I have read Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse before and while I must confess I do not thoroughly enjoy it, I was able to find many moments which struck me as great, touching, emotionally riveting or at the very least interesting. A few epiphanies I crossed that I liked best will follow this dull introduction. My mind is still in Spring Break mode and V. Woolf is not helping to kick me in school mode...
Mrs. Ramsay is such a wonderful character in the way that her thoughts seem to take over her and all the rest of the characters. Even her simple actions say something so much more deeply. For example, "when she looked in the glass and saw her hair grey, her cheek sunk, at fifty, she thought, possibly she might have managed things better- her husband; money; his books." (Woolf 6). This passage shows how strong the reflection in a piece of glass can be! It reflects not only what is there physically, that we often overlook, but goes deeper within- the physical reflection leads to the emotional and mindful reflection Mrs. Ramsay never saw.
"It was a spendid mind. For if thought is like the keyboard of the piano, divided into so many notes, or like the alphabet is ranged in twenty-six letters all in order, then his splendid mind had no sort of difficulty in running over those letters one by one, firmly and accurately, until it had reached, say, the letter Q" (Woolf 33). The mind is such a splendid thing. When I read this passage I instantly thought of all the courses I have taken with Dr. Sexson. Truly in these courses you realize what a splendid thing the mind is! So many people, reading the same thing, at the same time, all come to such imaginative conclusions that are so unique to that individual's mind. This idea to me is absolutely enthralling and the mind itself is something I will never comprehend!
On page 75 in my book, Nancy's experience with the tide is beautiful. It makes it seem as though she has the power to turn something to small into something greater and larger. She can turn darkness to light, light to dark, change the movement and creatures into something that would not exist unless she altered the environment in even the smallest of ways. I can't explain what I am thinking in a way that seems clear, but I had a moment of "ohhh" seeing the way that something so small can come together with something else just as insignificant and seem so much larger in that unity.
This next passage I chose is charged with emotion, thought, and feeling. I love this passage: "the thing that mattered; to detach it; separate it off; clean it of all the emotions and odds and ends of things, and so hold it before her...Is it good, is it bad, is it right or wrong? Where are we all going to? and so on" (Woolf 112). Who is to decide the answers to these questions? How do we decide what it is that matters or did matter? Does something matter at one point then at another it does not? When does something cease to matter?
Mrs. Ramsay is such a wonderful character in the way that her thoughts seem to take over her and all the rest of the characters. Even her simple actions say something so much more deeply. For example, "when she looked in the glass and saw her hair grey, her cheek sunk, at fifty, she thought, possibly she might have managed things better- her husband; money; his books." (Woolf 6). This passage shows how strong the reflection in a piece of glass can be! It reflects not only what is there physically, that we often overlook, but goes deeper within- the physical reflection leads to the emotional and mindful reflection Mrs. Ramsay never saw.
"It was a spendid mind. For if thought is like the keyboard of the piano, divided into so many notes, or like the alphabet is ranged in twenty-six letters all in order, then his splendid mind had no sort of difficulty in running over those letters one by one, firmly and accurately, until it had reached, say, the letter Q" (Woolf 33). The mind is such a splendid thing. When I read this passage I instantly thought of all the courses I have taken with Dr. Sexson. Truly in these courses you realize what a splendid thing the mind is! So many people, reading the same thing, at the same time, all come to such imaginative conclusions that are so unique to that individual's mind. This idea to me is absolutely enthralling and the mind itself is something I will never comprehend!
On page 75 in my book, Nancy's experience with the tide is beautiful. It makes it seem as though she has the power to turn something to small into something greater and larger. She can turn darkness to light, light to dark, change the movement and creatures into something that would not exist unless she altered the environment in even the smallest of ways. I can't explain what I am thinking in a way that seems clear, but I had a moment of "ohhh" seeing the way that something so small can come together with something else just as insignificant and seem so much larger in that unity.
This next passage I chose is charged with emotion, thought, and feeling. I love this passage: "the thing that mattered; to detach it; separate it off; clean it of all the emotions and odds and ends of things, and so hold it before her...Is it good, is it bad, is it right or wrong? Where are we all going to? and so on" (Woolf 112). Who is to decide the answers to these questions? How do we decide what it is that matters or did matter? Does something matter at one point then at another it does not? When does something cease to matter?
