Gender Roles and Relationships in Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf’s revolutionary novel To the Lighthouse provides an extremely in-depth psychological study of its several characters. Family and buddies pass through the Ramsay’s summer house in the Hebrides, all of whom carry qualities, tendencies, and beliefs worthy of analysis on any number of levels. However, examining the techniques in which Woolf portrays the sexes in her novel, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay supply a connection dynamic that remains wholly representative of how the author views males, females, and their respective roles and qualities. By examining these two central characters, it becomes clear that Woolf aims to offer a commentary on the self-centered, egotistical, and dominant nature of males, even though also exploring the sympathetic, domestic, and socially aware qualities of the classic lady. The novel paints a picture of how a relationship amongst the sexes should appear, generating it clear that the woman’s primary duty in a partnership is to tenderly stroke the tortured male ego, with no receiving anything in return.

This thankless existence is familiar to Mrs. Ramsay, who encompasses what it means to be a lady in the novel. Her beauty is recognized by all, however her strength as a human becoming is confined to a domestic context—she holds a present for generating social harmony—but she even disregards her prospective for social effect at times, worried it will stand in the way of her familial duties. She holds a higher worth on marriage and family members, announcing, “an unmarried lady has missed the best of life,” (49). As for her devotion to her husband, “there was no one particular she reverenced a lot more,” and “she was not great enough to tie his shoe strings, she felt,” (32). Mrs. Ramsay believed that her husband was “infinitely the far more important, and what she gave the world, in comparison with what he gave, negligible,” (39). This level of adoration and commitment could potentially be admired on some level, but the lack of reciprocation from Mr. Ramsay tends to make it tragic and virtually pitiful, in some respects, whittling Mrs. Ramsay’s character down further and further, as she was “so boasting of her capacity to surround and shield, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by all was so lavished and spent,” (38). As a result, Woolf paints the standard female part as one particular of injustice and tragedy, practically a warning against the insatiable, all consuming, selfish male.

If Mrs. Ramsay represents conventional femininity in relation to marriage and family members, Lily Briscoe represents the opposite, making a concerted work to reject Mrs. Ramsay’s life style. Despite her pride in her own unconventionality, she is unable to shake the memory of “Mr. Tansley whispering in her ear, ‘Women can not paint, females can not write…’” (48), emphasizing her insecurity and anxiety about remaining an independent lady. Although she is extremely vital of Mrs. Ramsay at first, she experiences a transformation over the course of the novel, recognizing her strength, patience, and selflessness. In pages 148-149 we see Lily reflecting, in awe, of Mrs. Ramsay’s sympathy and potential to give, whilst Mr. Ramsay just continued to take, asking yourself how “at this totally inappropriate moment, when he was stooping more than her shoe, should she be so tormented with sympathy for him,” (154). In the novel, Lily’s character embodies a woman living outside of gender conventions, therefore representing a new, evolving social order, nonetheless the fact that Lily remains possessed by thoughts of Mrs. Ramsay in the end, suggests a specific rejection of the idea of the independent female in this society.

Mr. Ramsay, even though clearly very intelligent, is an extremely self-absorbed character, usually exhibiting “exactingness and egotism,” (36) and described as “tyrannical,” “unjust,” (46) and displaying little to none of the sympathy or commitment that his wife displays for their partnership or their family members as a whole. In his scarce interactions with his wife, she recognizes that “it was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his genius,” (37) and Mrs. Ramsay offers him with that sympathy, security, and assistance time and time again. Once more, her commitment would be commendable, save for the lack of appreciation that Mr. Ramsay holds for his wife. His annoyance, impatience, and distaste for her come far also easily given all that she does for him, reacting to factors she says by complaining about “the extraordinary irrationality of her remark[s],” and swiftly enraged by “the folly of women’s minds,” (31). Additionally, when discussing what tends to make him content, Mr. Ramsay only briefly mentions “his wife’s beauty,” (43) just before traveling into a much a lot more lengthy discussion of his function, quickly forgetting about his wife in an work to wonder whether or not his perform will comprise a legacy to remain for future generations.

This connection that Virginia Woolf has produced, nonetheless poignant, is undoubtedly heartbreaking in its nature, as Mrs. Ramsay’s eventual death suggests that she may have offered so significantly of herself away, she could no longer reside. To the Lighthouse is such a deep and self-conscious narrative that the stark partnership among Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay surely is not an accident. Woolf is delivering the reader with a commentary about the classic expectations of gender roles, questioning the meaning of a profitable marriage among a man and a lady at this time, although simultaneously exploring the idea of a new female role in the character of Lily Briscoe.