Comparing Relationships in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse
E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse are concerned with the lack of intimacy in relationships. Forster’s novel is set in English-run India, the difference between race and culture being the center of disharmony. Woolf’s novel is set in a family’s summer house, the difference between genders being the center of disharmony. Despite this difference of scale, the disharmonies are much the same. Unity and intimacy are intertwined in both novels. Whereas the definitions of intimacy vary with each person, all of the characters strive for unity through their relations with others. The difference in ideas of intimacy are what prevent unity from being achieved. For the Indians, intimacy is a sharing of possessions and personal information that acknowledges equality. For the English, intimacy is similarity of background and allegiance. Thus, Heaslop tells his mother that he made a mistake by asking one of the Pleaders to smoke with him because the Pleader then told all the litigants that he was in with the City Magistrate (Forster, 20). To the Pleader, this sharing of cigarettes and leisure time is an act of intimacy because it seems an acknowledgement of equality. To Heaslop, this is only a friendly act of social convention because equality is based on race and class, is something inherent, not given.
The idea of intimacy as unity is a strain throughout A Passage to India. When Aziz thinks of his wife on the anniversary of her death, he wonders if he shall meet her in an afterlife, but does not have specific faith in an afterlife. He believes that “God’s unity was indubitable and indubitably ...
... middle of paper ...
...ziz is frustrated that his attempt at conciliation is not successful.
Unity requires intimacy because intimacy is an acknowledgement of equality. Only when one transcends limitations of gender and race, extends oneself beyond social codes that emphasize division can true unity be achieved. Both authors end their novels with an insinuation of a future that will be friendlier to intimacy and unity: Lily finally achieves unity in her painting and the final words of the land to Aziz and Fielding are “’No, not yet…No, not there.” (Forster, 282). Sometime, somewhere the English and the Indians will unite and man and woman will achieve gendered unity within the self.
Works Cited
Forster, E.M. A Passage to India. London: Everyman’s Library, 1991.
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Introduction by D.M. Hoare, Ph.D. London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1960.
In Morley Callaghan’s short story, Rigmarole and Bronwen Wallace’s For Puzzled in Wisconsin, gender guides the characters of each story toward unbalanced positions of power in their relationships, ultimately leading to an overwhelming feeling of isolation and disunity. This becomes evident through the constraints of gender norms, and their inability to effectively communicate their feelings with their partners.
...s have to live clumped together, all striving to gain their own personal identity while constantly being smothered by everyone else. Mernissi's mother dreamed of living alone with her husband and children. “Whoever heard of ten birds living together squashed into a single nest?” Mernissi's mother would say. “It is not natural to live in a large group, unless your objective is to make people feel miserable.” (Mernissi, 77). There is a large indefinite amount of other frontiers that exist in and beyond the walls of the harem, all captivate their own various spheres. The sea between Christians and Muslims (Mernissi, 1), the rules for women when it comes to conventional dressing verses liberal dressing (Mernissi, 85), the frontier between youth (Mernissi, 241) and in conclusion there was even a frontier when it came to listening to the radio in the salon (Mernissi, 7).
As Wikipedia has become more and more popular with students, some professors have become increasingly concerned about the online, reader-produced encyclopedia. While plenty of professors have complained about the lack of accuracy or completeness of entries, and some have discouraged or tried to bar students from using it.
Herman Melville wrote some of the most widely read works in the history of literature during the late nineteenth century. He has become a writer with whom the romantic era is associated and a man whose works have become a standard by which modern literature is judged. One of his most well-known and widely studied short pieces of fiction is a story entitled, simply, Billy Budd. In this short story, Melville tells the tale of Billy Budd, a somewhat out-of-place stuttering sailor who is too innocent for his own good. This enchanting tale, while inevitably entertaining, holds beneath it many layers of interpretive depth and among these layers of interpretation, an idea that has been entertained in the literature of many other romantic writers. Melville uses a literary technique of developing two characters that are complete opposites in all aspects and contrasting them throughout the narrative, thus allowing their own personalities to adversely compliment each other. Melville also uses this tactic in another well-known short story, Bartleby the Scrivener. Much like Melville's two stories, another romantic writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses this tactic in his short story, The Artist of the Beautiful when he creates two completely different characters who vie for the same woman's love. Both writers use the contrary characters to represent the different facets of the human personality. Using this idea and many others, these romantic writers, Melville and Hawthorne, created works with depth of meaning that were both interesting to read and even more intriguing to interpret.
Minogue, Sally. "Was it a vision? Structuring emptiness in To the Lighthouse." Journal of Modern Literature. 12 April 2002 <http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/>.
Greist John H MD, Jefferson James W. MD. “Generalized Anxiety Disorder.” Merck Manual Professional. Aug 2007.
Smith, Melinda, and Jeanne Segal. "Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). "Symptoms, Treatment, And Self–Help. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
In Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse”, the struggle to secure and proclaim female freedom is constantly challenged by social normalcy. This clash between what the traditional female ideologies should be and those who challenge them, can be seen best in the character of Lily Brisco. She represents the rosy picture of a woman that ends up challenging social norms throughout the novel to effectively achieve a sense of freedom and individuality by the end. Woolf through out the novel shows Lily’s break from conventional female in multiply ways, from a comparison between her and Mrs.Ramsey, Lily’s own stream of consciousness, as well as her own painting.
The subjective worrying that is the foundation for anxiety must also be accompanied by three of the six other symptoms. These symptoms include restlessness or feeling “keyed up,” easily fatigued, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension & sleep disturbance (Butcher 201). Twice as common in women, than it is in men, and at the age that it is said to occur is unknown due to reports that clients with GAD presume that they have had it all their lives (Butcher 202). GAD has a high correlation with other anxiety and mood disorders such as panic disorders, social phobias, specific phobias, PTSD, and major depressive disorder. Those with GAD will also experience spotty panic attacks but do not meet the requirements to be diagnosed with panic di...
eventually I felt that marriage was the central keyword in the book. I will concentrate on the situation
3 Woolf, Virginia: A sketch of the past , Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol.2 , sixth edition
Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse' is a fine example of modernist literature, like her fellow modernist writers James Joyce and D.H Lawrence. This novel in particular is of the most autobiographical. The similarities between the story and Woolf's own life are not accidental. The lighthouse, situations and deaths within the novel are all parallel to Woolf's childhood, she wrote in her diary 'I used to think of [father] & mother daily; but writing The Lighthouse, laid them in my mind ….(I believe this to be true – that I was obsessed by them both, unheathily; & writing of them was a necessary act). Woolf, Diary, 28 November 1928) Woolf like many other modernist writers uses stream of consciousness, this novel in particular features very little dialogue, preferring one thought, memory or idea to trigger another, providing an honest if not reliable account of the characters lives. There novels motifs are paired with many of the novels images. The novel features two main motifs that Woolf appears to be interested in examining, firstly we notice the relationships' between men and women and the other appears to be Woolf's use of parenthesis. The novels images only become apparent once these motifs have been explored, allowing the reader to examine the relationships between the different characters.
Woolf, Virginia. "A Society." Monday or Tuesday. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc.,1921. 14-35.
Work Cited Woolf, Virginia. A. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc., 2005.
A lighthouse is a structure that warns and navigates ships at night as they near land, creating specific signals for guidance. In Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, the Lighthouse stands a monument to motivation for completion of long-term goals. Every character’s goals guides him or her through life, and the way that each person sees the world depends on goals they make. Some characters’ goals relate directly to the Lighthouse, others indirectly. Some goals abstractly relate to the Lighthouse. The omnipresent structure pours its guiding light over every character and every action.