In her novel, To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf explores the thematic implications of time's continuous procession foreword. Woolf uses images of the sea as a symbolic depiction of the passage of time in relation to human lives. This pattern of images suggests that time takes on a number of different forms. Likes the waves, times sometimes appears repetitive and nearly motionless, but it also has a violent and entropic nature that calls attention to the impermanence of human life by threatening complete destruction. And yet, in either state, time is in a position of constant movement. The only means of stopping time in To the Lighthouse is represented through art which carries the ability to preserve moments after they have passed. Therefore,
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However, the violence committed is not always done slowly but can rather take on the nature of stormy seas - "raging and blowing so hard that… houses and trees toppled over, the mountains trembled, [and] rocks rolled into the sea" (51). The waves shift from a monotonous rhythm to an enormous entity of destruction that "beat[s] the measure of life", warning of those "whose day had slipped past" (17). Time, like the tide, "is coming in fast" and has the ability to wash away human life (64). This vicious entropy in which the world dissolves into chaos is made most apparent in the section of the novel entitled "Time Passes". The evenings were characterized as "full of wind and destruction", aligned with a series of tragedies (105). First, "Mrs Ramsay…died rather suddenly" (105). Shortly afterward, "Prue Ramsay died…in some illness connected with childbirth" (108). And finally, during the war "twenty or thirty young men were blown up in France" including "Andrew Ramsay" (109) Time is represented as being as unpredictable as the sea, characterized by storms of destruction that bear the ability to extinguish …show more content…
In To the Lighthouse this conservation is most commonly done through artistic endeavors. Human life is limited in reality in a way that is different from fiction. For instance, the story that Mrs Ramsay reads to James at bedtime finishes with the line: "and there they are living still at this very time" (52). This extends the lives of the bedtime story characters to a position that functions differently than the temporal reality of the real world. As such, permanence is only available in fiction. Furthermore, art also works as a means of recreating the past, as with Lily's paintings. For instance, Lily attempts to "imitate from recollection" Mrs Ramsay's face to portray "the glow, the rhapsody, and the self-surrender" that she had so often seen before Mrs Ramsay's death (125). As a result, the act of painting works as a means to draw those lost in the past back into the present. In conclusion, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse critically examines the impermanence of human life through the sea's symbolic depiction of time. Like the waves, time is represented in a constant state of movement that perpetrates violence against the living - either through slow erosion or sudden destruction. And although the text represents time as an inescapable force that governs human life, art functions as a means to preserve moments
However, the violence committed is not always done slowly but can rather take on the nature of stormy seas - "raging and blowing so hard that… houses and trees toppled over, the mountains trembled, [and] rocks rolled into the sea" (51). The waves shift from a monotonous rhythm to an enormous entity of destruction that "beat[s] the measure of life", warning of those "whose day had slipped past" (17). Time, like the tide, "is coming in fast" and has the ability to wash away human life (64). This vicious entropy in which the world dissolves into chaos is made most apparent in the section of the novel entitled "Time Passes". The evenings were characterized as "full of wind and destruction", aligned with a series of tragedies (105). First, "Mrs Ramsay…died rather suddenly" (105). Shortly afterward, "Prue Ramsay died…in some illness connected with childbirth" (108). And finally, during the war "twenty or thirty young men were blown up in France" including "Andrew Ramsay" (109) Time is represented as being as unpredictable as the sea, characterized by storms of destruction that bear the ability to extinguish …show more content…
In To the Lighthouse this conservation is most commonly done through artistic endeavors. Human life is limited in reality in a way that is different from fiction. For instance, the story that Mrs Ramsay reads to James at bedtime finishes with the line: "and there they are living still at this very time" (52). This extends the lives of the bedtime story characters to a position that functions differently than the temporal reality of the real world. As such, permanence is only available in fiction. Furthermore, art also works as a means of recreating the past, as with Lily's paintings. For instance, Lily attempts to "imitate from recollection" Mrs Ramsay's face to portray "the glow, the rhapsody, and the self-surrender" that she had so often seen before Mrs Ramsay's death (125). As a result, the act of painting works as a means to draw those lost in the past back into the present. In conclusion, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse critically examines the impermanence of human life through the sea's symbolic depiction of time. Like the waves, time is represented in a constant state of movement that perpetrates violence against the living - either through slow erosion or sudden destruction. And although the text represents time as an inescapable force that governs human life, art functions as a means to preserve moments