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Woolf Day 2. Kew Gardens Questions (Friday’s HW). If this is an experiment, what is Woolf experimenting with? What is she trying to represent? What stands out to you in the story? What is the point of view? What happens in this story? What themes or ideas can you find in it?. Concerns.
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Kew Gardens Questions (Friday’s HW) • If this is an experiment, what is Woolf experimenting with? What is she trying to represent? • What stands out to you in the story? • What is the point of view? • What happens in this story? • What themes or ideas can you find in it?
Concerns • Time: moving away from being bound to a strict sequence of events. • Section 1 of To the Lighthouse takes place on one evening, between 6:00 PM and dinner. • Section 2: Time passes. Human element completely removed. Only the house remains. • Section 3: Memory. Relationship between present and the past. • Devices: memory; foreshortening
Ideas • Truth: who faces reality and who avoids it • Men and women • The artist • Marriage (Victorian vs. modern) • Solitude vs. society • Nature • Love (romantic, family, etc.) • Compatibility vs. Incompatibility
Modernist Novel • Argued that the novel needed to be more than popular entertainment • Gatsby, To the Lighthouse, Robert Frost • The “art-novel”: as artistic as a painting • Modernism is interested in the poetry of the sub-conscious life, in the psychological, and how that challenges our rational, real-world expectations • Künstlerroman: Artist’s novel; Novel about an artist’s growth to maturity
Modernist Techniques • Interior monologue: Stream of consciousness • Term comes from William James, philosopher and psychologist • Consciousness not a chain of ideas, but a river or stream, where components are seamlessly merged
Stream-of-consciousness • Best known example: Final 50 pages of Joyce’s Ulysses…unpunctuated, because we don’t think in sentences • Woolf said that this enabled her to show what the interior life is really like and give the reader a deeper intimacy with her characters
To the Lighthouse Pre-Reading • Read chapters1-3. Resist the temptation to use Spark Notes. It’s OK if you’re confused. Read it as she meant it to be read and see what you notice/understand. • When finished, write 2 paragraphs. Also…bring post-its if you have a library copy. • Paragraph 1: Describe the Ramsay family. • Paragraph 2: Describe your experience of reading this text.