To the Lighthouse Extract

To the Lighthouse extract essay.

In both sections of the extract, The Window and Time passes, Woolf is trying to create an image of perception. Rather than developing characters or a depicting an event or an episode Woolf concentrates on how the Ramsey's perceive each other and how we understand them to be in The Window extract, whilst in Time Passes Woolf leads the reader to perceive the night in different ways and leads the reader to question the idea of perception itself.

The section of the extract from The Window takes place in one room with two characters, Mr and Mrs Ramsey and is told through their eyes, though in third person narration. Everything that we see and understand in this situation comes from the two characters both in terms of physicality and mentality. On a physical level we know Mrs Ramsey is beautiful only because Mr Ramsey thinks of her thus and when Mrs Ramsey looks away we can only tell the direction of Mr Ramsey's gaze because of her feelings ‘she felt that he was still looking at her'. To an extent this creates two unreliable narrators; early on in the extract we know that Mr Ramsey likes to think of his wife as ignorant and ‘not clever' however the reader knows both that this is unlikely – she is reading a sonnet of Shakespeare – and that by the word ‘exaggerated' when Mr Ramsey is thinking of her that he himself knows she is cleverer than he likes to imagine. He creates his own image of her first explaining what kind of an image this is then living it, from exaggerating her intelligence to actually thinking that she does not understand what she is reading.

We also see the unreliable internal monologue in the two's similar views on Paul and Minta's marriage but their differing understanding of each others thoughts. We are told that Mr Ramsey ‘felt…the girl is much to good for that young man' and whilst they both share a joke about Paul, denigrating him it is Mr Ramsey's words ‘You won't finish that stocking to-night' that draws Mrs Ramsey out of pessimism and into thinking ‘the marriage will turn out all right'.

Mr Ramsey's words lead to an unspoken comforting, one that Mrs Ramsey seems to need, it being ‘what she wanted'. From the beginning she seeks comfort in his words she ‘wanted him to say something'. Before becoming ‘aware' of this she has already racked her mind for possible conversations that will lead to this and only after starting up a conversation becomes ‘aware' of this. This creates the perception of true humanity, acting on intentions before the intention became fully conscious. Mr Ramsey wants similar comfort from her he ‘wanted her to tell him that she loved him'. Whilst he was able to comfort her through the unspoken meaning of his words it is her action, turning to him and smiling, that leaves the unspoken understood. Because the narrative is told through the eyes of the two it is possible to interpret the line ‘instead of saying anything she turned' as a conscious action on the part of Mrs Ramsey to replace words with action; just as Mr Ramsey consciously made his wife more obtuse than he knew her to be as discussed above.

There is a sense of aloofness between the two characters from the reader and also seemingly from each other, partly from the fact that neither of the two are named, merely ‘he' and ‘she'. Rather than simply saying what they mean their thoughts intertwine and as such the right words are not necessary. After Mrs Ramsey thinks ‘(every word they said now would be true)' the only things that are mentioned are her knitting and the weather; two sentences from Mrs Ramsey and one from him. These statements are seemingly true; just in themselves have an inanity. If we take it that their thoughts are shared however there is no need for truth or even words and Mrs Ramsey's true feelings are indeed shared with her husband. There is seemingly a barrier between them the ‘crepuscular wall' that does seem to dim and break down.

In ‘The Window' section of the extract very little time goes by, the narrative is lead by action, thought and words which follow on one from another. Because of this the reader can create a timeframe of the scene which unfolds. In the second section of the extract however the psychological interaction of human beings is, while not entirely removed, pushed to the background. The effect of this is two-fold humans are put into a larger perspective rather than being the focus and there is a much weaker sense of linear time – time being measured by humans and their appearance is sporadic.

One of the key ways that Woolf removes the importance of human interaction is by removing any character