Faculty of philology department of english philology viktorija mi
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world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.
(168) It is interesting to draw a brief parallel between Joyce and Woolf’s treatment of the workings of human mind. In her close study of the novels of the modernist writer Virginia Woolf, Hermione Lee (1977: 337) presupposes that Woolf’s psychological novel To the Lighthouse serves as one more convincing example of the modern insights into human mind. Basically, the plot of the novel is simple as there is little action and events. The whole novel is based on the Ramsay family’s daily life: the complicated relationships between the family members and their plans to visit a lighthouse. However, Lee believes that this book presents the picture of human mind in a visually meaningful way and changes prevailing beliefs about the simplicity of the nature of human interaction on 23 various occasions. In the critic’s words (1977:349), “in “To the Lighthouse”, apart for the beautifully suggested relationship between Mrs. Ramsay and her husband and children, a powerful unifying factor is the lighthouse itself, which becomes a symbol carrying many meanings”. One of the primary themes of the novel is the complicated nature of the process of creation that the painter Lily Briscoe faces while trying to express her feelings by means of painting in the chaos of the family drama. The novel is also contemplation upon the lives of a nation’s inhabitants during the period of war, and the people left behind. In Lee’s opinion, the novel also explores the passage of time and suggests relationships between such phenomena as past and future, movement and stillness, and even life and death. The statements presented above naturally lead us to the convincing conclusion that Sanders makes (1994:515) in his study when analyzing the works of Woolf. In his words, “ the supposedly random picture of the temporal in Woolf’s later fiction is also informed and ‘interpreted’ by the invocation of the permanent and the universal , much as the ‘arbitrary’ in nature was 'interpreted’ with reference to post-Darwinian science, or the complexities of the human psyche unravelled by the application of newly fashionable Freudian theory.” It is obvious from Lee’s and Sanders’ words that in modernist fiction, writers create strange and unusual characters that are not so easy to believe and to understand. However, there is enough evidence to claim that they are convincing and interesting. Indeed, as Lee suggests (1977:14), the reader is usually astonished and attracted by the personalities of modern characters who are portrayed as dull and suffering from apathy, almost completely incapable of looking at anything fairly, getting involved in it more than superficially, examining it in some detail, remaining honest about what he observes, and deciding for himself based upon accurate personal observations. This reduction in mental and observational ability is also a result of modern educational experiences. Without doubt, these practices are direct descendants of modern psychological theories that view man as a certain social organism, and tend to ignore his intellectual and cognitive abilities and development of the mind. As stated by Swinden (1973:135), Virginia Woolf is considered one of the greatest innovators in the English language whose novels are strongly influenced by the insights of Psychoanalysis. In her works, she experiments with the stream of consciousness technique and the underlying psychological as well as emotional motives of characters. By comparison, Stevenson says (1998:50) that the core of Woolf’s fiction is based on her reflection of the human consciousness, inner discourse, or the peculiarities of its characters’ mind. Indeed, in Joan Bennett’s words (1964:103), “there are two different kinds of meaning in her novels: the prose plane (interest in human character, relationships, events) and the symbolic plane (the whole novel is treated as a symbol, as 24 light and shadow of the lighthouse metaphorically symbolizes the joy and sorrow, bright and dark moments in human life and in relationships”. Bennet provides evidence that when the source of life itself for the individual and society is denied, oppressive practices parading as science surface and the quality of life and sanity rapidly deteriorates. As Woolf shows convincingly in her novels, this is the exact condition of modern civilization. Sanders (1994:515) complements Stevenson, Swinden and Bennett’s ideas about Virginia Woolf as an experimental modernist writer and claims that “her novels attempt both to ‘dissipate’ character and to reintegrate human experience within an aesthetic shape or ‘form’. She seeks to represent the nature of transient sensation, or of conscious and unconscious mental activity, and then to relate it outwards to a more universal awareness of pattern and rhythm”. The linguist thinks that similarly to other modernist writers, Woolf did not intend to analyze real events and those occurring in the mind separately, as if dividing the personalities of her characters into purely physical and spiritual figures. In her pieces of literature, she aimed to show the psychological underpinnings of human behaviour and to reveal specific changes in human psyche influenced by the personal experience gained or knowledge achieved. To illustrate this, let us have a look at the following extract from To the Lighthouse (1927): (4) Everything seemed possible. Everything seemed right. Just now ( but this cannot last, she thought, dissociating herself from the moment while they were all talking about boots) just now she reached security; she hovered like a hawk suspended; like a flag floated in an element of joy which filled every nerve of her body fully and sweetly, not noisily, solemnly rather, for it arose, she thought, looking at them all eating there, from husband and children and friends; all of which rising in this profound stillness (she was helping William Bankes to one very small piece more and peered into the depths of the earthenware pot) seemed now for no special reason to stay here like a smoke, like a fume rising upward, holding them safe together. Nothing need to be said; nothing could be said. (120-1) The passage describing the protagonist of the novel Mrs. Ramsay at her dinner party illustrates Woolf’s capacity of exploration of the human consciousness with the tool of indirect discourse and stream of consciousness technique. The writer employs banal conversations and ordinary services at the party in order to strengthen and emphasize the fact that Mrs Ramsay is actually mentally dissociated from the moment, free to float like a hawk, flag, or fume (as seen from phrases in bold). These similes describe the character’s mind rather than recording thoughts plausibly arising within it, but there is much in this passage which represents more directly the particular influence of the character herself, and her complicated fragmented pattern of thought. In other words, the example 25 serves as conspicuous evidence that Woolf provided an innovatory representation of modern world perceiving and seizing reality on the basis of mind, not reason and logical judgment. Thus, it seems plausible to support Sanders’ conclusion that reveals the semantic nucleus of modernist writing by claiming that “the twentieth – century novelist should evolve a new fictional form out of a representation of the ‘myriad expressions’ which daily impose themselves on the human consciousness”. (1994:515) |
