Virginia Woolfs To The Lighthouse

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse [1] is arguably one of the most influential works of the twentieth century. The novel is considerably very ambitious, as because of this Wool was able to establish herself as a leading modernist writer. Woolf experiments with her literary techniques in order to portray women’s experience and provide an alternative view to the current male-dominated perspectives of reality that were present at the time. To the Lighthouse tells the story of the Ramsay family and the guest that come to stay with them. Upon looking deeper into the story however, it can be suggested that the novel is ultimately a reflection on time and how people deal with its harsh outcomes. To the Lighthouse was written and published during a considerably dense period of English literary history. The modernist period gave rise to many brand new and enduring masterworks, such as T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land [2] and James Joyce's Ulysses [3] .

In addition to this, it was also a period whereby intellectual success developed, and Woolf’s stress on consciousness and portraying character’s inner lives is a reinforcement of the current scientific and psychological ideas that were in existence at the time. Sigmund Freud was known to theorise on concepts of consciousness, it can be suggested that Woolf was influenced by his works as To the Lighthouse focuses not on the events of the external world but instead on the complexity of the inner mind. Susan Sellers reinforces this idea whereby she suggests that "On 27 June 1925, as she completed To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf’s concerns with stylistic and formal innovation were displaced by a concern with the literary marketplace" [4] (p.107). In order for Woolf to successfully convey this sense of human consciousness, her narrative does not follow the conventional plot focused structure as it is instead conveyed by a detached third-party narrative. Rather, she combines highly original literary devices in order to capture the thought process, using in particular stream of consciousness and free indirect speech. Given that the novel is defined by subjectivity, it focuses on the subjectivity of reality, experience, and time. Further, the novel also represents the intertwining of various perspectives and individual trains of thought that when put together create a unified whole.

Virginia Woolf is typically a modernist writer, however, it is worth noting that "Woolf was conscious that she was part of a literary movement … but she did not habitually write of the movement as ‘modernism’ or of its attitudes as ‘modernist’" [5] (p.108). Not much of To the Lighthouse needs to be read before it is understood that Woolf has a very particular style, she is able to tell the story with a rather unusual and convincing effect on the reader. Her particular style of writing forces us to acknowledge an important problem within modern life: the considerably deep and somewhat unbridgeable contrast between the fragmented inner world of the self and any sense of rational order to the world outside of the self, that is, the world of human relationships, that of nature and of society as a whole. Being a modernist novel, To the Lighthouse focuses on particular elements of style. It can be argued that the story itself gets somewhat put aside in favour of its form. Conventionally, this concept is considered a trade mark of modernist literature in that it is common to find the story being somewhat neglected, and more attention is ultimately paid in regards to the form of the story. To the Lighthouse is told from a range of perspectives, which is often confusing for first-time readers. Virginia Woolf essentially aims to capture how the story may have been perceived from the characters’ point of view, rather than from the objective mind of a narrator.

In order to appreciate the importance of what Woolf is doing with her novels, it is worth looking at the relationship other novels have between the inner world of the characters and their views on the outer world. In Homer [6] , for example, it is suggested that the characters have a strong assurance in the external world. Despite it being somewhat unpredictable and often rather violent, the characters are nonetheless confident in that they understand why things are the way they are, i.e. they all accept that the Gods are in charge. As a result of this, both society and nature have solidity in their meaning, and essentially human beings are able to understand themselves with reference to natural order. In Homer, on multiple occasions we see the characters announce how they think and feel with endless references to the nature of things; there is thus very little conflict between the inner world of the characters and the external world in which they move. To the Lighthouse is key in looking at the concept of Woolf’s use of stream-of-consciousness. The thoughts presented on the page have a particular flow amongst them, in that one thought leads directly to another. In addition to this, like a stream itself, the thoughts do not move in a straight line, instead they twist and turn and sometimes double back on themselves. Here is a good example of this within the text:

"Going to the Lighthouse. But what does one send to the Lighthouse? Perished. Alone. The grey-green light on the wall opposite. The empty places. Such were some of the parts, but how bring them together? she asked. As if any interruption would break the frail shape she was building on the table she turned her back to the window lest Mr Ramsay should see her. She must escape somewhere, be alone somewhere. Suddenly she remembered. When she had sat there last ten years ago there had been a little sprig or leaf pattern on the table-cloth, which she had looked at in a moment of revelation. There had been a problem about a foreground of a picture. Move the tree to the middle, she had said. She had never finished that picture. She would paint that picture now. It had been knocking about in her mind all these years. Where were her paints, she wondered? Her paints, yes. She had left them in the hall last night. She would start at once. She got up quickly, before Mr Ramsay turned."

Here, it is shown that Lily’s thoughts go from the lighthouse to Mr. Ramsay’s escape, and then back through the past ten years, to a picture, to questioning where her paints are. It seems to be rather much to take in at first glance, but nonetheless it is considerably a rather impressive interpretation of how our minds function. Our minds do not naturally think in a straight forward direction, and like Lily’s passage suggests, our minds tend to bounce from one subject to another. When reading similar extracts within a novel, it can seem as though there is never any clear point of reference. It could be considered best to dive right in nonetheless as you gain an understanding as it is read. When Woolf had written this book, she was being rather experimental in regards to this particular choice of style; therefore it is essentially something to embrace. Within Christopher Butler’s Modernism: A Very Short Introduction [7] it is suggested that "The modernist use of ‘stream of consciousness’, with its reliance on image-association … is basic to all the arts" and "When reported, such thoughts do not obey the usual public conventions of a written language, as it had previously been understood" (p.51). Similarly to Woolf’s other novel, Mrs. Dalloway [8] , the concept of having a female observer is rather important. Lily Briscoe attempts to paint a post-impressionist landscape whereby James and Mrs. Ramsay appear as a purple triangle. Her search for a style and compositional form to signify the Ramsays’ mirrors Woolf’s own pursuit for a figurative technique adequate to the complex family history she narrates. She does this through making use of multiple perspectives and recording the streams of consciousness of numerous characters, and merging in and out of their minds.

The concept of time is considerably important within the novel in that it is not experienced conventionally. Instead, time seems to be fixed within certain moments, which as a result completely misrepresents it from the way a clock experiences time. The rate that time is measured at is through the experiences of other people in that they are able to fill up certain moments with a vast amount of importance and duration. Also, it is worth noting that in other parts of the novel a ten year period may be covered with a dozen pages, suggesting that time is therefore both compressed and lengthened. Due to the fact that within To the Lighthouse time is rather distorted, the concept of memory and past become important as it is a vital part of the characters’ present. When any single moment becomes relevant within the novel, every important part of that moment is then questioned. Further, it is also worth noting that much of the important information is transferred through the characters’ memories, it only makes sense for Woolf to write in this way as in real time the novel only actually covers the time frame of one day.

Predominantly, what makes To the Lighthouse a modernist novel is its experimental form. There is no conventional plot structure and further, no sense of characterisation that could be considered the norm. Much of the action within the first and final sections of the novel take place within the minds of the characters and is expressed through a series of internal monologues, as the viewpoints of the novel shift between the characters. Modernism is known to represent the idea that the narrator has a very limited knowledge, and as a result the reader is presented with several points of view from each of the characters, coming from their consciousness. Virginia Woolf is arguably one of the most prominent writers famous for her use of stream of consciousness or internal knowledge of her characters. In her novels, we are essentially presented with a subjective point of view from the characters. What followed this in the development of the novel was the option of a somewhat weak narrator. An example of the considerably frail narrator can be found in Henry James’s novella, The Turn of the Screw [9] in which the reader remains in doubt whether the story told was true or imagined by the narrator.