There is no Guru, there is no Mountain: Beyond the “Ideal Other” and “Utopia” in To the Lighthouse and The Road
People often flock to “gurus”, or throw themselves into movements, that seem to offer an answer to life’s antagonisms and sufferings. In To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and The Road by Cormac McCarthy there is a subversion that is being done to free the reader from the cycle that is moving from a guru, or movement, to another, in an intellectual sense. People tend to throw themselves to self-help book after self-help book in hope of an answer, but in these novels there is a way to escape the ferry wheel that is certainty and embrace the depth and density of life amidst our struggle. In To the Lighthouse a psychanalytic framework is helpful for braking free from the “ideal other”, or guru. The Road uses imagery of stillness, relationality, and embodiment to show that a utopia cannot ever be possible, yet we should continue into the gray unknown.
ENG 499, Capstone
James Watson
SPS 100
1 – 1:30 PM