Mrs. Ramsay as “Angel in the house” – Lily Briscoe as “Angel out of the house” - "To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf

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Name: - Yesha Bhatt M.

Course: - M.A. English

Semester: - 3

Batch: - 2015-2017

Enrolment no: - PG15101003

Submitted to: - Smt. S.B.Gardi Dept. of English MKBU

Email id: - yeshab68@gmail.com

Paper no: - 9. The Modernist English Literature

Topic: - Mrs. Ramsay as “Angel in the house” – Lily Briscoe as “Angel out of the house”

Introduction of the novel:

       The novel “To The Lighthouse” is written by Virginia Woolf in 1927. The novel contains the narrative technique of stream of consciousness, and observations by characters. We can find the different personality of different characters with the perspective of other characters in the novel.

       In this novel there are two major women characters, first is Mrs. Ramsay and another is Lily Briscoe. Both contain different way of thinking and accepting the world. We could find binaries between these two characters. This novel of Virginia Woolf contains autobiographical elements, Lily Briscoe is quite similar to Virginia’s sister Vanessa and it is the journey of a writer and Painter to reach at their lighthouse.

The novel contains three parts, The Window, Time Passes and The Lighthouse. Mrs. Ramsay dies in the second part and Lily Briscoe has got her vision at the end of the novel. (Wikipedia)

Character sketch of Mrs. Ramsay:

        

      From the very first scene a reader could observe the nature of Mrs. Ramsay and how she manages the whole house and family.  As per her she is the controller of house and only she can manage the house and family perfectly. She is an ideal woman as per all male in the novel. Like in Victorian society there was one very famous phrase for women,

 

“Angel in the house”

and Mrs. Ramsay fits in that frame very perfectly, a good wife, mother, caretaker, cook, Knitter, and a perfect woman who manage the house. There is one famous Shlok¹ in Sanskrit for woman,

 “Karyeshu dasi, Karaneshu manthri; Bhojeshu mata, Shayaneshu rambha; Kshamayeshu dharithri, Roopeshu lakshmi; Satkarma yukta, Kuladharma pathni”.

  

     This shlok suggests that when woman should work like maid, she should manage household like manager of the house, she should cook like mother, she should fulfil all wishes of her husband, and if she do all these things then only she is an “ideal wife” otherwise she is bad and selfish woman. If we look the character of Mrs. Ramsay with this perspective, she is a perfect in her each role as woman.

       

      As we know that nobody is perfect in the world, so if we examine the character of Mrs. Ramsay in a different perception, we could find a new Mrs. Ramsay with the mask of an ideal woman. She is a woman with desire to live long in the memory of people and remain as virtuous soul. Mrs. Ramsay is performing her duty well not because she wants to be a good woman but she is doing that because her mind has constructed in that way. She has a very rigid mentality about the role and works of women, she appreciates Lily Briscoe but she doesn’t allow her daughters to be like her.

      

      If we observe the character of Mrs Ramsay we could find that her extra caring nature and perfection towards her relation and work is just for gaining respect from others. She knows that without Mr. Ramsay she could not survive and a night before she dies she told this to Lily that she wants to die before Mrs. Ramsay, because she cannot feed her children by working. Her every effort is connected with other’s happiness and her own image of “Angel”.

 

Character sketch of Lily Briscoe

     Lily Briscoe is a free minded and independent woman of 21th century and a painter, her every act and wish is related with her happiness and her will. She is never depended upon anyone.

        

    The character of Lily Briscoe gives us glimpse of contemporary women, and her ignorance and straight forward arguments towards the comments of Charles Tansley is very significantly presents her character.

“Charles Tansley used to say that, she remembered, women can't paint, can't write. Coming up behind her, he had stood close beside her, a thing she hated, as she painted her on this very spot.” (Woolf)

     We can say that the character of Lily is stronger that Mrs. Ramsay, she is not fake, she doesn’t need any man for her life, she can earn her bread by herself. Lily has suffered alone against all men who criticises her and gave them a strong fight. She was more successful in her career that Charles Tansley, Mr Ramsay and Augustus Carmichael.

     In the last part of the novel, Mrs Ramsay is dead, and the condition of summer house is very different, at one point she thought that she should fill the place of Mrs. Ramsay by taking her responsibilities but on the other hand she was confused that what she should do. At last when she has completed her painting with this confusion, she has got her vision that she is very different than Mrs. Ramsay and she cannot be like her, even she doesn’t want to be like her. If we watch the film version of the movie, we could find that Lily speaks at the end that,

“Dear Briscoe, you are a fool”

 By this dialogue we could find that her thought to be like Mrs. Ramsay was very foolish.

“Angel in the house” v/s “Angel out of the house”

Mrs Ramsay and Lily both are angels, both are right at their place but the difference and conflict is thought process and mentality. 

Mrs. Ramsay	Lily Briscoe
Angel in the house	Angel in the world
Conscious about her image	Conscious about her identity
‘Society’ at the centre in thinking	‘Self’ at the centre in thinking
Falling personality	Rising personality

Mrs. Ramsay is thinking about her family and her house only, she is very conscious about other’s comments upon her nature. She can never accept the rudeness of her husband towards her which we can understand with the incidence of dining table and how Mr. Ramsay behaves with her by throwing his plate, she manages that situation very calmly. On the other hand, Lily is very conscious about her identity, she replies every comment and criticism over her.

      Mrs. Ramsay used to check everything before she go to sleep, and on the last night of her life, she had a talk with Lily about her life and role of wife, Mrs Ramsay said, she is the controller of the house and Lily asked her, what if Mr. Ramsay throw her out of the house ? What would you do? Where would you go? And then Mrs. Ramsay replied,

“You don’t understand.”

And at that time the confusion of Lily has started.

    

      Mrs. Ramsay is a falling character in the novel at some point, because if we read “Fluidity versus Muscularity: Lily's Dilemma in Woolf's "To the Lighthouse” by Andre Viola, the character of lily Briscoe is rising towards a modern girl to the artist Lily Briscoe. The fall of Mrs. Ramsay is because of her behaviour of her daughters, James and Mr. Ramsay when she was alive she constructed an environment for her daughters to behave as a well household workers and her pampering behaviour towards  James forces James to hate his father’s harsh nature. After her death, James and his father came nearer in their relationship. (Viola)

      Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe both can be considered as an artist but differently. Mrs. Ramsay has artistic qualities like decorating the fruit basket, taking care of garden, and knitting. She is an artist because she wants everyone happy from her side, her art is not for art sake or life sake; it is for her family’s sake and her sake. On the other hand Lily is painter. The only artistic quality we find in Lily is her ability of painting, but that ability influences her every time. Her art is for life sake. She has not anyone at centre. Her art is for world and world is for her art. In the last part of the novel “To the Light house” Lily has achieved her goal as an artist. Her development as an artist was possible only because of her art has not any limitations like Mrs. Ramsay had. Thus an angel in the house thinks only about her house but an angel for the world thinks about world.

   

      At the end of the novel, when the journey towards the lighthouse starts, it starts from summerhouse, and summerhouse is representation of Mrs. Ramsay. They all went away from Mrs. Ramsay and found their real relationships, the transparent glass of Mrs. Ramsay was not in between of James and Mr. Ramsay. On the other side Briscoe has found her vision.

Conclusion:

       “Angel in the house” is a phrase which itself puts a limit for women. In the Victorian society women were liked the phrase, just because the word “Angel” has used and they believed that they all are angels. Lily Briscoe breaks the idea of Victorian society and represents the modern women of 20^th century. She is “Angel out of the house” which clearly suggests that her identity is not limited for the house, but her identity in world.

References:

Viola, A. Fluidity versus Muscularity: Lily's Dilemma in Woolf's To the Lighthouse.

Woolfe, V. To the Light House.

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