A "splendid mind" is Mr. Ramsay's most coveted and powerful instrument, the one at his constant disposal to perceive, judge and dissect the universe. It is an intelligence comparable to a mechanism whose gears move regularly in one direction, limited by infinite and invisible parameters. His beautiful wife, Mrs. Ramsay, on the other hand, is an intelligent, dependent and generous person; that which confers its ostensibly universal presence until it withers away. The couple, each with their limited perception of reality and their distinctive flaws, come to embody the conflict between the division of feminine and masculine energies at work in the universe. These two characters in particular, as well as the overall style of the novel, provide the necessary framework for Woolf to attempt to transcend the conventions of not only traditional Western narrative structure, but also established modes of consciousness and the way in which they are represented in literature like Good. It is the character of Lily who ultimately represents that which is capable of surpassing all conventions, including these bifurcated feelings, and catching "the vision." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayMr. Ramsay, an egocentric philosopher, expresses the masculine principle in his rational point of view throughout the novel. In its overly rational and limited way of perceiving reality, knowledge, and the very essence of existence itself, can and should be broken down into puzzle pieces that can be put together until all is revealed to careful examination. Mr. Ramsay's mind is described as "splendid" because in a world in which thought functions like "the keyboard of a piano" or "like the alphabet is composed of twenty-six letters all in order , then his mind had no difficulty. » . until he reaches, say, the letter Q." Thus, according to this model, Mr. Ramsay is a man of extraordinary and rare talent. Nevertheless, even Mr. Ramsay's formidable mind "will never reach R". By stepping back from this model, the question arises: "Is this really the dilemma? No, it is not, because other men had reached Z and even left from there? A. Better yet, some, the brains and true geniuses of the world, had even put together "all the letters in one flash", thinks Mr. Ramsay. He resigns himself to the fact that he will never reach R. Unfortunately,. it is his blindness to the fact that it is this very process, the very idea that knowledge, the universe, works in such a linear way, that marks Mr. Ramsay's disappearance. It torments him throughout. novel and probably for the rest of his life It then becomes clear that Mr. Ramsay is the author's instrument to bluntly show a fatal but endemic flaw in human thought. Ramsay's "myopia", on the other hand, is different but nonetheless just as dangerous as her husband's. It is Lily Briscoe, towards the end of the novel, who, in her memory of the woman, highlights an aspect of the tragedy that is Mrs. Ramsay: “This man [Mr. Ramsay], she thought, her anger rising within her, never gave; this man took. She, on the other hand, would have been obliged to give. Mrs. Ramsay had given, given, given, she had died – and left it all. » This becomes clear halfway through. Throughout the novel, one of Mrs. Ramsay's main flaws is her tendency to give to everyone, especially her needy husband, and never receive what she so urgently needs. Not only is it Mrs. Ramsay's propensity to constantly unfurl her magnificent petals to present hersweet nectar for all, until finally its great flower withers, but it also stands, in many ways, on the unstable platform provided by the male intellect: "What all did that mean? ...A square root? What was it? That ? His sons know it. She leaned on them; that was what they were talking about now; Staël; on the character of Napoleon; on French land tenure; on Lord Rosebery; on Creevey's Memoirs; she let it support and support her, this admirable fabric of masculine intelligence, which ran from top to bottom, crossing from one side to the other, like iron beams spanning the undulating fabric, supporting the world, to that she can trust it entirely. , she even closed her eyes. "Despite the fact that this inner escapade into Mrs. Ramsay's thoughts reveals an obvious weakness in her character, not everything about her and her husband is so simple. The limitations and faults of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay are merely crude and simplistic sketches of these characters Woolf's characterizations are far more sublime and complex than these sketches suggest. She does not draw narrow distinctions between the sexes, nor does she propose two extremes, as the cliché. of the logical man and the overly emotional woman, Woolf instead draws characters who depict the blurred boundary between modes of perception, reasoning, feeling and relating to others according to gender. Paradoxically, this complex network of emotions. and thoughts both highlights the extreme differences between men and women and, simultaneously, transcends the limitations associated with the tendency to “gender” a particular way of thinking or feeling. This sublime, careful quality of Woolf's work is one of many elements that bring the reader into awareness of the novel's broader scope: to rise above convention. One of the conventions that the author strives to overcome is the traditional representation of human consciousness in the "novel." Thought, in this work, is not limited by boundaries such as gender and time. All forces and objects, external and internal, animate and inanimate, influence the consciousness of the characters. One way to see how this is accomplished in To the Lighthouse is to step back and try to ignore the idiosyncrasies of the characters and let what little plot there is there dissolve completely. When this is accomplished, what stands out are the hundreds of thoughts of the individual characters. It is the thoughts themselves, not the moments of action or long dialogues, that constitute the backbone and structure of the entire work! Although Woolf does not completely abandon linear narrative, some frustrated readers might argue that this is indeed the case2E. For example, one of the most striking features of the novel is the way in which Woolf mixes external and internal dialogue until the two flow together into an almost transparent dialogue. manner. While the patient and discerning reader quickly realizes that this is indeed a very accurate way of representing the dynamic way in which thought and speech actually interact, the less perceptive reader might be thrown off balance and no longer never regain balance. Indeed, reading the novel is somewhat exasperating at first, like watching a film consisting of countless quick cuts and endless shots that are constantly juxtaposed with seemingly unrelated close-ups of objects that are simply out of focus. But, with time and patience, the novel begins to reveal itself as a sort of antithesis to Mr. Ramsey's very limited way of thinking from A to Z. Therefore, viewed in its entirety, the work begins to emerge as an attempt torepresenting that which cannot truly be explained or represented: the nature of consciousness. What ultimately emerges, through Woolf's decision to make individual "streams" of thought the center of the narrative, is the distinct feeling of being disconnected from any specific action or character and, like a ball of light, gaining the ability to effortlessly rush in and out of characters' minds, often following a thread of thought until it unravels in a million different directions and can no longer be represented in words. After reading the novel for the first time, the natural tendency is to conclude that in this novel, Woolf is rejecting the rigid structure of the established Western narrative tradition and has experimented in stream-of-consciousness type writing. This argument, however, oversimplifies what the author accomplished. Exactly what was accomplished is difficult to express in words, as what it appears to have done is give the reader a glimpse of what all of humanity experiences (at different levels no doubt) on a regular basis, but is , at the same time. , difficult, if not impossible, to explain in words. In a spirit of going beyond conventions and attempting to write what cannot be written, it is through the character of Lily Briscoe, the painter, that this desire to go beyond conventions is fully expressed. extent. Lily, in embodying Woolf's ideal androgynous voice, seems to rise above all conventions in a transcendent moment marked by the accomplishment of a specific artistic goal. Near the beginning of the novel, the reader is introduced to Lily and her seemingly impossible attempt to capture truth or "vision" in a painting: "It is at this moment, in the flight between the painting and its canvas, that the demons attacked her that often brought her to the brink of tears and made this passage from conception to labor as dreadful as any dark passage for a child - struggling against terrible obstacles to maintain her courage and say: “But this is; what I see; this is what I see, "and thus clutch to his bosom some miserable remnant of his vision, which a thousand forces have done their best to tear from him." These “demons” that assail Lily seem to represent a barrier preventing her from achieving this singular goal of truly capturing this vision that she feels is presenting itself to her. This desire, this goal, obviously cannot be quantified and analyzed - solved by moving from point A to point B, until one reaches the "end of the alphabet", as Mr. Ramsay. he. The barrier that prevents him from progressing seems impossible to overcome because it is invisible, rooted in this particular reality composed of expectations, traditions and “nature”. Throughout the novel, Lily turns to others for answers, particularly to Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay. She sees something desirable in Mr. Ramsey, that he can keep "his eyes fixed on" his philosophy, his "kitchen table" and "never be distracted or misled" until he takes upon himself this “unadorned beauty which impressed her so deeply. She also turns to Mrs. Ramsey for answers. She imagines, at one point, "how in the mind and heart of the woman [Mrs. Ramsey]... were... tablets inscribed with sacred inscriptions, which... would teach all..." and that the path to this intimacy illuminating, this knowledge, could ask him to discover a "means of becoming... inextricably the same, one with the object that one adored". It is evident that Lily, being highly sensitive to these polar opposites, is torn internally as she seeks to reconcile the disparate emotions and overcome the invisible obstruction that.