... a house in Bloomsbury, then considered bohemian, where they set about distancing themselves from the Victorian legacy of thought, values and habits, even to the extent of exchanging Victorian furniture styles of heavy, highly decorated objects for plainer, simpler and modern styles. They also began to cast out the Victorian reticence about sexuality, favouring openness and frankness in conversation. Around them they collected many of the important liberal and modernist intellectuals writers and painters of the day. To the Lighthouse is at least in part an elegy for Woolf's childhood and for her mother. It is a mourning and an affirmation of the lost loved one, as elegies are. However, it is also critical of the mother figure. Mrs Ramsay emerges very sympathetically, especially by comparison with her egotistical, somewhat pompous husband. But she is herself part of the Victorian world from which the Stephen children set about distancing themselves. ...

See this essay or coursework document in full right now