Transcending Death in To the Lighthouse The greatest obstacle to identifying a purpose for human life is the inevitability of death. Why should a human being strive for any goal when death will always be the final result of his striving, and after death he will be oblivious to any positive or negative effects of his lifetime actions? Virginia Woolf tackles this dilemma in her novel To the Lighthouse by presenting characters who attempt to …showed first 75 words of 2127 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2127 total…lived to accomplish great things, lived for other people, or lived for moments of creative insight. The irony is that each of these characters envies the others to a certain extent, but in hearing all the monologues the reader can tell that none is in a really enviable position. Woolf leaves it up to the reader to develop his own method for transcending death or convince himself that death does not need to be transcended.