To the Lighthouse Themes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 66 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of To the Lighthouse.

To the Lighthouse Themes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 66 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of To the Lighthouse.
This section contains 1,093 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the To the Lighthouse Study Guide

War

In To the Lighthouse, the Great War takes place during the "Time Passes" section. The structure of the novel reflects the impact of World War I on European society. Part One is set in the golden haze of prewar innocence and love. Mr. Ramsay entertains himself by reciting Lord Tennyson's poem The Charge of the Light Brigade, a poem about death during the Crimean War, which valorizes the heroism of the then-unprecedented loss of a cavalry unit. Tennyson's celebration of patriotism and glorious death would be rejected by the traumatized survivors of the Great War who had witnessed death on a scale unimaginable to the Victorian poet. As Wilfred Owen wrote, World War I ended "that great lie—Dulce et decorum est pro pa-tria mori [it is sweet and proper to die for one's country]." Owen himself would not make it home from the war.

During the middle...

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This section contains 1,093 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the To the Lighthouse Study Guide
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To the Lighthouse from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.