Faculty of philology department of english philology viktorija mi

rather than individualized portraits of human-beings with well-defined psychological essence” 
(Rudaitytė 2000:11). In other words, characters lose their individuality and serve as representations 
of certain values of character features common in modernist world. They are shown as suffering and 
searching for consolation, neglecting any absolute truths, and supporting wrong beliefs. However, 
this openness in literature was seen as a way of breaking free form personal limitations and finding 
new ways of solving problems that the characters faced.
Stevenson supports this interesting idea suggested by Rudaitytė and develops his own insights 
into modernist experiments with narrative chronology and alterations of linear order in the works of 
fiction. He analyzes Woolf’s novels as a conspicuous example of the representation of fragmented 
time in literature. According to Stevenson (1998), critical appraisal of the work of Woolf has tended 
to focus on her treatment of time and on psychological issues in her novels related to the influence 
that temporal and spatial boundaries have in people’s life. The theorist suggests (1998:16) that in 
Woolf’s modernist fiction the dimensions of time and space are closely connected as they enable 
the writer to “hold up the mirror of art not to reflect nature and the world without, but to illumine 
the mind within, to portray consciousness”. The critic strongly believes that here attention of the 
reader is naturally oriented not only to the time but also to the space of a narrative as the two 
intermingled dimensions help the reader to understand the focus of the narrated events and to follow 
their development. Indeed, the notion of space in a literary work becomes especially important 
when the distinction of internal and external perspective is concerned. Woolf aims to capture a 
sense of permanence in one of two ways: in her pieces of fiction, she returns to the past by means of 
flashbacks, or, on the other hand, in some of her novels, including To the Lighthouse, she tends to 
employ visions or dreams in order to portray not only present events, but the future perspective too. 
Even in the conventional novel, time treatment determines the structure of the work, as well as how 
the characters will be presented within that framework. The traditional structure is based on a 
chronological pattern divided into beginning, middle, and end. Stevenson emphasizes the fact that 

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time has a particularly profound influence on the structure of the Woolf’s novels. The theorist 
foregrounds the fact that in general, a modern piece of literature does not depend on a chronological 
pattern, but, rather, foregrounds the role of the patterns within time that do not depend on 
chronology. The structure of this new pattern is formed by the use of unifying devices which occur 
repeatedly in the modernist narrative, whereas the moment of return to the past also helps create the 
logical sequence of narrated events by repeating the same memory in the minds of different 
characters. (Stevenson 1998) 
Although some linguists believe that Woolf’s interest in the passage of time was necessarily 
influenced and shaped by numerous philosophical phenomenological reflection, philosophical 
concerns have, in general, not played a large role in her manner of writing. Interestingly, the theorist 
and literary critic Roger Poole (1995:56) argues that some of Woolf’s best-known works, especially 
To the Lighthouse, exemplify a concern for time, reality, and a sense of interior life that is obviously 
philosophical in its construction, and even somewhat impossible to define in exact wording. 
Furthermore, Poole claims that such an innovative interpretation of the notion of time and 
temporality is part of Modernism as it is ordinarily conceived to address these issues in some 
fashion, even if, in many cases, they are not addressed as thoroughly as they are in Woolf’s work. In 
Poole’s words, (1995:10) “To the Lighthouse” is the simple picture of her distilled childhood 
experience”. However, the majority of critics and theorists tend to agree that even if the reader can 
be certain that a great deal of Woolf’s stories, essays, and novels were simply created in her 
imagination and had no real connection with the reality we all are surrounded by, it still does not 
detract from the power with which she was able to use depictions of human inner world.