TO THE LIGHTHOUSE: EXPERIMENTS IN FICTION

Anthony Read

In her diary entry for 26 January 1920, Virginia Woolf expresses a desire for a novel with no scaffolding; scarcely a brick to be seen. Discuss Woolfs formal experiments in To the Lighthouse. In what ways do they reflect the ideas about literature she articulates in her essay Modern Novels?

Virginia Woolf was a heretic of fiction. She swept away the conventions of classical fiction and replaced them with a brave new world of experimentation. To the Lighthouse is a prime example of her experiments in fiction. It contains many new ideas, some which have had lasting impact from the time of publication. These ideas include time-shifting, consciousness swapping and barren plots. Woolf combined all these in a way that made them obvious to close readers, but invisible to those searching for a good story. One of Woolfs most obvious ideas is a virtually non-existent plot. When contrasted against the deeply plotted novels of Jane Austin and Charlotte Bronte, To the Lighthouse seems almost trivial in scope. This is what Woolf meant in her essay Modern Novels: Is it possible the accent falls a little differently? (Woolf 1919, pp. 2). An example of her lack of plot is the first three pages of the novel. It begins with Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey trading comments about the weather being fine (Woolf 2000, pp. 7-8). Any other novelist would find this benign, almost irrelevant, but Woolf is seeking that myriad impression (1919, pp. 2) of life through the thoughts, not the actions, of the characters. In the introduction to the novel, Hermoine Lee shows extracts of Woolfs diaries, and one section shows her intent perfectly. When discussing To the Lighthouse, Woolf draws a H shape to visualise the plot (2000, pp. xiv). This shape signifies many things about the novel, including plot density and character thought. We can say that the beginning and end sections are filled with characters thoughts but little plot, and the middle is the opposite. In fact, these detailed thoughts are what drives the novel, as the plot has little interest to close readers. When Mr. Ramsey muses about knowledge as an alphabet, and he cannot get to R, Woolf follows his thought processes carefully. Any other novelist would cut Mr. Ramsey off after his initial thought and continue with the next movement. Such thoughts are what gives the novel its weight, and Woolf uses this to point forward to postmodernism, where everything can be questioned and turned on its head. Perhaps this is where Woolf and Henry James can be separated: James tries to balance a detailed plot with detailed thoughts. It simply is too much. Another method that Woolf uses is consciousness shifting. She mentions her outlook that every method is right, that expresses what we wish to express (1919, pp. 3), and nowhere is this more evident than in this novel. It is a highly refined technique that allows the narrator to switch views seamlessly between person to person. When the narrator of the moment gazes upon someone else, the narration is moved to that character. When Lily and Mr. Bankes watch Mr. Ramsey bearing down upon them, the narration switches from Lily to Mr. Bankes, as if the narration had bounced off Mr. Ramseys harsh manner to Mr. Bankes more cool reading of his mannerisms (2000, pp. 51).

This method of shifting narration means that a lot more can be said in, and between, the characters minds than physically said. Take Mr. and Mrs. Ramseys silent conversation in the final pages of The Window. From the moment Mr. Ramsey says you wont finish that stocking to-night until Mrs. Ramseys final thought (She had triumphed again), an unclear amount of time passes (2000, pp. 133-134). It seems as though the couple are connecting and conversing, but completely silently. How long does this conversation take? It is a complete mystery to us: it may have taken mere seconds, or perhaps hours. This detail is irrelevant to Woolf, as what truly matters are the characters thoughts, what is going on inside their minds. When Woolf says that the proper stuff of fiction does not exist (1919, pp. 4), she does not just mean subject matter. She also means the way in which narration is made; with silence and time. Thoughts truly do speak louder than words for Woolf. One of Woolfs more obvious experiments is her affinity for shifting time. This is no doubt a product of her willingness to not explore this, but that (1919, pp. 3). Again we turn to the idea of her H-shaped plot. The shape not only represents the plot and thought density of the three sections, but also the scale of time. From analysing the shape, we can see that Woolf has started out with a time continuum, a flat plane of real-time. She has taken this and pinched it in the middle. Thus, time pools at either end of the novel. The first and last sections are bloated with time, therefore slowing it down, and the middle section has to pass quickly to make up for it. This idea is a powerful precursor to postmodernism, where everything can be questioned and challenged, including something as basic and stoic as time. This changing of the continuity of time demands that readers view each section differently. The Window and The Lighthouse are filled with the thoughts of the characters, and therefore demands a close reading to fully grasp what they mean. However, Woolf makes this difficult for us. She infuses the writing with a gentle flow, meaning one can easily gloss over the text and get an overall impression. In comparison, Time Passes has little of these thoughts, and so is filled with the decay of the house. It seems as though the family falls by the wayside, as even some of their eventual deaths are simply reported in square brackets. In fact, Woolf has done this to lessen the impact of the demise of the Ramseys. We have spent the last section getting to know them intimately, and if their deaths were written in full detail they would no doubt be very affecting. With their importance reduced to mere side notes, the impact is lessened and allows the ten years to pass by without real worry. During Time Passes, we hear little of the Ramsey clan. The only things we learn about them come from the squared brackets at the ends of chapters. Woolf allows her dark region of psychology (1919, pp. 3) to take shape by infusing the Ramseys house with human qualities. An example of the house speaking is when the lovelinessand stillness seems to say, Will you fade? Will you perish? (2000, pp. 141). Although the house

may not literally speak, the longing portrayed by these words parallels the demise of the Ramseys. Even when a board brakes on the landing, and it seems as though the house will fall apart, a shawl loosens and swings to and fro, as though the ghost of Mrs. Ramsey is still protecting it. As the house is taken over by advance guards of grey armies (2000, pp. 140) the eventual fates of the Ramseys are told to us, but these bracketed events are arbitrary in the overall scheme. One can look at the crumbling house and sense that the main characters of the novel are under attack. The nights now are full of wind and destruction precedes the news of Mrs. Ramseys death (2000, pp. 140); the paragraph describing the happiness of nature is immediately followed by Prue Ramseys death and the revelation that no-one deserved happiness more (2000, pp. 144); even Andrews death in a shell blast is preceded by the words there seemed to drop into this silencethe thud of something falling (2000, pp. 145). These deaths are jarring to the reader: we dont want to see these people, who weve come to know, die such terrible deaths. The way in which Woolf almost disguises their deaths in the death of the house is a coping mechanism: a way in which we can read between the lines if we wish, but can also see the truth in black and white if we prefer. The manner in which characters silently interact is another of Woolfs experiments. This ties closely into the idea of shifting consciousness, and the way in which thoughts make up the majority of the novel. There are many examples, with most of the story being made of these silent conversations. The most obvious example is the aforementioned meeting between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey at the end of The Window (2000, pp. 131-134). Very little is verbalised between the wife and husband, yet so much is said in between, in their thoughts. The things that Mr. Ramsey wants to say, yet cannot, are relayed in his thoughts: She was astonishingly beautiful; wanted her to tell him that she loved him; you are more beautiful than ever. Yet, Mrs. Ramseys final thoughts show their relationship to be more of a battlefield than a bed of roses For she had triumphed again. Without Woolf giving us access to these deep thoughts, we would have no idea of the complexity of their relationship. When Woolf talked about the nature of reality in her essay, she touched on a point that all realist novelists have had to contend with: Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall. She then goes on to suggest life exists morein what is commonly thought small (1919, pp. 3). Woolf is basically suggesting that the true nature of realism exists in the small, random acts that make up our daily lives. No one lives like a movie: there is no beginning or end to our lives, only the middle and the uncertainty that comes with it. She puts this across in To the Lighthouse by highlighting the fleeting nature of our thoughts, and providing them as much detail as possible, without compromising the plot. This is where Woolf has grand plans but fails to see them through, like all realists: where does one draw the line when it comes to

writing all the details of life? Joyce tried in Ulysses: James attempted the same, but with much more of a plot, in The Wings of the Dove. Ultimately, realist writers can only write down a finite amount of reality, and even in doing so, are picking which parts to write, leaving out other parts that are just as important. Woolfs experiments in To the Lighthouse were incredibly important for the progression of modern writing. When she mentioned that the proper stuff of fiction does not exist (1919, pp. 4), she took the words to heart and wrote a novel that embraced that idea. Her groundbreaking concepts including a minimal plot (to enhance the thoughts and interactions of characters): shifting consciousness (to develop all characters mentally, not just physically); shifting time (to allow sections to be read in different ways); and also adding human characteristics to inanimate objects (to parallel the decay of the Ramsey clan). While many critics prefer to look at Woolfs work from a feminist point of view, one can simply view To the Lighthouse as an exciting, forward-thinking work that paved the way for modern writers to come.

REFERENCED WORKS
Woolf V, 2000, To the Lighthouse, Penguin Books Ltd, London. Woolf V, 1919, Modern Novels, The Times Literary Supplement.

RESEARCH ARTICLES
Derbyshire S H, 1942, An Analysis of Mrs. Woolfs to the Lighthouse, College English, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 353360. Matro T, 1984, Only Relations: Vision and Achievement in To the Lighthouse, PMLA, Vol. 99, No. 2, pp. 212224. Pederson G, 1958, Vision in to the Lighthouse, PMLA, Vol. 73, No. 5, pp. 585-600. Schneider D & Matro T, 1984, To the Lighthouse, PMLA, Vol. 99, No. 5, pp. 999-1001. Stewart J, 1985, Color in To the Lighthouse, Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 438-458. Stewart J, 1977, Light in To the Lighthouse, Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 377-389.