An Analysis of Stream-of-Consciousness Technique in To the Lighthouse

When we mention Virginia Woolfs To the lighthouse, its very natural to talk about
her stream-of-consciousness technique. In this novel, the structure of external
objective events is diminished in scope and scale, or almost completely dissolved. It
is composed of the continual activity of characters consciousness and shower of
impressions. External events occupy little space in the novel compared to the rich
development of the response to these events. We can also find in this novel the
writer as an omniscient narrator has almost completely vanished and almost
everything stated appears by way of reflection in the consciousness of the dramatic
characters. And the novel does not progress on what-happens-next basis, but
rather moves forward through a series of scenes arranged according to a sequence
of selected moments of consciousness. And the techniques to which Mrs. Woolf
mainly employs are interior monologue and free association.
2. Interior Monologue
Interior monologue is a term that is most often confused with stream-ofconsciousness. Interior monologue is the technique used in fiction for representing
the psychic content and processes of character, partly or entirely unuttered, just as
these processes exist at various levels of conscious control before they are
formulated for deliberate speech. The monologue is represented as being
completely candid, as if there were no reader. The interior monologue proceeds in
spite of the readers expectations of conventional syntax and diction in order to
represent the actual texture of consciousness--in order to represent it finally,
however, to the reader. Indirect interior monologue is, then, that type of interior
monologue in which an omniscient author presents unspoken material as if it were
directly from the consciousness of a character and, with commentary and
description, guides the reader through it. It differs from direct interior monologue
basically in that the author intervenes between the characters psyche and the
reader. The author is an on-the-screen guide for the reader.
Virginia Woolf, among the stream-of-consciousness writers, relies most on the
indirect interior monologue and she uses it with great skill. In To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf succeeds in producing a much subtle effect through the use of this
technique. This novel contains a great deal of straight, conventional narration and
description, but the interior monologue is used often enough to give the novel its
special character of seeming to be always within the consciousness of the chief
characters.
Let us examine the following passage in the first chapter of part one.
For how would you like to be shut up for a whole month at a time, and possibly
more in stormy weather, upon a rock the size of a tennis lawn? She would ask; and
to have no letters and newspapers, and to see nobody; if you were married, not to
see your wife, not to know how your children were, --if they were ill, if they had
fallen down and broken their legs or arms; to see the same dreary waves breaking

week after week, and then a dreadful storm coming, and the windows covered with
spray, and birds dashed against the lamp, and the whole place rocking, and not be
able to put your nose out of doors for fear of being swept into the sea?
How would you like that? She asked, (p.4)
The passage above is represented in the manner of straight narration by the author,
but it is clearly what the character feels and thinks, and it reflects the characters
consciousness and inner thought. In this passage, Woolf facilitates the indirect
interior monologue with her unique skills. Firstly, she uses the conjunction for as
an indication of the beginning of this monologue and produces an easy and natural
shift from objective description to the characters interior monologue. Secondly she
presents Mrs. Ramsays consciousness by the guiding phrases she would ask and
she asked to make the reader wonder about unhurriedly in Mrs. Ramsays
consciousness. Thirdly, here she employs semicolons to indicate the continuation of
the consciousness.
Free Association In To the Lighthouse
The chief technique in controlling the movement of stream-of-consciousness in
fiction has been an application of the principles of psychological free association.
Among all the writing techniques in To the Lighthouse, the most confusing and
difficult to follow may be the free association, for the consciousness of the
characters in the fiction has no order and no regular pattern. However, the
application of the free association in the stream-of-consciousness novel has much
aesthetic significance.
In To the Lighthouse, Woolf usually encloses free association into the indirect interior
monologue to represent the psychic processes of her characters. We may take the
7-10th chapters of the first part of To the Lighthouse as an example:
The essential characteristic of the technique represented here by Virginia Woolf is
that we are given not merely one person whose consciousness (that is, the
impression it receives) is rendered, but many persons, with frequent shifts from one
to the other---in our text, Mrs. Ramsay, Mr. Ramsay, Lily and Mr. Bankes. We may
trace her free association as follows:
1. think about Mr. Ramsay and his children she laughed, hearing Mr. Carmichael
suddenly grunted, and
Looking at the house
2. think about some common feeling held the whole Seeing the brown speck of Mr.
Ramsays sailing boat
3. thinking of her picture sitting down and examining with her brush a little colony
of plantains, seeing Mr. Carmichael
4. thinking of Mr. Carmichael and his poems the squeak of a hinge drawing her
attention
5. thinking of Mrs. Ramsay stirring the plaintains with her brush

6. thinking of Charles Tansley raising a little mountain for the ants to clime over
7. thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay screwing up her eyes and standing back
8. thinking of Mrs. Ramsay seeing an odd-shaped triangular shadow over the step,
dipping her brush
9. thinking of Mrs. Ramsay crying Mrs. Ramsay! Mrs. Ramsay!
Though the above outline just displays a birds-eye view and does not produce a
minute description of the flow of Lilys consciousness, it does not endanger a full
appreciation of the free association technique. The actual occurrence is too thin to
be called a plot: Lily stands by the sea drawing. The information Woolf offers here
makes us feel that the traditional narration is too inferior to bear comparison at this
point. Wherever Lilys eyes cast a look, there sprung some bygone memories,
present meditation or future expectations concerning what she sees. Her
consciousness just flows freely and naturally among present, past and future, or
from one thing or person to another. Therefore, the time-space limitation vanishes
here and we readers enjoy such free conscious activities very much.
By analyzing these two typical stream-of-consciousness techniques, we can find
indirect interior monologue makes Woolf express the characters inner world in such
great coherence and surface unity. Her presentation of the characters interior
monologue is not only coherent in meaning, but also conventional in appearance.
Her use of indirect interior monologue allows the narrator to reveal the characters
flow of thoughts and takes the reader into the consciousness of the characters in
the novel. And free association makes the readers step into the inner worlds of her
characters by their feelings, thoughts, memories, etc. So there is no question that
Virginia Woolf is at her best when she is writing her stream-of-consciousness novels
which deal with the conscious, subconscious and even unconscious part of her
characters. It is her emphases on the experiences and inner lives of her characters
that lead to her elevation as a master of the stream-of-consciousness novel.
Although the historical period when stream-of-consciousness novel acted as a main
trend in literature has ended, the experimental techniques adopted by the
modernist writers have further influence upon literary creation. Virginia Woolfs
individualized and experimental art of fiction has offered significance not only in
studying the stream-of-consciousness fiction but also in literary creation.
A. MAJOR CHARACTERS
1. MRS. RAMSAY
Introductory Remarks
Let us begin by quoting some very apt and illuminating lines from An Introduction To
The English Novel by Arnold Kettle: The subject of To The Lighthouse, if one may
properly attempt to isolate it at all, is Mrs. Ramsay and the effect of her presence,
her very being, on the life around her. That effect cannot be fully understood or fully
conveyed within her own life but in the final Time section, when she is already dead
she is still the main figure.

It is she who leads Lily Briscoe to the sense of momentary completeness, the
moment of vision which is the climax of the book; and Mrs. Ramsays presence is
indeed an essential part of that vision. (In the first section she is merely a
triangular purple shape in Lilys picture). The journey to the Lighthouse, Jamess
flash of triumph is the completion too of the first moment of the book, the triangular
relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay and James revealed in the opening page
of the novel.
It must be crystal clear from the above passage that in To The Lighthouse Mrs.
Ramsay is undoubtedly the central figure and the most important character. She
dominates the novel not only during her life time but even after her death with no
less importance.
A Unifying Force: Structural and Psychological Centre
In fact Mrs. Ramsay is the centre around which action and movement are built. She
is definitely radiating through the entire novel and impregnating all the other
charactersmajor or minor. From the very beginning of the novel she is structurally
and psychologically a cohesive force and thus becomes the source of unity in it. It is
none but Mrs. Ramsay who is seen to be holding together almost all the characters
and the incidents of the novel.
In the very opening scene of the novel we find the focus on Mrs. Ramsay. Serving as
a model for Lily Briscoe she sits at the window that links the lawn with the interior.
People start coming and going, but Mrs. Ramsays part is like that of a milestone in
the movement of various characters. Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Charles Tansley are first to
come to Mrs. Ramsay. And Mrs. Ramsays impressions about them, as revealed in
her stream of consciousness, fill out the scene for the readers. Then we find Mr.
Bankes and Lily Briscoe also coming within her range of vision. So she is the centre
around which all seem to be moving. In the novel a large variety of people with their
own ideas and eccentricities are found. And very remarkably Mrs. Ramsay with her
great tact, sympathy and understanding holds them together.
This unifying and cohesive force of Mrs. Ramsay is superbly revealed in the course
of the dinner party towards the end of the first part of the novel. In this scene she
very nicely performs the duty of connecting different individuals to each other. And
for this she has also to engage herself with some of them. Lily and Charles Tansley
are of opposite poles. But Mrs. Ramsay prevails on Lily to have some consideration
for Tansley. Mrs. Ramsay intervenes and Tansley is brought out of his isolation. He
gets the required attention to make him feel at ease. And then Mr. Carmichael is
also brought out of himself by the beauty of that yellow and purple dish of fruit
placed on the middle of the table. Even Mr. Bankes, who thinks it to be a terrible
waste of time to attend such dinners, feels elated after hearing from her that he has
just relished a French recipe of her grandmothers. And the whole effort of the
merging and flowing and creating rested on her.
Her Personal Charms and Attractiveness

Mrs. Ramsay was, no doubt, advanced in age and the mother of the eight children,
still she possessed great physical charm and attractiveness. There are frequent
references and appreciation of her beauty in the novel and one of the great secrets
of her personal appeal unmistakably lies in her physical charm. Her charm elicits
high admiration not only from the male members of the circle of her friends but also
from women who are equally fascinated by her. Mrs Woolf tells us how Mr. Bankes
feels about her charm while telephoning to her. He saw her at the end of the line,
Greek blue eyed, straightThe graces assembling seemed to have joined hands
in meadows of asphodel to compose that face. And her husband says: Indeed, she
had the whole of the other sex under her protection.
Her Charming and Graceful Manners
Sheer physical charm alone cannot account for so much of appeal and
attractiveness. Beauty without grace and dignity cannot have so much influence on
others. She has abundant feminine graces. She is polite and cultured in her
manners and kind and considerate in her temperament. She is absolutely free from
all egotism and is never in a mood to assert herself. Hence her graceful manners
and kind disposition combined with her extraordinary physical charm cast a healthy
spell on all who came in contact with her.
Symbol of the Female Principle
Mrs. Ramsay may also be taken as a symbol of the female principle in life. Probably
that is why she has never been called by her first name in the novel as Clarissa
Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway. This symbolism seems to be evident when we have a
peep into her mind in the dinner scene. Virginia Woolf tells us Again she felt, as a
fact without hostility, the sterility of men, for if she did not do it nobody would do it,
She wants men and women to be united and become fruitful like herself. At the
intellectual level she offers her protection and inspiration to both science and art
to Lily Briscoe the painter, to Bankes the botanist, to Carmichael the poet, to
Tansley the scholar and above all to her husband the philosopher. Thus she seems
to have the whole of the other sex under her protection. For all this, critics like
James Hafley hold the view that Mrs. Ramsay has been treated as a symbol and has
not been individualised by the novelist. But this seems to be stretching too far. In
spite of this indefiniteness and symbolic traits Mrs. Ramsay is quite an
individualised three-dimensional figure and is undoubtedly one of the great
immortals of English literature.
Her Kind and Sympathetic Nature
The most outstanding trait of Mrs. Ramsays character is her compassion for the
poor and the unfortunate, the great concern and consideration for the children and
infinite sympathy for the unhappy and neglected souls. Her heart overflows with the
milk of human sympathy and kindness. In the very first few chapters we find her
very busy in knitting stockings for the sick son of the Lighthouse-keeper. She feels
for them all as they are to live a dull and unhappy life in a lonely island. Not only
this, we also find her going to the town to help the poor and the needy.

Then we find her having great affection and sympathetic consideration for the
children. She knows the truth, yet not to dishearten her seven year old son she
deviates from truth. But Mr. Ramsay shatters the hope of a young soul by bluntly
telling him that they wont be able to go to the Lighthouse the next day due to
inclement weather. And this difference of attitude reveals the sharp contrast
between the husband and the wife.
As regards the grown-ups she has all sympathy for Charles Tansley in spite of all his
egotism and idiosyncracies. She knows that Tansley is poor. He had to struggle hard
to take out an existence for himself. She is also a source of inspiration to Lily
Briscoe. She is kind and sympathetic to Carmichael the poet whose life has been
shattered by a shrewish wife. She tries her best to smoothen the widowed life of Mr.
Bankes the botanist. Above all, in spite of great difference in temperament and in
their attitude towards the problems of life Mrs. Ramsay is a constant source of
inspiration to Mr. Ramsay, her husband. She knows that he is absolutely dependent
on her for sympathy and understanding.
As a Match-maker
Even Mrs. Ramsays mania for matchmaking leans to virtues side. This reveals
another aspect of her essentially feminine character. Out of her great sympathy for
all she is keenly interested in establishing peace and harmony among people. She
feels for the lonely life of a widower; she is concerned about the future of an old
maid. That is why she wants Lily Briscoe to marry Mr. Bankes. She is not going to
mind even if Lily marries Charles Tansley. Her joys knows no bound when she comes
to know that Paul and Minta are engaged. It is a matter of pride for her for bringing
them together. Of course she cannot be blamed if their marriage is a failure. In fact,
essentially feminine as she is, she wants men and women to unite and become
fruitful like herself.
Sense of Humour
Mrs. Ramsay possesses a good sense of humour too. When she covers that horrid
skull to the satisfaction of both Cam and James, it nicely reveals her sense of
humour besides her sympathetic understanding. When we find her laughing quite in
good humour when she thinks about Minta marrying a man with a gold watch in a
wash-leather bag.
Dominates even after Death
We feel the imposing physical presence of Mrs. Ramsay only in the part first of the
To The Lighthouse. After that she is no more in the land of the living. Even then she
pervades the whole book. Her influence on other important charactersspecially on
Lily Briscoe is really very great. It is only to fulfil one of Mrs. Ramsays cherished
wishes that Mr. Ramsay undertakes the journey to the Lighthouse. And it is the
vision of this departed soul that inspires Lily Briscoe to take up her brush again to
complete her great picture. James Hafley is quite correct when he remarks that Mrs.
Ramsay dead is more powerful than Mr. Ramsay living.
Conclusion

Mrs. Ramsay might have some little flaws in her character such as her susceptibility
to flattery. It might be that she wanted to be praised or appreciated while helping
others or doing some good deed. But with her extreme civility and goodness, with
her irresistible charms and dominating personality hers is a unique character from
the pen of a great artist. Hence E.M. Forsters views that she could seldom so
portray a character that it was remembered afterwards on its own account, as
Emma is remembered seems untenable to us. We may conclude by quoting the
apt remarks of Joan Bennett: Mrs Ramsay, Mrs. Daloway, Eleanor Pargiter, each of
the main personalities in Between the Acts, and many others from her books,
inhabit the mind of the reader and enlarge the capacity for sympathy. It is sympathy
rather than judgement that she invokes, her personages are apprehended rather
than comprehended.
LILY BRISCOE
Introductory Remarks
Lily Briscoe is one of the three most important characters in this novel. She is a
complex and in some respect unique figure. It may be noted at the very outset that
our novel expresses her reflections on art through this important character. We have
the first glimpse of her in the third chapter of the first part. She is standing on the
edge of the lawn painting Mrs. Ramsays figure. And we gather our first impression
from Mrs. Ramsays musings on her. Lilys picture! Mrs. Ramsay smiled. With her
little Chinese eyes and her puckered up face she would never marry: one could not
take her painting very seriously; but she was an independent little creature. Mrs.
Ramsay liked her for it, and so remembering her promise, she bent her head. So
when we first meet her Lily is a spinster and is not so beautiful woman. And
although Mrs. Ramsay does not take her painting very seriously she is a devoted
artist caring very little for the pains and pleasures of a family life.
Spirit of Independence
As an earnest votary of art Lily feels that marriage and family life are likely to come
in way of her artistic activities. She knows that an unmarried woman is likely to miss
some of the best things of life. Mrs. Ramsay very much wants them all to marry. And
she considers her dear Lily to be a fool for her typical attitude. She often feels like
giving way to such dreams and desire. But she is capable of overcoming such
sentiments and gathering a desperate courage she would urge her own exemption
from the universal law; plead for it; she liked to be alone; she liked to be herself; she
was not made for that;. The artist in Lily prevailed over the woman in her. So
when we meet Lily again in the summer-house after ten years, she is the same
spinster who thanks her stars for not succumbing to the wishes of Mrs. Ramsay.
Lily and Love
Lilys ideas and feelings regarding love seem to be rather conflicting. Watching Paul
deeply in love with Minta and the consequent reactions on him, love seems to her to
be the stupidest and the most barbaric of all human passions that turns a nice
young man into a bully. But at the same time this love seems to her so beautiful, so

exciting and she experiences the emotions, the vibrations of love. But it seems that
the platonic sort of love has greater fascination for Lily Briscoe. Watching elderly
William Bankes gazing at Mrs. Ramsay with profound admiration and strange
rapture she feels this is love that is distilled and filtered; love that never attempted
to clutch its object, but, like the love which mathematicians bear their symbols or
poets their phrases, was meant to be spread over the world and become part of the
human gain. So, to her love is a mystery. It has a thousand shapes.
Lily is not incapable of admiring the other sex. What she cannot stand is the
ordinary sex relationship between man and woman. She has profound love and
admiration for William Bankes. This is how she has expressed her feelings about
him. I respect you (addressed him silently) in every atom, you are not vain,you
are finer than Mr. Ramsay; you are the finest human being that I know..generous,
pure-hearted, heroic man. But she cannot allow her lofty feelings to degenerate
into ordinary sex relationship.
Power to Visualise the Past and the People
Lilys imagination is wonderfully visual and pictorial. Her imagination and her visions
throw a flood of light on the Ramsays and other important characters of the novel.
Lily thinks of Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Bankes and compares one with the other. And
seen through her consciousness both the characters emerge as rounded, living,
breathing realities. From Andrews suggestion the image of Mr. Ramsay appears to
her mind as a scrubbed kitchen table lodged in the fork of a pear treesome kind of
surrealistic fantasy. When she goes in the lawn of the summer house memories
crowd in upon her and vivid pictures from the past rise up from the very depth of
her soul. And this helps us to reconstruct the past and enables us to know many of
the characters in their true colours. From Lilys stream of consciousness there
appears a very clear image of Mrs. Ramsay with her beauty and brightness, her
outstanding qualities and serious drawbacks. And finally in the third part we find
that it is her vision rather a hallucination, of Mrs. Ramsay sitting before the window
in the same old way, that enables Lily to complete her picture. She, more or less,
lives in her memories and when she dips the brush into the blue paint, she cannot
but dip into the past too. It may be noted that in this way Lily often comments on
the personality of the Ramsays like a Greek chorus.
The Artist and her Obstacles
We have already noted that the great importance of Lilys character lies in the fact
that the novelist has tried to express her own reflections on art through this major
character. Lily Briscoe is a devoted paintera true artist. From the very beginning
we find her experiencing a lot of difficulties while busy in painting Mrs. Ramsay with
the child sitting at the window of her summer house. These are the genuine
struggles of a creative artist. It is a tough job for her to give expression to her ideas
and impressions on the canvas with the help of paint and brush. It was in that
moments flight between the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her
who often brought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception
to work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child. But to Lily a brush is
the most dependable thing in a world of strife, ruin and chaos. She never wants to

play at painting and is determined to surmount all odds to give aesthetic expression
to her creative urge to her satisfaction.
So, from the very beginning of the first part we find Lily engaged in her work of art
and facing the difficulties of aesthetic expression. Her ideas seem to be rather hazy
in the beginning. When she is asked to explain some aspects of her picture by Mr.
Bankes, Lily remembers that her problem is then how to connect the mass on the
right hand with that on the left. The vacancy in the foreground may be broken by an
object or by bringing the lines of the branch of the tree across. But she is afraid that
if the proposed changes are carried out the unity of the whole may be broken. Even
during that famous dinner party the same is haunting her and she then decides to
put the tree further in the middle to avoid that awkward space.
Lilys Moments of Vision and Fulfillment
We find Lily Briscoe at the same old summer house after a lapse of ten years. They
have all come back. But Mrs. Ramsay is dead and so are Prue and Andrew. Lilys
picture of the mother and son is still incomplete. She is still to solve her problem. It
seems baffling again and again. There seems to be a certain inadequacy. But her
dedication to painting was supreme. She must go ahead with her creative activity
although Mr. Ramsay becomes a source of embarrassment with his usual demand
for sympathy. She again remembers her problem about a ground of a picture, that is
to move the tree to the middle. She must finish the picture now.
All artists have their moments of vision and inspiration to undertake and complete a
work of art. It seems Lily has had four separate moments of vision or inspiration
over a period of several years to finish her picture. The first seems to occur before
the action of the novel startsthe vision which had been seen by her once. When in
the first part of the novel we find her working on a picture while on a visit to the
summer house of the Ramsays. And at the party one evening she has her second
moment of inspiration when, in a flash she decides to put the tree further in the
middle to avoid the awkward space in the foreground. And the third happens in the
very same old summer house after ten years when she finally makes up her mind to
move the tree to the middle and finish the picture without further delay.
Her Fourth or Final Vision
Lily at last makes her first quick decisive stroke with a curious physical sensation.
She attains a dancing rhythmical movement. The truth, the reality, which suddenly
lays hands on her emerges stark at the back of appearance and commands her
attention. She begins to lose consciousnes on outer things and her mind keeps
throwing up from its depths, scenes, and names and sayings and memories.
Memories of the past crowd in upon her once more. In her stream of consciousness
appears the clear image of Mrs. Ramsay which is a great source of inspiration to her.
She remembers how that great woman resolved everything into simplicity. As she
dipped into the blue paint, she dipped too into the past there. But her problem of
painting is still unresolved. She feels that there may be still something wrong with
the design, Phrases came. Visions came. Beautiful pictures. Beautiful phrases. But
what she wished to get hold of was that very jar on the nerves, the thing itself

before it has been made anything. Should she get that first and start afresh? She
sadly realises that apparatus for painting or feeling is an inefficient machine it
already breaks down at the critical moment. But an artists job is to force it on
heroically.
Next she feels that her mood is coming back to her and that the problem may be
solved after all. All the while Mrs. Ramsays image has been floating in the stream of
her consciousness. Suddenly she has her hallucination. To her great dismay she
finds Mrs. Ramsay sitting in the chair near the window, knitting her reddish brown
stocking as before. She is overwhelmed with strong emotion And then her final
inspiration comes when she is sure that the Ramsays must have reached the
Lighthouse and she can offer her sympathy to Mr. Ramsay at last. This onset of the
feelings of love and sympathy for Mr. Ramsay releases her creative powers. And in
the grip of her inspiration she turns to her picture. There it was her picture.She
looked at the steps; they were empty: she looked at her canvas: it was blurred. With
a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew line there, in the
centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in
extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.
Conclusion
We may conclude by quoting W.A. Davenports very apt and suggestive remarks,
The two creative figures. Lily, the painter, and Carmichael, the poet, sit on the lawn
in silent communication between the house and the sea. Lily turns from one to the
other sending her thought back to Mrs. Ramsay as she looks at the house and
outwards to Mr. Ramsay as she follows the course of the boat. She thus forms a
tenuous thread between past and present between husband and wife; by recreation
of past experience and of the spirit of Mrs. Ramsay, and imaginative involvement
with Mr. Ramsays symbolic voyage, she unites the two in her mind, and so achieves
her sense of completeness, of having seen it all clear if only for a moment. The two
actions, the arrival of the Light house and the last stroke of the brush, are also
united; both are acts of completion and it is obvious that they are meant to happen
together.