赵　梅

Abstract:To the Lighthouse is generally regarded as Virginia Woolfs most remarkable work.In this paper, the author intends to discuss the harmony and wholeness of this novel from ssevsral respects.

Keywords:Harmony;Wholeness;Symbol

中图分类号： I 106文献标识码: A文章编号：1672-1578（2009)5-0020-03

To the Lighthouse is generally considerad to be Virginia Woolfs best novel.In this book,the plot is generated by the inner lives of the characters with psychological effects achieved through the use of imagery,symbol and metaphor.Her aim is to reflect the feelings of disorientation and chaos experienced by people in real life at that time.

This novel has been studied from mang perspectives. Some people think that the novel is a beatutiful picture;some think that the novel has less unity than Woolfs other novels,because it has no major thread to bind it as a whole.

The author thinks that the whole book can be said to be a research for the meaning of life,or a point of harmony and order in the midst of disorder and choas,and the novel can be seen as a whole though it seems scatterd in structure.This paper will focus on the the following two sides of this novel:The harmony of the novel and The wholeness of the novel.

1 The harmony of the novel

The novel To the Lighthouse not only explores the personal relationship,but also goes beyond that to explore mans wider relationship to the universe. The whole book can be said a research for the meaning of life,or a point of harmony and order in the midst of disorder and chaos. In this part,the author will make a systematic exposition in order to show the harmony in this novel.

1.1Mrs Ramsay is a symbol of harmony

Mrs Ramsay,the hero of the novel,is portrayed as an intuitive and imaginative woman with a dominant influence upon people around her and their feelings.She is a symbol of harmony.I her daily life, she spares no efforts to keep the harmony of the world around her.She is a kind mother,a good friend and a considerable wife.

To her children,she is a kind mother..She loves her children. She hopes that her children could be “angels of delight”.In her mind,James is the most gifted.Prue is a perfect angel.Andrew has gift for mathematics.Rose has a wonderful gift with her hands.In the first chapter,when Mrs Ramsay says positively that the weather will be bad,she tries to comfort James:

“Perhaps you will wake up and find the sun shining and

the birds singing,”she said compassionately,smoothing the litttle boys hair,for her husband,with his caustic saying that it would not be fine, had dashed his spirits she could see.(Part One,Chapter3)

Her imaginative answer soothes James and makes him still cherish some hope for the trip. This going to the Lighthouse is a passion of James.Although Mrs Ramsay distorts the fact,she wins over a human heart.In her mind,to pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other peoples feelings,to rend the thin veils of civilization so wantonly,so brutally,was so horrible an outrage of human decency.

To the guests in her house,she is a good friend.With deep love and a strong sense of intuition, Mrs Ramsay always shows sympathy and understanding towards others,wins their confidence,and draws them all together into a human ambiance and harmony:“She could not bear incivilility to her guests,to young men in particular,who were poor as church mice.”

She imagines herself to have “the whole of the other sex under her protection.”Chales Tansley is a boring person in other peoples eyes.He had been snubbed by the others,but Mrs Ramsay can appreciate his intellect,even in its decay.She askes Tansley to go to the Lighthouse with her,which soothed him.

When there is a dinner together, Mrs Ramsay asks everyone to speak French,no matter how bad their French are,because in her mind,speaking French imposes some order,some uniformity.When the people around the dinner table finallly come together in a social unit,no longer hostile to one another, Mrs Ramsay suddenly experiences a sense of stability and coherence in the midst of times passing.Suddenly,she feels“the still peace that lies about the heart of thing.”As in her previous epiphanic experence,she welcomes this moment,in which time seems to stand still. Mrs Ramsay is,at this moment,like an artist who has composed the scene,a social artist who has arranged the figures around the table.She tries every means to keep the harmony of the society.She is also a protector of marriage.In her mind,people must marry and have children,because family cankeep the harmony of the society.

To Mr Ramsay,she is a considerable wife.Most of the people in the novel think that Mr Ramsay is petty,selfish,vain and egotistical.He is a tyrant in other peoples eyes.He hurts almost all around him and makes them unhappy and disappointed by sticking to facts,and by emphasizing the grim reality.While Mrs Ramsay is a kind-hearted woman.She is always optimistic.She makes all her effort to make up for whatever her husband lacks.Though they have different ideas upon many things,they love each other.There is harmony between them.They can understand each other without saying a word. Mr Ramsay appreciates his wife as a beautiful woman,the mother of his children and protector of his ruffled ego.In fact, Mrs Ramsay is like a mother hen to her husband as well as her children.In this sense,we can see that Mr Ramsay has the masculine beauty,he looks like a persistent and dauntless lighthouse;while Mrs Ramsay has the charm of female,just like the light from the lighthouse.They two are combined as a harmonious picture.

1.2The Lighthouse is a symbol of harmony

The Lighthouse recurrents many times in this novel.Here,it does not mean “the light of civilization,”or “the light of knowledge.”It stands fpr an ideal standard,and it also stands for Mrs Ramsay. Mrs Ramsay always attach herself to the light:

She looked out to meet that stroke of the Lighthouse,the long steady stroke,the last of the three,which was her stroke,for watching them in this mood always at this hour oone could not help attaching oneself to one thing especially of the things one saw,and this thing,the long steady stroke,was her stroke.

She looked up over her knitting and met the third stroke and it seemed to her like her own eyes meeting her own eyes,searching as she alone could search into her mind and her heart,purifying out of existence that lie,any lie.She praised herself in praising the light,without vanity,for she was stern,she was searching,she was beautiful as that light.(Part One,Chapter11)

As Mrs Ramsay is a symbol of harmony,so does the lighthouse.In fact,the journey to the Lighthouse is not simply a journey.The inner exploration below the surface is to make contact with a truth outside oneself to surrender the uniqueness of ones ego to an impersonal reality.In the third part, Mr Ramsay and his children arrive at the Lighthouse harmoniously at last.In this sense,the Lighthouse is a symbol of harmony in life.It symbolizes something hopeful,something harmonious in the relationship between the characters or even beyond that,the harmony between human being and the universe.

2 The Wholeness of the novel

This novel uses “the stream of consciousness”,so there seems no main thread to combine it into a whole.But with a deep analyze,it is easy for us to find that there are some points to show that the novel is a whole.In this part,the author will focus on the following points in order to show the wholeness of the novel.

2.1The structure of the novel

As Mrs Woolfs aim in this novel is to convey the spirit of life and to display the complex and inexpressible inner activities of man.She adopts a special kind of structure——symbolic structure.The novel is arranged in three parts,each part is constracted in a different way.

The first part“The Window”is presented statically with a fixed scene.It occupies over a half of the books length,with rich and complex inner life of the characters.The structure of this part is built around Mrs Ramsay,who herself is a symbol of the Lighthouse,stands for the spirit of life and the subjective view.The second part“Time Passes”compresses all vicissitudes of the war year1914—1918 into one night,in which three deaths are described,including the heroine, Mrs Ramsay.But this part is quite short.It serves as a bridge to link the events happened in the first section with those in the third section,and it carries the theme of the negtive value of human life.The third part“The Lighthouse”is run through with two threads:one is that Mr Ramsay and his children finally finished their voyage to the Lighthouse,the other describes Miss Lily Briscoe completed her picture at last.This part occupies the second harf of the book,and it combines the subjective and objective views towards reality.

The varied lengh of the three parts resembles the pattern of the beam sent out from the Lighthouse,which is the central symbol of the novel.The first long flashllight of the Lighthouse stands for the first part“The Window”,and is associated with Mrs Ramsay;the second interval after the light stands for the second part“Time Passes”,which imply the negtive side of the life;and the second flash of the Lighthouse stands for the thirs part“The Lighthouse”.Thus,the novel is organised on a long—short—long,or light—darkness—light pattern.In this way,the whole book provides a sense of unity,and the three parts become an organic whole.

2.2Jamesunderstanding of his parents

James is the youngest son of the family.He is hte one who wants to the Lighthouse

most.Going to the Lighthouse is a passion of his.In his eyes,“The lighthouse was then a silvery,misty—looking tower with a yellow eye that opened suddenly and softly in the evening,”but when his father said“it will not be fine”,he is so angry tha the even want to kill his father:

Had there been an axe handy,or a poke,any weapon that would have gashed a whole in his fathers breast and killed him,there and then,James would have seize it.(Part One,Chapter1)

In Jameseyes,his father is atyrant.He always force the children to do things they dont like.So the children always resist him.James loves his mother,and has thought of the Lighthouse in terms associated with his mother,who has the quality of love and hope.But in the third part,while James is sailing across to the Lighthouse,he sees it as it really is:

James looked at the Lighthouse.He could see the white—washed rocks;the tower,stark and straight;he could see that it was barred with black and white;he could see the windows in it,he could even see washing spread on the rocks to dry,so that the Lighthouse,was it？（Part Three,Chapter8）

Thus,James realizes that both his parentsviews are possible and true. “For nothing is simply one thing”Everything depends upon ones point of view and upon ones relationship.Through the example of the Lighthouse,James becomes understand his parentsopposed view of reality.He identifies his fathers objective reality with his mothers subjective reality and admits that both are valid and necessary.His father stands for the world of the physical nature,and his mother stands for the world of spiritual nature.They complement each other and join together to make a complete picture of reality.Thus,James understanding of his parents becomes a whole.

2.3Lilys finishing of her picture

Lily Briscoe is the main character of the third part.She is a painter.In painting her picture,Lily has been aware of the frustration of trying to capture and translate moments of intensity into a permanent art.She has been struggling for ten years and has experienced an inner journey while painting her picture.

The first step of her journey is a growth in awareness,imbued with Mrs Ramsays spirit.In Lily Briscoes mind, Mrs Ramsay is the incarnation of perfectness,gentleness,beauty and harmony.Most of the people admire her.She is kind.Lily thinks that she is a ciper compared with Mrs Ramsay.She has the sense of inferiority.She can not understand Mrs Ramsay at first. “Was it wisdom?Was it knowledge?Was it,once more,the deceptiveness of beauty? ”She does not know.So she can not finish her picture.After Mrs Ramsays death,she felt lost.She tries to find the meaning of life:

Whats the meaning of life?That was all—a simple question;one that tended to close in one year.The great revelation had never come.Instead there were little daily miracles,illuminations,matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; Mrs Ramsay making of this moment something permanent—this was of the nature of a revelation.In the midest of chaos there was shape;this eternal passing and flowing was struck into stability.(Part Three,Chapter3)

After ten years of struggle,Lily does not only realize her own human inadequacy,but also comes to see love(which is the art of life)as the determing factor of human relations.To achieve harmony in human relations,one must be deeply involved in life;such an involvement is also necessary for an artist before he can become objectively detached from it in order to seize its harmony and translate it into the aesthetic relation of art.As she involves more in life,Lily becomes more realizes that she has overpraised Mrs Ramsay,that both herself and Mrs Ramsay have their own merits and shortcomings.After ten years of struggle, “she had felt,now she could stand up to Mrs Ramsay—a tribute to the astoning power that Mrs Ramsay had over one. ”She thought Mrs Ramsay has faded and gone,we can over-ride her wishes,improve away her limited,old-fationed ideas.

The second stage of Lilys journey is one of progress from separateness to one of wholeness,in which the subject-objec division will be solved within herself.As she involes herself more in life,Lily becomes more like Mrs Ramsay in appreciating the value of intuition,and in feeling sympathy for others.But the involvement also helps her see the importance of Mr Ramsays view towards reality,thus widening her grasp on lifes significance.Finally,by adopting an attitude which combines the perspectives of both Mr and Mrs Ramsay to make reality simutaneously factual and imaginary.Lily has made herself compolete as ahuman being through the surrender of personality and reached her fulfillment as an artist by translating a momentary intensity into an artistic eternity.And she finished her picture.

3 Conclusion

To the Lighthouse is perhaps one of the most marvelous work of literature in which nearly nothing actually happens.Reading it create a constant sense of uncertainty and confusion.But there are indeed some details in the book to provide a sense of unity.In fact,the theme,the structure and the sybbol of the novel are an organic whole;the structure embodies the theme and the symbol;the symbol implies the theme and structure;and the structure invoke the symbol and structure.So we can see that To the Lighthouse is a harmonious picture.And from it we know the wholeness of life.

Reference：

[1]Woofe V irginia . To the Light house [M]. London: The Hogarth Press, 1982.

[2]侯维瑞. A survey of modern British fiction[M]. Shanghai:

Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001.

[3]李维屏.英美意识流小说[M]. 上海外语教育出版社, 1996.

[4]张中载.《到灯塔去》: 一幅有声的画[J]. 山东师大外国语学院学报, 2001 (4).

作者简介：赵梅（1983-）女，助教，文学学士，研究方向：英语语言文学及教学。