To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf uses repetition in all or almost all of the works that we have read thus far in the semester. It has been interesting to pick through and see the differences and similarities in the various uses of repetition. In Jacob’s Room it seemed that she repeated phrases or the beginning of a paragraph at the end or at the beginning of the next paragraph to let the reader know that the perspective had changed, or that another character was now talking or narrating.

In To the Light house repetition occurs again but in a different way. There is not as much repetition to signify the change in perspective as there is repetition of phrases by the same character over and over. An example of this is, “Someone had blundered.” (22) Mr. Ramsay repeats this phrase over and over again in different instances. That I know of, he does not go into detail as to who or what the “who” did. This repetition was significant in my reading because it showed the distance Mr. Ramsay was sure to keep between himself and everyone else. He is in his own world and as stated in the book, “What he said was true. It was always true” (8). Mr. Ramsay also repeats himself several times by saying “He was a failure” (40-41). He repeats this at least 3 times within three different paragraphs. Ramsay does this to be comforted by his wife. He breaks the mold of being distant when he is ready to be consoled and praised. He does not break until Mrs. Ramsay says enough of what he wants to hear which shows her function in their marriage. She is not independent, though she believes that she is. She justifies her acts toward members of the community as marks of her being such a good and giving person and as a measure of how happy her life is. It is obvious through her constant need to compliment herself and have pity on others that she is anything but secure and happy.

Another form of repetition that shows up quite a bit is back to back repetition such as, “And after all – after all (here insensibly she drew herself together, physically, the sense of her own beauty becoming, as it did so seldom, present to her – after all…” (44) Which gave a tone of desperation and longing. In this example Mrs. Ramsay is speaking to the reader about her ability to make people like her. There are three uses of “after all” in the beginning of the sentence. It reminded me of a child who stutters to gain attention or more personally of myself. My family calls me “useless chatter” because of my habit of always wanting to talk and almost always having nothing important to say. When it is going to be useless, nine times out of ten, I stutter and repeat the first 3 or so words of my meaningless sentence about four times. Mrs. Ramsay is clearly trying to justify her likability to herself. Although it is noted that her sense of beauty was there, it is also noted that it’s presence is a rarity. She is desperate for approval, which is ironic because it is her that is always giving approval to her husband and other characters through the book, such as Lily.

As it has been covered many times, Virginia Woolf loved flowers. There are different themes throughout all of her books and stories dealing with them. A specific repetition that I have found interesting is her usage of the lily in To the Lighthouse. According to the Oxford English Dictionary a lily is “…large showy flowers of white, reddish, or purplish colour, often marked with dark spots on the inside…” (1.a) I find it interesting that she used this flower as a name of one of the characters in her novel. It is not the first time she has done this. A character was named after the flower in “Kew Gardens” as well. Lily is evolving into a very interesting character. She is an artist who paints what she sees, not what she know people would prefer to see. She is a modernist who paints shapes rather than lifelike images of people. She gets mad at herself and says, “It was bad, It was bad, it was infinitely bad!” (51) She explains that she could have done it differently, more normally, but she just does not see it that way. Ironically, Mr. Tansley whispers in her ear “Woman can’t paint, woman can’t write…” (51) He most likely does not understand or approve of her style because it is ahead of his time. She is on the breaking edge of a new form of painting and he is too bogged down in gender control and in men being better and brighter than women that he is actually the ignorant one. Gender roles in society are also repeated throughout her works. I find it intriguing that Mrs. Dalloway and Mrs. Ramsay are the same in their acceptance of gender roles and Elizabeth Dalloway and Lily are on the cutting edge and are independent in many ways.