Literature Analysis #5

1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read according to the elements of plot you've learned in past courses (exposition, inciting incident, etc.).  Explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).
2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.
3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)

CHARACTERIZATION
1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization.  Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?
2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character?  How?  Example(s)?
3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic?  Flat or round?  Explain.
4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character?  Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

1. The book is separated into three stories and viewpoints. The first story is titled "The Window". The second story is titled "Time Passes". The third story is titled "The Lighthouse". In the first story, the book introduces a family who lives in their summer home off the coast of Scotland. The story goes as a regular family lives. It talks about each family member and how Mrs. Ramsay discusses with her daughters that there are potential men for them to marry. The title represents how as they gaze through the window towards the lighthouse, though the title of the book is To the Lighthouse, the family only gets to view the lighthouse from that window which then essentially creates and instills imagination of how the lighthouse might be. They are not able to visit the lighthouse do to weather conditions. The second story talks about an elderly lady named, Mrs. McNabb who reminisces and remembers the family and their experiences when they lived at the summer home. She then restores it back to the way as it was in the past. In the third story, we meet Lily Briscoe again who talks about how the death of Mrs. Ramsay makes everything different. She then realizes that Mrs. Ramsay was the one who kept that family together.
2. Not sure if this is a good theme, but the moments with your family will be the most memorable out of all of your memories.
3.

• The author's tone in the first story seems to be very disturbed due to the fact that the family deals with multiple personalities.
• "She was quite ready to take his word for it, she said...There was nobody she reverenced more. She was not good enough to tie his shoe strings, he felt." P.32
• The author's tone in the second story seems to be reminiscent because Mrs. McNabb, who lived with the family in the past, flashes back and remembers what life was like back then and the different people she lived with.
• "Poor lady! She would never want them again. She was dead, they said; years ago, in London." P.135
• The author's tone in the third story is mournful because Lily, the painter, remembers fondly about Mrs. Ramsay, the main character in the first story.She remembers how Mrs. Ramsay was the one who kept the family together.
• "'Mrs. Ramsay!' Lily cried, 'Mrs. Ramsay!' But nothing happened. The pain increased" P. 180

4.

• Setting
• "So with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming on the roof a down-pouring of immense darkness began." P. 125
• This creates the vibe of the 2nd story of the book. It sets the tone of the setting, especially with the descriptions that follow the passage.
• Purpose-
•  The purpose was to show the significance of the painting, the family, and the lighthouse.
• "'Mrs. Ramsay!' Lily cried, 'Mrs. Ramsay!' But nothing happened. The pain increased" P. 180
• "Quickly, as if she were recalled by something over there, she turned to her canvas. There it was - her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines running up and across, its attempts at something. It would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps, they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was down; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision." P. 208-209
• Omniscient Point of view
• The whole story was told in an omniscient point of view.
• "'I'm so sorry,' said Mrs. Ramsay, turning to him at last. He felt rigid and barren, like a pair of boots that have been soaked and gone dry so that you can hardly force your feet into them. Yet he must force his feet into them. He must make himself talk. Unless he were very careful, she would find out this treachery of his; that he did not care a straw for her, and that would not be at all pleasant, he thought. So he bent his head courteously in her direction." P. 90
• Epitaph
• "'But i beneath a rougher sea Was whelmed in deeper gulfs than he." P.166 This was an epitaph that Mr. Ramsay said during his mourning for his wife.
• Motif
• In the story "The Window", "And smiling she looked out of the window and said (thinking to herself, Nothing on earth can equal this happiness) - 'Yes, you were right. It's going to be wet tomorrow. You won't be able to go." P. 124 This creates what the window represented in the book. It was the view of hope and imagination.
• Narrative
•  "Mr. Ramsay, stumbling along a passage one dark morning, stretched his arms out, but Mrs. Ramsay having died suddenly the night before, his arms, though stretched out, remained empty." P. 129
• This situation was a turning point for the book.
• Narrator-
•  Virginia Woolf is also the writer, but she is also the narrator of the story. She completely describes every single detail. She has an omniscient point of view. "Like all feelings felt for oneself, Mrs. Ramsay thought, it made one sad. It was so inadequate, what one could give in return; and what Rose felt was quite out of proportion to anything she actually was." P/ 81
• Flashback-
•  Mrs. McNab flashes back to her memory when she heard about Andrew Ramsay being killed instantly in WWI. "A shell exploded. Twenty or thirty young men were blown up in France, among them Andrew Ramsay, whose death, mercifully, was instantaneous." P.133
• Foil
• "'Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow,' said Mrs Ramsay...'There'll be no landing at the lighthouse tomorrow,' said Charles Tansley." Charles Tansley becomes the foil because he tries to put down Mrs. Ramsay's assurance to her kids that they will go to the lighthouse the next morning. P. 3 & 7
• Imagery-
•  "At that season those who had gone down to pace the beach and ask of the sea and sky what message they reported or what vision they affirmed had to consider among the usual tokens of divine bounty- the sunset on the sea, the pallor of dawn, the moon rising, fishing boats against the moon, and children making mud pies or pelting each other with handfuls of grass, something out of harmony with this jocundity and this serenity." P. 133 This passage creates images in our mind of what the scene was and looked like.

CHARACTERIZATION

1. 
   

• Direct characterization would be

• "It was his fate, his peculiarity, whether he wished it or not, to come out thus on a spit of land which the sea is slowly eating away, and there to stand, like a desolate sea-bird, alone." P. 44 This describes Mr. Ramsay who frequently talks about how he is not as smart as he thought he was.
• "Mrs McNab groaned; Mrs. Bast creaked. They were old; they were stiff; their legs ached." P. 139 This directly characterizes Mrs. McNab and Mrs. Bast.
• Indirect characterization would  be:
• "'And even if it isn't fine tomorrow...it will be another day. nd now...and now, standup' P. 26 We see Mrs. Ramsay assuring that there is always another day.
• "She must escape somewhere, be alone somewhere." P. 147 Here we can sense Lily feeling discomfort and awkwardness
• The author uses both ways to create a variety of descriptions for each experience with each character. The author uses dialogue and descriptions of the scene to convey his feeling and his message.
1. The author's syntax and diction does not change when she focuses on character because everything just flows together to create a good and an easy piece of literature to read and understand.
2. There are a bunch of characters that enter and exit the story from time to time. But I feel the protagonist is Lily Briscoe. Some may say Mrs. Ramsay, but I am saying Lily Briscoe because she is the one who pretty much is the passive one. She seems to be more reserved as she faces all of the issues that the family faces. I feel she is a dynamic character and a round character because she faces challenges and judgment throughout the story. But, what she also realizes is that she becomes observant of her surroundings and comes to realize that Mrs. Ramsay was the glue that kept that family intact.
3. After reading this book, I came away like I've met a person. An example would be:
1. "And this, Lily thought, taking the green paint on her brush, this making up scenes about them, is what we call 'knowing' people, 'thinking' of them, 'being fond' of them! Not a word of it was true; she had made it up; but it was what she knew them by all the same. She went on tunneling her way into her picture, in to the past." P .173