Faculty of philology department of english philology viktorija mi

(32) Weeds tapped methodically on the window pane. (151) 
(33) The Lighthouse with its pale footfall upon stair and mat… the stroke of the 
lighthouse laid itself with such authority on the carpet in the darkness. (144) 
In the short passages above, Woolf employs a style of personification which endows mere objects 
with certain attributes – such as will, emotion, or reason, apparently appropriated from the 
modernist unconscious alienated humanity. I believe that the sounds of the blowing wind, moving 
air, tapping weeds, and especially the pale colour of the house draw a clear parallel between the 
empty house and a living being which is lonely and forgotten. Nothing happens inside the house, it 
seems as if the time passage has stopped. Here the writer uses the figure of empty house represents 
the effects of time and the effects of war. The temporal context here covers both the decay of the 
house and the destruction and decay caused by war.

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Interestingly, in Sanders’ words, (1994:516) Woolf’s “narratives are variously punctuated 
by clock – readings and clock – soundings, by the measurement of tides and the altitude of the sun, 
by history and archaeology, by ageing and dying.” A single minute released from the chronological 
order of time has been recreated in the mind of the human being, similarly released in order that he 
may sense that moment. Thus, Sanders argues convincingly (ibid.) that Woolf “explores the 
consequences and processes of waiting, learning, and ageing, she elsewhere shapes her fiction by 
means of the larger consciousness of a narrator alert both to historical calibration of time, and, 
more significantly, to an imaginative freedom from time”. 
As described by Swinden (1973), the writings of Joyce influenced Virginia Woolf’s creativity 
and development of her novels, including To the Lighthouse. Indeed, in her fiction, she justified 
Joyce’s stream of consciousness technique when portraying the multidimensional characters, by 
examining every moment in the mind on an ordinary day. It is worth mentioning that Woolf was 
also influenced by the French novelist and critic Marcel Proust’s ideas about time and temporality. 
However, she contradicted Proust’s opinion in many ways. Proust elaborated a relationship between 
time and memory, including such processes as remembering or forgetting which are closely 
connected and complement one another. The critic claimed that memory gives meaning to circular 
time. On the other hand, Woolf revealed a connection between the periods of duration (past, 
present, and future) and the moment (the instantaneous duration). According to her, the real 
meaning and value of the moments of human life become visible only if people could interpret 
those moments from three different temporal angles. Without the influence of the unconscious, 
hidden experience people actually lose the connection to the real events their lives are based on. 
(Swinden 1973:156) 
There is evidence to claim that Woolf borrowed some ideas from the existential philosophers. 
In her fiction, the writer concentrates on the following two types of time: existential or historical 
time and personal time which exists and develops in the mind, and usually is not the exact 
equivalent of the real time of the outer world. Stevenson suggests (1998:87) that Woolf and other 
modernist authors, “are typical of Modernism’s general concern about the reification and 
mechanization of the modern industrial and financial world; they also introduce a particular – 
related – dislike of time on the clock”. Personal time in Woof’s novels is depicted as the span of 
life, rather than the indefinitely stretching entity measurable by clocks. Consequently, every human 
being is responsible for using his time wisely, he is aware of the end of his time, death, and its 
beginning.
As can be seen from all the critics’ insights and remarks, a number of fiction writers and 
philosophers undoubtedly were influential on Woolf’s time philosophy that she foregrounded in her 

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literary works. However, to my mind, this statement does not mean that she lacked her own attitude 
towards time and other issues discussed in her books and simply repeated the ideas suggested by 
other writers. Predominantly, as VanSpanckeren claims (1994:65), the writer merely affirmed and 
further solidified ideas that were already taking form in her mind, ideas that were to have their own 
profound effect on a new generation of writers. Indeed, Woolf’s novels are prominent illustrations 
of the development of modernist philosophy and art. Her meditative style allows the subjective 
mental processes of Woolf’s characters to determine the objective content of her narrative. In To the 
Lighthouse, one of her most experimental works, the passage of time, for example, is adjusted by 
the consciousness of the characters rather than by the clock. As Stevenson says (1998:87), the 
author celebrates the power of “time in the mind rather than time on the clock”. The events of a 
single afternoon constitute over half the book, while the events of the following ten years are 
condensed into several pages. As a result, any readers of To the Lighthouse, especially those who 
are not used to reading modernist fiction, often find the novel strange and difficult because of its 
nebulous structure and complicated language which is based on metaphorical images and symbols. 
Compared with the traditional plot-based novels, To the Lighthouse seems to have little in the way 
of action. Indeed, almost all of the events take place in the characters’ minds. (Baldic 1996:168)

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