Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes were writers who experimented with new, modern ways of life and expressed new age philosophies in their novels. Both writers explore a more emotional side of Modernism than other male writers, with more emphasis on character relationships, thoughts and emotions. To the Lighthouse does this by placing the futility of ambition in the novel, suggesting that it is useless to sentimentalize previous dreams, as reality is unlikely to reflect them. Both Barnes and Woolf look back at the great minds of history and criticize their views, often dismissing them as out of date. 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 evoke intense emotions in the reader by imposing ambivalent questions on topics, which play primary roles in human life, such as the interpretation of reality and the purpose of life on earth. Virginia Woolf was a modernist writer encouraged to live a privileged life with her freed parents, which pushed her to write one of her most famous and free-spirited works. Djuna Barnes was a bisexual ex-patriot living in bohemian Paris and addresses the issues the characters experience with gender, sexuality, and identity. Both writers are interested in the minds, thoughts and private lives of characters, with much emphasis on psychoanalysis. In To The Lighthouse, Woolf describes a mirrored world of the pre- and post-war England she lived in, which she constantly reflected on. modernity, and one way he demonstrates this is by illustrating psychologically curious characters. In the Light... in the middle of the paper... and in the culture of Paris. Matthew calls the night an "unknown land," implying that the city of Paris is alive with café gossip and illicit, bohemian behavior that has yet to be explored. Nora feels in exile because she is in a lesbian relationship, even though homosexual relationships were not illegal in Paris. While Woolf describes night as a time when human life ceases, a darker and more mysterious side of life is revealed in Nightwood. To the Lighthouse takes a more traditional view of night as a time when everything seems eerie and surreal, and Nightwood is more radical in its treatment of nocturnal individuals in Paris. Works Cited Djuna Barnes, Nightwood, (London: Faber and Faber 2007), 106Janet Winston, To the Lighthouse by Woolf, (London: Continuum 2009), 21Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, (United States: Numitor Comun Publishing, 2011) 57