Like many turn-of-the century novelists, Virginia Woolf was greatly disappointed in traditional methods of narration especially where character portrayal was concerned. Influnced by Freud and other psychologists, she decided to forget about the outward appearances of her characters preferring to focus all her attention on the inside of the characters in question, and so it could be said that Virginia Woolf was shifting interest from sight into insight. To do this, she adopted the stream-of-consciousness techinque seeing in it the only sure way of analyzing and recording man's inner thoughts and feelings. Woolf didn't like the idea of writing a novel in chronological order adopted by traditional novelists who saw life in terms of beginning, a middle, and an end, and who consequently wrote novels in terms of a beginning that leads to a middle which must of neccessity lead to logical end; logical in the sense of being the natural result of this, proceeding from beginning to a middle, and which leads to an inevitable end. Because she made her business to record the inner workings of her characters' minds, she realized that the chronology-based-on method of narration would not do for her. Simply because life cannot be perceived in this three dimensionally manner.
~ Plot design and structure in To The Lighthiuse~
Traditional plot as a sequnce of events in not the only organizational strusture in the novel. There is another kind of development based on symbols and related to what is going on in the internal consciousness of the various characters.
:: How does Virginia Woolf arrange these two levels in the time sequance ::
Two levels of reality are portrayed in the novel:
1. The surface level of external action structured through traditional development of external time.
2. The inner level of internal reality which deos not move lineary in time and is expressed through symbols rather than episodic action.
3. The frist level of episodic external action is related through a surface simple time scheme clear in the division of the book into three parts:
Part One: '' The Window'' The family plans for a trip to the lighthouse. Lily begins her painting.
Part Two: '' Time Passes'' both the trip and the painting are suspended. Ten years pass during which three of Ramsay's family are claimed by death.
Part Three: '' The Lighhouse'' The trip is accomplished and Lily finishes her painting.
Each part represents a stage of development. The Window represents the exposition stage. Characters and setting introduced. The main concern of the action in introduced -the trip. The antagonism or conflict in relationships of the characters is also introduced, with death and change as symbolic antagonists.
Time Passes represents the complication stage. Change, deterioration and man's conflict with natural forces build to the climax seen in the changes which overwhelm the Ramsay's family and their house. External action is reduced to a minimum and the passage of time is depicted on abstract terms to reveal the destructive images. The mood of despair is soon overcome when the house is restored to order and family returns.
The Lighthouse is the final stage; where the conflict that started in the first part is resolved. The long delayed journey take palce and Lily finishes her painting as the group lands at the lighthouse.
Virginia Woolf believes in representing life in an original manner, that life is often contradictory and reality is shifting. What happens on the surface is not important. To conclude, both characters and events represent the common human experience of the struggle against death, time and the cosmic forces which threaten to destroy man the need to become impersonal and accept reality both in its positive and negative aspects.
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