Between Silence and Selfhood: The Feminine Voice and Consciousness in To the Lighthouse

Abstract

This paper examines the women characters’ struggle in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse against the socially imposed silence and their quest for selfhood within an obstructive social environment. The novel depicts the mundane life of the Ramsay household. It shows how women are silenced in a patriarchal society and how it curbs the likelihoods of women to grow and assert their identity. Employing close reading and feminist criticism, the research examines the outer actions and inner thoughts of Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe. It digs into the narrative space which Woolf creates for the hitherto blocked female voices through her stream of consciousness techniques. The findings show that Mrs. Ramsay’s emotional labour suppresses her emotions and feelings creating the inner struggles and conflicts which ultimately distorts her identity and selfhood. The study also showcases that Lily Briscoe strives to create and assert her unique selfhood through her painting. She fights patriarchal standards in the face of her internal indecision and societal censure. The paper suggest that future investigations may study silence as a psychological disorder, and scrutinize female creativity and thoughts in other modernist works as their unique methods of resistance.