Roll No : 29
Paper No : 9
Paper Name : Modernist Literature
Class : MA Sem 3
Topic : To the Lighthouse, modern interpretation
Enrolment No : 2069108420190024
College : SMT. S. B. Gardi Department of English
Email Id : ruchikankrecha06@gmail.com
Submitted to : Department of English
What is Modernism :
When we read the difference period
between current and movements, at that time the literary historian hopes to
create some order in the overwhelming abundance of literary text. With European
literature the term ‘period’ has been preferred and the description of
progressive period of Classicism, romanticism, realism and symbolism. In
twentieth century literature we can find currents and movements such as, futurism,
expressionism and surrealism. Modern literature gives us the current characteristics
and current is considered as a distinctive feature of the period.
Much early twentieth century literature
falls within Futurism, expressionism and surrealism. In middle 1970 century,
the awareness has grown that important authors such as T. S. Eliot, Virginia
Woolf, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, James Joyce, Marcel Proust etc. All are
different writers and they are not thinking about spontaneity and one-sidedness
as the futurists and the surrealist authors did. All are the modern authors and
represent the real world in their literature and all are intellectual and to be
capable of writing manifestos and convening press conferences. For example when
we read T. S. Eliot and his work, we comes to know that in his work he
represents the real world in which he was lived. Like in ‘The Waste Land’ he
talk about one of the major theme ‘life is death and death is life’ and he talk
about life, birth and rebirth. According to T. S. Eliot,
“Poetry should be express the intricacy
and complexity of life and hence poetry in the modern age was bound to be
complex”
Modern authors had made a considerable
contribution to European literature between the two world war. During this
movements or period we can find the writers of fiction and criticism rather
than as poets. According to Harry Levin,
“Modernism belonged to the past and had
given way to the documentary realism, to the Existentialist novel and after the
second world war to the writing of the angry young men in England and the beat
generation in America “
“The contrast between modernist and
their postmodern critics marked the end of modernism. “
Stephen Spender talk about the
difference between ‘The contemporary and the modern. ‘ when we read about
Stephen spender or his poetry, many of his poems are pure and they are detached
from the everyday things of the world. So the modernist writers writers are
more interested in knowing new things. T. S. Eliot said in his Essay,“tradition
and individual talents” that,
“Writers should represent the pastness
of the past and its present “.
When you want to talk about new things
first you have to talk about past because knowing the past is important. It is
not important that you have to represent the past in your work but to sometimes
to represent the present you have to talk about the past things.
Modern writers are interested in the
various ways in which knowledge of the world can be transmitted but the actual
transfer of knowledge as something of secondary importance. We can find many
hypothesis. The modernist present their intellectual hypotheses in arguments.
Modernist emphasis the value of the intellectual consideration and
reconsideration.
According to Virginia Woolf,
“Nothing seemed to have marge, they all
sat separate and the whole of the effort of merging and flowing and creating
rested on her”.
Some critic did not see the modernism in
Virginia Woolf’s work like,
“To the Lighthouse” (1927)
“Mrs. Dalloway” (1925)
“The
Waves” (1931)
Several interpretation of Woolf’s work
have been based on symbolic and realist principles. Some critic believed that a
symbolic and realist interpretation of the novel is not possible but we would
like to defend the position that the Spender’s code expressed in ‘To the
Lighthouse’ is modernist one. When we read, we comes to know that several
aspects of the text which remain problematic in a symbolist or realist reading.
For example, the structure of the novel, the meaning of the second part “Time
Passes” and the death of Mrs. Ramsay or fragmentary description of the
character. Many critics talk about the Decoding system. The first critic who
talked about this system is William Empson and he assume that,
"Virginia Woolf’s fiction is wrapped in symbols, but he finds the
symbolism elusive, which leads him to wish. "
In 1973 James Naremore interpreted
Virginia Woolf’s fiction by means of Psychoanalytical decoding system.In To the Lighthouse, James signalled a sexual
symbolic in ‘Window’ and ‘lighthouse’, but it may doubted whether female or
male are obligatory connections of the words.
A modernist interpretation of ‘To the
Lighthouse ‘ :
In the novel, there is a great
difference between the time of narration and narrated time. As we know that the
book is divided into three main parts.
1. The window
2. Time passes
3. The Lighthouse
The first part covers less than half a
day, second part cover a period of roughly ten years and the last part about
half a day. In part one and two not much happen but in second part a war has
been going on. In the novel, the term ‘event’ used in narratology to describe
the transition of one state of things to another. The event in the novel are
not restricted to action and in a superficial way, the fabula of the novel can
be summarised as follows,
1.
James, the youngest son
of Mr and Mrs. Ramsay wishes to go lighthouse, but his mother just give him the
hope because she knows that Mr. Ramsay never give them permission to visit
2.
Mrs. Ramsay finds a
substitute satisfaction in educating her children and entertaining her Guests.
Guests are, Charles Tansley, a bookish intellectual, Lily Briscoe, A painter
with post impressionist and Mr Carmichael who is an elderly poet.
Time passes relates the event of the
long period that intervenes between part one and third. This part including the
death of Mrs. Ramsay, pure and Andrew. Andrew Ramsay died as a soldier in
France. During these days the house from where the lighthouse can be seen,
remain uninhabited for several summers and falls into considerable disrepair. So
the third part ‘The Lighthouse’ describe the presence of Mr. Ramsay, Cam,
James, Mr Carmichael, Lily Briscoe, Nancy in the house.Mrs. Ramsay sets out for
the trip to the lighthouse.
In part two, time passes has been
difficult to interpret. Arnold Bennett considered that the second part is not
good and it a failure. The semantic world of to the lighthouse is characterised
by the dichotomy event versus moment and this opposition is reflected in the
trichotomy of the novel. Like the first part talk about several personal
experiences including moments of vision, second part include many events and
the last part again several strictly personal experiences. The third part, time
passes, deals with death, decay and material conditions or it is contrast with
the first and third part.
Part one and three not only talk anout
the personal experiences but also the difficulty of sharing these with others. Arnold
Bennett said that the death of Mrs. Ramsay ‘cuts the book in two’. The physical
death of Mrs. Ramsay is a condition for her spiritual presence in the
consciousness of Mr. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe. It is very interesting to
understand the physical distance as a condition of understanding the plays a
part also in the relation between Mr. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe. When Mr. Ramsay
go to Lighthouse at that time Lily realises that her feelings towards him are
changing.
“Her feelings for Mr. Ramsay changed as he sailed
further and further across the day. “
The main theme of the novel is the urge
towards communication which will always remain indirect and imperfect but which
can at best materialise in a situation of detachment and freedom.
William Empson has called the lighthouse
a symbol of Mrs. Ramsay
The text provides ample support for
identifying Mrs. Ramsay with the lighthouse.Mrs. Ramsay sees herself as a ‘Wedge-shaped
core of Darkness’. This core of darkness could go anywhere, for no one saw it. There
was freedom, there was peace. Lily Briscoe sees Mrs. Ramsay in forms that
resemble the lighthouse.
The relationship between Mr and Mrs.
Ramsay, the indemnificationof Mr. Ramsay
with the lighthouse and the role of antagonist which Lily Briscoe takes over
from Mrs. Ramsay these lead towards a very complicated ending. We observed
above that the growing geographical distance between Mr. Ramsay and Lily paradoxically
enhances the possibility of contact between them. When Mr. Ramsay has reached
the point of not asking anything at that time, Lily Briscoe realises that, whatever
she had wanted to give him, when he left her that morning, she had given him at
last’. Lily becomes a substitute for Mrs. Ramsay but Mrs. Ramsay can be
identified with the lighthouse. After her death, Mrs. Ramsay is in two
different places. Lily feels curiously divided as if one part of her were drawn
out there. This kind of duplication results from the provisionalityof the point
of view of the character and is in agreement with the modernist code.
So the character in to the lighthouse
serve to exemplify a hypothesis, a thought, or an idea and do not conform to
Psychoanalytical laws. There is relatively little psychological development in
the character but albeit in a rather indecisive way.
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