From Victorian gender roles towards a new female identity: Feminism in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Bielefeld University, course: Modernism, 12 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In my term paper, I will firstly discuss traditional Victorian gender roles. I will begin with a description of Virginia Woolf’s family. Subsequently, Mrs. and Mr. Ramsay’s characters are outlined, and I will show that Virginia’s parents served as their archetypes. In the next step I will illustrate that Lily Briscoe, although she wants to dissociate from the Ramsays, tries to come to terms with the family and seeks to take on their positive characteristics. To conclude, I will argue that Virginia’s family resembles the Ramsays very much. By writing To the Lighthouse, Woolf wanted to liberate herself from the consequences of her mother’s constrictive household ‘Angel’ role. Woolf needed to understand and respect her mother and her father’s callous behaviour to create a new identity for herself and for every woman of her generation. Arisen from the time of feminist movement, To the Lighthouse can still enlighten psychological processes on the family level in today’s society.