Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes were writers experimenting with new modern lifestyles and expressing new age philosophies in their novels. Both writers explore a more emotional side of modernism than other male writers, placing more emphasis on the characters' relationships, thoughts, and emotions. To the Lighthouse does this by positing the futility of ambitions in the novel, suggesting that there is no point in sentimentalizing past dreams because reality is unlikely to reflect them. Both Barnes and Woolf look at the great minds of history and criticize their opinions, often dismissing them as old-fashioned. In this essay, I will discuss how the themes of alienation, subjective reality, and traditionalism are conveyed in To the Lighthouse and Nightwood. Many texts written during the modernist movement are known to arouse intense emotions in their reader by imposing ambivalent questions on subjects, which play a primary role in human life, such as the interpretation of reality and the purpose of life on earth. Virginia Woolf was a modernist writer who was encouraged to live a privileged life with her liberated parents, which inspired her to write one of her most famous and free-spirited works. Djuna Barnes was a bisexual expatriate living in bohemian Paris and she addresses the issues the characters face regarding gender, sexuality and identity. Both writers are interested in the minds, thoughts and private lives of the characters, with a particular emphasis on psychoanalysis. In To The Lighthouse, Woolf depicts a world mirroring the pre- and post-war England she lived in, which constantly reflected on modernity, and she shows this notably by illustrating psychologically curious characters. Towards the Light......middle of paper......and Parisian culture. Matthew calls the night an “uncharted land,” implying that the city of Paris comes alive with café gossip and illicit bohemian behavior that has yet to be explored. Nora feels exiled because she is having a lesbian affair, even though homosexual relations are not illegal in Paris. While Woolf expresses night as a time when human life ceases, in Nightwood a darker and more mysterious side of life is revealed. To the Lighthouse has a more traditional view of night as a time when everything seems strange and surreal, and Nightwood is more radical in its treatment of nocturnal individuals in Paris. Works CitedDjuna Barnes, Nightwood, (London: Faber and Faber 2007), 106Janet Winston, Woolf's To the Lighthouse, (London: Continuum 2009), 21Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, (US: Numitor Comun Publishing, 2011) 57