To the Lighthouse

These questions, like all the study questions we offer, are meant to point up some patterns that are central to the text. They are by no means exhaustive, and they are not meant to be prescriptive. Although we won't be able to touch upon all of them in our discussions, they may serve to get you started on critical readings of our texts. Our discussions will be guided by the interests of the group rather than structured strictly in response to these questions.

See study questions for:
To the Lighthouse Part 1
To the Lighthouse Part 2
To the Lighthouse Part 3

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE STUDY QUESTIONS (Part 1)
General Questions and "The Window"
1. How does the opening scene of the novel establish our expectations for what is to come? What does it tell us about the characters, the plot and action, the themes, the style, the method and form of the novel that follows?

2. The opening of To The Lighthouse is famous for the sophisticated use of free indirect discourse, apparent from the opening lines. In free indirect discourse, the limited third person narrator uses the language and speech patterns of the character without using the first person (I). We are thereby invited into the minds of the characters. How does this form of narration change the experience of the reader?

3. How does Woolf play with your expectations for how a novel should be written?

4. Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard ran a press that published the writings of Freud. What evidence of modern (e.g., Freudian) psychology do you find in the text?

5. You will notice many references to preceding works of art and philosophy. How does Woolf play with these references and to what effect?

6. The novel lingers on the creation of art and knowledge. How do different characters participate in creation and how might we define "art"? What is the role of art in life?

7. How does the novel work as autobiography? What character or characters seem to reflect Woolf's own experience? How does the novel work as a fictionalized presentation of an artist?

8. What do the lighthouse and the journey to it seem to symbolize? Are these meanings consistent throughout the text or do they shift, and if so how?

9. Try to track the reappearance of objects (perhaps the house or windows), symbols (triangles come to mind), and language ("yes"). What are the relationships among objects, words and certain characters?

10. Watch for what Diane Middlebrook has called "Hyacinth Girl moments." The hyacinth girl appears in Eliot's poem, The Wasteland, as a symbol of fertility, desire and wholeness.

11. How do the characters' actions as well as their thoughts relate to distance and boundaries? How does Woolf use descriptions of spaces and rooms?

12. Mrs. Ramsey's dinner party provides insight into Woolf's ambitions for this novel, for women, and for art. Is this meal a metaphor? Compare it to other representations of meals you have encountered. Those of you who have read Woolf's A Room of One's Own will think of the description of luncheon at Oxbridge. What does this meal tell us about Mrs. Ramsey?

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TO THE LIGHTHOUSE STUDY QUESTIONS (Part 2) "Time Passes"
1. Why divide the text into three sections? What do you makes of the titles of each section?

2. Consider the position of this passage. In what ways is it central to the text? In what ways does it address transition, growth, memory, grief?

3. Why the use of parentheses? What kinds of events are parenthetical?

4. How does Woolf represent both Mrs. Ramsey's absence and continuing presence?

5. How is time passage itself represented? Does time always pass?

6. How many meanings of "passages" are at play in this book?

7. Why does this passage end with Lily and the word, "awake"?

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TO THE LIGHTHOUSE STUDY QUESTIONS (Part 3) "The Lighthouse"
1. In what ways does this section resolve questions or tensions introduced throughout the novel?

2. How does Woolf represent the trip to the lighthouse? What is its purpose in the text?

3. What does Lily make of her memories of Mrs. Ramsey? Why parallel the journey to the lighthouse to Lily's memories and the line?

4. Why is Lily finally able to draw her line and how does this gesture comment on art? gender relations? motherhood? selfhood?

5. Compare the first sentence to the last.

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