Time has been important both in modern literature and Virginia Woolf’s novels. Writers before her understood time as a linear chain of past, present and future, therefore the structure of such novels would be created out of a chronological succession of events. Literary emphasis on time resurfaced during the Renaissance and from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which led the way to scientific and technological advances, to the twentieth century, the way of interpreting time in literature changed. Virginia Woolf’s novels examine the structures of human life as well as issues relevant to her time and background. She is influenced by Bloomsbury values and novelists such as James Joyce and Marcel Proust and philosopher Henri Bergson.
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This novel’s events, in contrast to more plot-driven Victorian novels, seem to take place in the characters mind by use of stream of consciousness. The novel is developed in the space of ten years. It is divided into three parts, “The Window”, “Time Passes” and “The Lighthouse”. In each of them Woolf makes use of time in different ways.
Despite only covering a few hours of a September evening, “The Window” manages to describe a wide variety of times. In chapter XII, Mr. Ramsay remembers what his childhood and life before marriage were like, then he talks to his wife in the present and later he thinks of the future. This section creates a window into the characters’ inner experience of …show more content…
The biggest metaphor on the story is the lighthouse, whose movement symbolises the structure of the novel for the lighthouse produces shots of light and darkness or different duration that can be compared to “the Window”, “Time Passes” and “The Lighthouse”. Another powerful symbol is that of water, in the form of streams, waves, and the sea. The waves are a symbol of both comfort and distress:
“the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach […] for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again [...] the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, “I am guarding you – I am your support,‟ but at other times[…] like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beat the measure of life” (To The Lighhouse, 12)
Virginia Woolf’s aim when writing a novel was to express reality as she perceived it. When dealing with time, the influence of the French thinker Bergson and the use different techniques, such as linguistic devices and metaphors helped Virginia Woolf manage to follow an intuitive approach to time rather than a mechanical. This helps the narrative and theme of the novel convey its own sense of
This novel’s events, in contrast to more plot-driven Victorian novels, seem to take place in the characters mind by use of stream of consciousness. The novel is developed in the space of ten years. It is divided into three parts, “The Window”, “Time Passes” and “The Lighthouse”. In each of them Woolf makes use of time in different ways.
Despite only covering a few hours of a September evening, “The Window” manages to describe a wide variety of times. In chapter XII, Mr. Ramsay remembers what his childhood and life before marriage were like, then he talks to his wife in the present and later he thinks of the future. This section creates a window into the characters’ inner experience of …show more content…
The biggest metaphor on the story is the lighthouse, whose movement symbolises the structure of the novel for the lighthouse produces shots of light and darkness or different duration that can be compared to “the Window”, “Time Passes” and “The Lighthouse”. Another powerful symbol is that of water, in the form of streams, waves, and the sea. The waves are a symbol of both comfort and distress:
“the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach […] for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again [...] the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, “I am guarding you – I am your support,‟ but at other times[…] like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beat the measure of life” (To The Lighhouse, 12)
Virginia Woolf’s aim when writing a novel was to express reality as she perceived it. When dealing with time, the influence of the French thinker Bergson and the use different techniques, such as linguistic devices and metaphors helped Virginia Woolf manage to follow an intuitive approach to time rather than a mechanical. This helps the narrative and theme of the novel convey its own sense of