#alix is not the character i thought would result from this stream

[greyias]

Highlights from last night's stream (I swear, if I had the wherewithal I would actually do clips/highlights properly with Twitch's interface, but eh, effort):

Spending a good ten minutes or so to finish beating that stupid Ithorian at the spaceport so I could finally get the HK part I needed. As I finally beat him, and we cheered in chat, I realized: he had no HK droid parts. That was just being sold like normal by a different vendor a few meters away

Finding a room full of deactivated mute protocol droids, and without any reason whatsoever other than "chaos", activating them all at the exact same time, and cackling madly as they all bunched up and got caught in doorways as they tried to clank past one another to start their patrol routes

Baby Voice Padawan and Holly the Holocron -- most unlikely padawan/master duo

Not realizing the spider enemies somehow breathed fire until like, 45 minutes in of bonking them on the head

Running around for over an hour inside of the Enclave, progressing story bits, gaining light side and experience points, and in a moment of hubris-fueled chaos, decided to overload a computer terminal with a one second timer, insta-killing the entire party. I had not saved since setting foot inside. We had to do everything again

Mical. Just... Mical (being in the party .05 seconds before talking to the Exile like a stalker, "oh god I didn't mean to click on him! I was trying to talk to the turret!", "The Jedi Council convinced Revan to change her mind", *gives a guy some credits and tells him to stop breaking the law* "I've never seen a Jedi do anything nice ever! You're sooooo cool")

MOOKS BRING VROOK TO THE NOOK

Running around Dantooine acting like a little missionary for the militia, asking every single soul on this godforsaken planet if they've heard the good news about Zherron and his gravelly faux Clint Eastwood Voice

And maybe my favorite moment, fueled by my own particular brand of blonde obliviousness, where I am completely and utterly lost trying to find a stupid cave, and talk to our favorite bald, old Jedi hater hanging out near our ship:

Me: [proceeds through passing all of the persuasion/charm checks, probably making bi-disaster finger guns to get Baldy to talk]

Old Bald Guy: You're right random stranger who gaslighted me last stream! [proceeds to give detailed strategic info about all of Dantooine's weak points]

Atton: Wow! You're as smooth as the barrel of a blaster. I like that. 🤩

Me: WHOA THERE, ATTON! Are you talking about that guy's head? THAT'S SO INSENSITIVE!

Atton, probably:

Also Atton: [influence goes up], internally "My god she's so stupid. Why does that make me love her even more?"

[fvisualvomits]

my highest ever uni mark (74, a presentation)

Virginia Woolf’s ‘Into the Lighthouse’: A psychoanalytical reading

Pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray. This despair often results in an apparent apathy and moral relativism.

Modernist lifestyle themes -

Changing attitudes to narrative perspective and novel form

No modernist agenda or outline: but with Freud’s ideas coming into popularity it was impossible to ignore their impact on literature and art. Modernism possesses multiple and perhaps unreliable narrators, subjectivity, and stream-of-consciousness narrative. Symbolism James p.138: Nothing was simply one thing!

The novel is not concerned with the plot but rather the interiority of multiple characters.

Psychoanalysis conscious/unconscious: Descartes and ‘I think therefore I am’ instead of physical actions – what is not revealed is true. By its very nature, the symbolism of literature in Modernism was incapable of being simply stream of consciousness – notably in the titular symbol of the lighthouse. despite Woolf stating:

‘I have not studied Dr Freud or any psychoanalyst – indeed I think I have never read any of their books: my knowledge is merely from the superficial talk. Therefore any use of their methods must be instinctive.’ (Letters v. 36)

Freud’s idea of the conscious/unconscious is vital in reading ‘To the lighthouse’ in terms of the Lighthouse and Mrs Ramsey herself. However, his theory of the Oedipus complex presents itself within their children in relation to Mr Ramsey. 

Into the Lighthouse and Woolf’s own life:

 Father rented Tallad House in St Ives, Cornwall, from 1882, as a summer retreat.

 Woolf’s mother died when she was 13.

 Leslie Stephen (Woolf’s Father) became deeply depressed following this death

‘Transfixed by the portrait of their mother, her sister Vanessa wrote, ''It is almost painful to have her so raised from the dead.’ (Lily Briscoe on page 110 (3.2) ‘Perished. Alone The grey-green light on the wall opposite. The empty places’ – Lily is not physically alone, but psychologically without the mother figure of Mrs Ramsey)  

Woolf thought of painting as did Lily Briscoe – an exploration of creative output.

Woolf’s brother Adrian was not allowed to visit the lighthouse, similar to young James Ramsey. 

Alix Strachey, a practising psychoanalyst and an old friend of the Woolfs, discussing why Leonard had not persuaded Virginia to see a psychoanalyst about her mental breakdowns, concluded ‘Virginia’s imagination, apart from her artistic creativeness, was so interwoven with her fantasies – and indeed with her madness – that if you had stopped the madness you might have stopped the creativeness too… It may be preferable to be mad and be creative than to be treated by analysis and become ordinary.’

The Oedipus complex - 1899 book The Interpretation of Dreams (1910 official)

James Ramsey is infuriated by his father’s presence due to the love he possesses for his mother. 

‘Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father’s breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it… his wife, who was ten thousand times better in every way then he was (James thought)’ (1 Woolf) – the murder of Basil Hallward in Dorian Gray 

‘The mad passions of a hunted animal stirred within him, and he loathed the man who was seated at the table, more than he had ever loathed anything in his whole life.’ - Knife

Implying his mother is ‘better’ is clearly a sign of this, yet his fellow brothers and sisters are not fond of Mr Ramsey. While the boys have grown out of their Oedipus complex, the females perhaps feel neglected by their father, as Cam later confirms (I shall return) the next quote goes further:

‘But his son hated him. He hated him for coming up to them, for stopping and looking down on them; he hated him for interrupting them… but most of all he hated the twang and twitter of his father's emotion, which vibrating around them, disturbed the perfect simplicity and good sense of his relations with his mother’ (27 Woolf)

Here James goes further: indicating that not only does he hate his father and love his mother, but here he recognises the disturbing nature of this: guilt in association with his confession. This ‘twang and Twitter’ may not only allude to this but his fear that his father recognises his attachment to his mother.

‘Tyrant’ (125 Woolf )(Both children refer to the father as such) ‘Well done! James had steered them like a born sailor. There! Cam thought… you’ve got it at last. For she knew this was what James had been wanting, and she knew that now he had got it he was so pleased that he would not look at her or his father or at anyone… His father had praised him. (153 Woolf)

This is the resolution of the Oedipus complex, as James, in particular, finds resolution within his father, allowing him to develop a mature sexual identity under Freud. Cam’s feeling of neglect by her father is also resolved (a strong theme in Woolf – Walter Pater absent father. (superego formed)

Mrs Ramsey & The Lighthouse

As a lighthouse guides those lost at sea to safety, Mrs Ramsey is the pivotal character representing emotional security to those around. She harbours her guests in their times of emotional distress: 

‘She looked out to meet that stroke of the Lighthouse, the long steady stroke, the last of the three, which was her stroke, for watching them in this mood always at this hour one could not help attaching oneself to one thing especially of the things one saw; and this thing, the long steady stroke, was her stroke… ‘it seemed to her like her own eyes meeting her own eyes… ‘she was searching, she was beautiful like that light’ (46)a

Caroline Ramsey projects her character onto the lighthouse. This is perhaps an escape from the emotionally damaged characters that surround her namely in the form of her husband, a key scene of her fragility is chapter 8 when she asks ‘going somewhere, Mr Charmichael?’ and he ignores her, causing her to reflect on her interior trauma – ‘never did she show a sign of not wanting him’ – internalised guilt

The ego, driven by the id, confined by the superego, repulsed by reality, struggles to master its economic task of bringing about harmony among the forces and influences working in and upon it; and we can understand how it is that so often we cannot suppress a cry 'life is not easy'!  If the ego is obliged to admit its weakness, it breaks out in anxiety regarding the outside world, moral anxiety regarding the superego, and neurotic anxiety regarding the strength of the passions in the id. (78 Freud 1933)

The struggle of the ego constantly to maintain a happy persona. She immediately returns to reading James the fisherman and his wife in order to please her son.  Depression?

The portrait painted by Lily Briscoe of Mrs Ramsey, although abstract, reflects that of Oscar Wilde’s own Portrait of Dorian Gray. A once beautiful portrait reflects events that have occurred – In Dorian’s case his increasing corruption, but in Lighthouse it is the but perhaps it is not the physical portrait itself that changes greatly but the perspective of Lily, much altered that heightens the portrait in aesthetic value. 

‘It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision’ (154)

Resolution – of the Oedipal complex, perhaps Lily is projecting her affection onto the portrait. Or perhaps, using Freud further, this has all simply been a dream or series of dreams – short time span of novel (afternoon) / (10 years later) (Afternoon)