination of men, they are
starting the woman’s movement of resistance in the period of the beginning of
World War I.
Mrs. Ramsay
Mrs. Ramsay is the character who is constantly present not only as worldly
presence but also in the mind of the other characters. Beautiful, charming, and
nurturing, Mrs.. Ramsey holds the Ramsay family together as she holds together
every social context she enters by her charisma and instinct for putting people at
ease. Mrs... Ramsay also holds To the Lighthouse together, for the novel’s shape is
structured around her: her perspective dominates Chapter 1 and, even after she dies
in Chapter 2, Mrs. Ramsay remains central in Chapter 3 as the surviving Ramsay’
manage their grief and Lily revisits her memories of Mrs. Ramsay and makes
peace with her ghost. For her own part, Mrs. Ramsay exalts in the beauty of the
world and, though she insists she is no thinker, frequently reflects on the nature of
time and human experience. An eager matchmaker, Mrs. Ramsay is also, as Lily
sees an artist who can make out of the fleeting moment “something permanent”
She is the character who used to take all the responsibility of their family.
Carefree, calm graceful lady she is! She is the perfect homemaker. Always she is
buffering the situation between the Mr. Ramsay and the children. Mrs. Ramsay is a
good wife & creator of the comfort for everyone. Mr. Ramsay failed to treat her
with chivalry. She is the means to satisfy his male ego, physical needs as well as
needs of the family. And sometimes when he realizes he cannot help her and that,
astoundingly, her remoteness irritates him. So consistently does he get things
wrong? On the other hand family is everything for Mrs. Ramsay. Her constant
concern about small and basic needs of family keeps her alive after her death
too. For in Mrs. Ramsay’s impulse to call to her husband is the essence of her life,
the sensitive and idiosyncratic alchemy of feminine intuition, along with the
terrifying notion that the very act of being a woman, a wife, a mother, enervates,
and far worse, may even kill. But here a question rises that is it necessary to be so
concerned for needs to be in someone’s memory and heart? If she is an
independent woman just like Lily Briscoe would she not be missed by family?
Ultimately, as is evident from her meeting with Mr. Ramsay at the close of
“The Window,” Mrs. Ramsay never compromises herself. Here, she is able—
masterfully—to satisfy her husband’s desire for her to tell him she loves him
without saying the words she finds so difficult to say. This scene displays Mrs..
Ramsay’s ability to bring together disparate things into a whole. In a world marked
by the ravages of time and war, in which everything must and will fall apart, there
is perhaps no greater gift than a sense of unity, even if it is only temporary.

But beauty was not everything. Beauty had this penalty — it came too readily,
came too completely. It stilled life — froze it. One forgot the little agitations; the
flush, the pallor, some queer distortion, some light or shadow, which made the face
unrecognizable for a moment and yet added a quality one saw for ever after. It was
simpler to smooth that all out under the cover of beauty.
 According to Lily Briscoe she was great at pulling together her family. But
by doing so, she smoothed over all of the complexities and individual interests of
her children and her friends in favour of a greater whole. Mr. Ramsay is an overt
bully, but Mrs. Ramsay quietly influences people to take the shape that she wants
them to take, in the name of a greater idea.

Lily Briscoe
In Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, the struggle to obtain and assert
female autonomy is constantly threatened or undermined by a society built upon
the foundations of patriarchy. The clash of gender ideologies permeates much of
the novel and Woolf emphasizes a subversion of traditional female gender roles
through the character of Lily Briscoe. She represents an idealized feminist woman
who challenges male hegemony to achieve a sense of individuality. Her finished
painting and epiphany at the end of the novel serves to establish her role as a truly
liberated female artist.
The desire to break away from conventional female cultural norms and
stereotypes in order to achieve autonomy can only be fully realized when she
experiences the “vision” after the completion of her painting at the end of the
novel. Woolf is keen to stress Lily’s role as an outsider attempting to analyze and
comprehend her precarious social predicament. Her status as a middle-aged
woman, who values artistic achievement over the prospects of marriage becomes
increasingly difficult to maintain against the circumscribed expectations of society.
The pressure to conform to specific female gender roles weighs heavily upon her
conscious:
“Even while she looked at the mass, at the line, at the color, at Mrs. Ramsay sitting
in the window with James, she kept a feeler on her surroundings lest someone
should creep up, and suddenly she would find her picture looked at”.
Lily suffers from a moral crisis over her desire to pursue art as a vocation
because of gender inequality and male prejudices imposed upon women. She is
challenging the status quo by picking up a paintbrush and experiences a pervasive
sense of guilt as if committing a heinous crime. Lily is fully aware of the gender
stereotypes and impediments of circumstance that society places upon women,
which explains her shrewd disposition to remain inconspicuous. Considering that
she is adamant to conceal her painting from prying eyes suggests that her art is
essentially metaphorical: a radical political statement of feminist ideals. Yet, she is
not confident enough in her abilities to showcase this controversial work to a
judgmental public. Her personal independence from the negative influences of
male hegemony is directly linked to the aesthetic development as an artist; thus, it
is only after reaching a satisfactory level of creative expression that the submerged
metaphor becomes most vivid.
Indeed, since Lily is unable to obtain an empowering sense of female
liberation until she has finished the painting at the end of the novel, the first section
emphasizes the juxtaposition between her destabilized sense of self as an artist and
as a woman living in a world ruled by patriarchy. The tenuous relationship
between the subjective and the objective self is a cause of great psychological
distress because of her shifting attitudes towards female gender roles. Lily’s first
appearance in the novel provides a suitable qualification of her social status as an
outsider. She is introduced through the perspective of Mrs.. Ramsay sitting in the
openly transparent window of the cottage with James, her youngest son. They are
both having their portrait painted by Lily who is looking at them through the
window from a position outside on the lawn.
Female Gender Roles
Many women in To the Lighthouse either overtly or silently subvert
conventional female gender roles. Lily Briscoe, for example has no desire to marry
but rather wants only to dedicate herself to her work. She is independent and self-
sufficient, and she is able to disregard Mr. Tinsley’s prejudiced comments about
women being unable to paint. Despite Mrs. Ramsay’ persuasion, she holds her
ground throughout the novel, refusing to become any man’s wife. These choices
and ideas were very unconventional in the early 20th century.
Three of Mrs. Ramsay’s daughters also silently reject the life that their
mother chose for herself, in all of its domesticity. They know that they want their
lives to be different and more complex then what they perceive as limited realm of
wife-mother and they are stubborn and adventurous.
Moreover, the novel promises only misfortune for the woman who accept
the roles carved out for them. Mrs. Ramsay dies unexpectedly at a relatively young
age. Pure, shortly after getting married, dies as a result of childbirth. Even Minta,
who had been a somewhat unconventional lady, suffers in her marriage, for Paul
leaves her for another woman. The novel seems to punish the women who accept
positions as wife and mother, while it abounds with young women who are sure
that want a different existence.
Conclusion
Thus, the characters themselves stand for feminism. During that period woman are
considered as of substantial or derogatory. For Mrs. Ramsay we can connect the
Indian Shloka of Manusmriti-Karyeshu mantri Karneshu dasi, Shayneshu Rambha
bhojaneshu mata,
This shlok shows the very role played by Mrs. Ramsay in the novel. Her
character is juxtaposed with Lily Briscoe’s character who is an independent
individual and creative artist as well as sensible lady. The feministic view has only
one question that Why cannot the woman be allowed to be herself, why she is not
at the ease and have to carefree for every person’s minor needs, why can’t she get
comfort or feeling of emotional support from the man in her life, doesn’t she need
that?