“The Window”

1. “The Window” Sections 4-6

2. Qs?

3. Mr. Ramsay • “Charge of the Light Brigade” • Mr. Ramsay recites this poem throughout sections 3-6 • We hear lines of it in the sections • Beginning of Section IV: irony in Lily’s tone: “Indeed, he almost knocked her easel over, coming down upon her with his hands waving shouting out, ‘Boldly we rode and well,’ but, mercifully, he turned sharp, and rode off, to die gloriously she supposed upon the heights of Balaclava”. • She does see him as ridiculous

4. Beginning of Section VI: through Mrs. Ramsay’s eyes • She also makes fun of him internally: • “But what had happened? Some one had blundered. Starting from her musing she gave meaning to words which she had held meaningless in her mind for a long stretch of time. "Some one had blundered"--Fixing her short-sighted eyes upon her husband, who was now bearing down upon her, she gazed steadily until his closeness revealed to her (the jingle mated itself in her head) that something had happened, some one had blundered. But she could not for the life of her think what. He shivered; he quivered. All his vanity, all his satisfaction in his own splendour, riding fell as a thunderbolt, fierce as a hawk at the head of his men through the valley of death, had been shattered, destroyed. Stormed at by shot and shell, boldly we rode and well, flashed through the valley of death, volleyed and thundered--straight into Lily Briscoe and William Bankes. He quivered; he shivered. “ • The poem reveals how he views himself and the world

5. The Quest for Z • This idea is Woolf’s parody of Mr. Ramsay’s philosophical quest and his vanity • “It was a splendid mind…” continuing for 4 paragraph • Trying to reach R represents trying to reach the next stage of philosophical knowledge and understanding…trying to achieve glory as a philosopher

6. His thoughts about this are in the form of Philosophical propositions: “If Q then Q –R…” • In this quest to achieve lasting fame as a philospher he views himself as a“leaderof a doomed expedition” • A Ship captain trying to save his crew; a polar explorer; a leader; a soldier charging through the “valley of death” • Woolf’s parody is in the hyperbole of these comparisons. Is trying to reach R really equivalent to trying to reach the North Pole?

7. Yet we have some sympathy for him • Mr. Ramsay realizes: “The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare.” • The reality is that humans are mortal; the ephemeral nature of human existence in the light of time and nature • Lily also has sympathy for him • Lily’s thoughts: Mr. Ramsay “depends so much on other people’s praise” (37-38) • That’s his insecurity: am I good enough?

8. Lily’s artistic struggle • Woolf portrays a character who thinks in pictures, which makes sense, since she’s a visual artist • She sees Mr. Ramsay’s work as “a scrubbed kitchen table” (38) • About Mr. Bankes: “involuntarily, sections of potatoes rose before her eyes” (39) (he’s a botanist) • The “invisible elastic net” her thoughts dance in (41) • Insecurities about her art • Beginning of IV: doesn’t want anyone to look at her picture • “But so long as he kept like that, waving, shouting, she was safe; he would not stand still and look at her picture. And that was what Lily Briscoe could not have endured.”

9. Her artistic struggle • Section IV, paragraph 4:How she sees things and wants to paint vs. the fashion • The jacmanna was bright violet; the wall staring white. She would not have considered it honest to tamper with the bright violet and the staring white, since she saw them like that, fashionable though it was, since Mr. Paunceforte's visit, to see everything pale, elegant, semitransparent. Then beneath the colour there was the shape. She could see it all so clearly, so commandingly, when she looked: it was when she took her brush in hand that the whole thing changed. It was in that moment's flight between the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her who often brought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception to work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child. Such she often felt herself--struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage; to say: "But this is what I see; this is what I see," and so to clasp some miserable remnant of her vision to her breast, which a thousand forces did their best to pluck from her.

10. More important aspects of these sections… • Both Lily and Mr. Ramsay have a similar weakness…an insecurity about their work • Cam is introduced. What type of little girl is she? • Setting: middle of September; past 6 in the evening (33) • Early fall, late evening: foreshadowing the coming war, peace nearing the end, just as winter is coming and the night is falling