Faculty of philology department of english philology viktorija mi

of a soldier. Mr Ramsay squared his shoulders and stood very upright by the urn. 
(42) 

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(26) A shell exploded. Twenty or thirty young men were blown up in France, among 
them Andrew Ramsay, whose death, mercifully, was instantaneous. (152) 
In the first passage, it seems that Mr Ramsay participates in the imagery that is used in a way 
to satirize him. As Lee says (1977:119), this thought of heroic death is “a part of his train of 
thought” which is the way in which Woolf presents people’s thoughts naturally flowing in their 
mind. Indeed, people tend to overemphasize and rethink of the events that seem to carry much 
significance for them, while unimportant daily events usually are not recalled at all as if they had 
never occurred in their lives. By comparison, in the second extract, the reader learns about one of 
the character’s tragical death during the war, but no detailed descriptions of the circumstances of 
this event are given. In my opinion, the synchronic dimension of the temporal structure is what 
allows Woolf seemingly to immobilize an event or an experience, to meditate on it in depth, and to 
convey more effectively the numinous or sacred nature of that event or experience. If Woolf simply 
rendered discrete events occurring on the diachronic plane, she would not have the same 
opportunity to engage with and examine the sacred nature of everyday life.
According to Paul Sheenan (2002:148), time and space in Woolf’s fiction are measured by a 
philosophical dimension, which he characterizes as the representation of “soul time”, or “nonhuman 
time”. In his opinion, the writer purposefully intermingles the real, physical time and the time that 
can be felt only by the person himself, as this time exists in his or her soul. This “soul time” crosses 
the boundaries of any kind of temporal experience and entangles spiritual growth and inner changes 
in mind, spiritual blindness and moments of understanding, even the notions of life and death.
There is enough evidence to claim that in To the Lighthouse, the majority of events occur in the 
characters’ mind: they reflect upon the essence of life, reconsider encounters or conversations they 
once were involved in, make decisions and experience eternal cognition of the truth. In Sheenan’s 
opinion, the very lighthouse may be treated as a symbol of the time and temporality as it provides 
flashes of light that prevent travellers from getting lost in their journeys, and finally understanding 
that in this life, all the utterances and signs are usually so much simpler than the complex meanings 
they contain: it is always necessary to understand that , as James claims in To the Lighthouse (1927 
:211), “nothing was simply one thing”. Similarly, as the theorist says, characters’ meditation upon 
life helps them not to lose their inner strength and to act as a support for one another. For instance, 
in Christine Froula’s words (2007:129), one of the character Lily Briscoe’s modernist painting 
“aims to depict realities beneath appearances”. In other words, painting for Lily is not a mere 
hobby or leisure activity but it is the way she expresses herself and shows her relation to the 
existing world. In her canvas, she portrays the world she would like to see and thus, preserves moral 
strength and hope that there is light, beauty, and meaning in life. By comparison, I dare to suppose 

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that Mrs. Ramsay, the protagonist of the novel (1927), who is at the same time a fragile woman and 
a strong loving mother and wife, is also the moral centre of the novel around which all other 
characters are gathered. Nevertheless, a certain satirical tone is used of the writer who employs 
secondary literary clichés when describing this character: 
(27) There was something in this of the essence of beauty which called out the