1. How does the narrative voice work? Where does it place the reader? What is demanded of the reader? (Consider, for example, the first two pages of the novel)

2. What is the function of the story Mrs. Ramsay reads to James?

3. What sort of person is Mrs. Ramsay? How does she conceive of herself? of her role?

4. What does Mrs. Ramsay expect of others? What feelings does she inspire in them? Why? What in fact is her role with regard to the other characters?

5. What is Mrs. Ramsay's function in the novel, with regard to Woolf's overall themes and design? Furthermore, what are Woolf's themes & how does she achieve her design?

6. What is achieved at dinner? Why does it matter?

7. What happens to the house as "time passes"? Why? With what wider significance?

8. What do the brackets and the parentheses indicate in this section? How do they influence your reading?

9. What is the importance of Lily Briscoe's painting? What is Lily's function in the novel?

10. What constant tensions run through the novel? How do they shape it? What is and is not resolved at the end?

11. What does the title To the Lighthouse mean, to what does it refer?

12. How would you relate this novel to other works we have read this semester? Similarities/Differences, in style and/or theme?

1. "One wanted fifty pairs of eyes to see with, she reflected. Fifty pairs of eyes were not enough to get round that one woman with, she thought." (198) What sort of person is Mrs. Ramsay? What feelings does she inspire in others? (See especially Charles Tansley -- p. 14 & 85; Lily Briscoe -- p. 19, 92 & 101; William Bankes -- p. 29, 21 & 89). Is her image straightforward? How do we learn about her? Does the narrator present a complete and uncomplicated picture of her? Can we know her? How is the representation of Mrs. Ramsay central to the theme of this novel?

2. Describe the movement from chaos to order at the dinner party. How does the dinner begin? What is wrong? See pp. 82-83. What happens between Charles and Lily? (86); between Mr. Bankes and Mrs. Ramsay on the subject of the Mannings? (88-89); between Mr. Ramsay and Augustus Carmichael; among the children? What brings all of this disorder to harmony? How is this process of bringing harmony to chaos represented symbolically in the text? What images suggest such a harmony out of disparate forces?

3. "It was necessary for her to carry everything a step further. With her foot on the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was vanishing even as she looked, and then, as she moved and took Minta's arm and left the room, it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past." (111) What has Mrs. Ramsay created at the dinner party? How does her vision of the transience of the moment affect her? What happens to her & why? What happens to the party when she leaves the room? What does this prefigure and what does it say about Mrs. Ramsay?

4. What is represented in Part II? Analyze sections 1-3 (pp. 125-128) as a progression. From whose perspective is this section told? What is happening to the house? How does Part II serve as a bridge between Parts I and III? What is the effect of the brackets in Part II?

5. What does the lighthouse "mean" to the various characters listed below? Mrs. Ramsay, James, Mr. Ramsay, Lily. Does going to the lighthouse represent reconciliation or resolution to the tensions introduced at the beginning of the novel?

6. Mrs. Ramsay's conceives of herself as a wedge of darkness (p. 62). Does this image relate to Lily Briscoe's conception of Mrs. Ramsay? (52) What might this strangely anonymous shape mean? Are there any other connections between Lily and Mrs. Ramsay? Think of comparing Mrs. Ramsay's "moment of being" with Lily's experience in Part III. (see pp. 158-59) What makes the two women's experiences similar? How do the creative processes of Mrs. Ramsay and Lily relate to Woolf's aesthetic as expressed in the novel?

7. "For sometimes quite close to the shore, the Lighthouse looked this morning in the haze an enormous distance away.

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They don't feel a thing there, Cam thought, looking at the shore, which, rising and falling, became more distant and peaceful..." (182-183) Also see p. 188.

What does the lighthouse look like, what does the island look like? Discuss the notion of perspective -- distance and nearness -- in this novel with special reference to Part III. Mr. Ramsay is "long-sighted" and Mrs. Ramsay is "short-sighted" while Lily Briscoe's eyes are peculiar in their own way. What do you think these different descriptions of eyes say about these characters, say about the theme of perspective in this novel? Remember that "perspective" is a temporal as well as spatial category.

8. What is the relation between Memory and Art? (think of Lily Briscoe and her painting -- see especially pp. 201-202; pp. 208-209) between Memory and Experience (think of James -- see especially pp. 184-6.) Why is it so important that James' father praise him? (206) What does this represent?

9. "He must have reached it..."; "He has landed..."; "They will have landed..."; (p. 208). Why is the landing at the Lighthouse as perceived by Lily and Mr. Carmichael expressed three times and in three different grammatical modes? What is the effect of this repetition with essential difference? What is the significance of Lily's statement "It is finished"? What does it refer to? How do the last two sentences connect to these statements: "It was done; it was finished ... I have had my vision."