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Comparison Of Elizabeth Woolf's North And South And To The Lighthouse

1598 Words7 Pages

Even though Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘North and South’ and Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’ are over seventy years apart in publication, they both focus on a theme that was so prevalent, it veered on the edge of controversial; gender relations. As everyday relationships began to change, this issue became significant in literature. This essay will argue that these novels play on the rising feminist ideas of their times, and that they explore what women could do, rather than what men told them they could not do. It will discuss the failing idolisation of masculinity and male leadership. It will compare the two passages to show their similarities in representations of gender relations. Together, these will demonstrate both the traditional and the changing relationship between men and women in both the Victorian era and in the early twentieth century.

In both eras, there were strict social rules that women were expected to adhere to, though the same rules were not subjected unto men, showing instant inequality in their relations. Though, both Lily and Margaret go against this. Lily is aware that it is her “duty” as a woman to follow a “code of behaviour” (Woolf, 74) that will benefit Mr. Tansley, though he has done nothing to benefit her; instead, he had taken the liberty to belittle her. To carry this out would be irrational, but Wiesner notes that women at the time were expected to be as such; “Women were also more ‘disorderly’ than men because they were unreasonable, ruled

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