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Raeya Maswood
Professor Jacobs
May 10th 2010
English 151W
Stream of Consciousness and Dialogue in Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse”
As a modernist writer Virginia Woolf is one of the major writers to help create the use of
stream of consciousness. Stream of consciousness is narrative technique that allows the reader to
gain incredible insight into the characters’ thoughts. Rather than explicitly state the characters
feelings, by providing the characters’ every thought and reflection, the use of stream of
consciousness shows not only the readers’ but also the characters’ own awareness of his or her
every thought process. Thus the use of stream of consciousness gives the reader an opportunity
to evaluate, analyze and deliberate the characters’ emotions. The use of stream of consciousness
in Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse” helps create a sense of intimacy between the readers
and characters’. The use of dialogue in the novel would not have been able to capture the essence
of the novel which gives the characters’ unfiltered thoughts and perceptions. In one of Virginia
Woof’s greatest works, her use of the literary technique stream of consciousness is vital in
exemplifying her character Lily’s own strive for knowledge, intimacy and unity through honest
perception.
By the end of the novel it is certain that messages from the novel would have been almost
impossible without Woolf’s use of stream of consciousness. It is almost immediate when it can
seen that there barely is any dialogue in “To the Lighthouse.” According to Martha C. Nussbaum
in her article, “The Window: Knowledge of Other Minds in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse”
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dialogue is untrustworthy. Unlike Victorian books which explicitly states the characters’ issues
and feelings, which in many cases can make readers wary to trust the characters or not, Virginia
Woof’s use of stream of consciousness gives a raw glimpse of a natural thought provoking
process- it is not formally structured, it combines questions, thought and worries coherent natural
way (Nussbaum, 732). Nussbaum states that spoken language in dialogue filters thoughts and
does not give a true, thorough perception of the mind. Stream of consciousness eliminates thisas the readers are presented with the characters thoughts characters are shown raw and honestly
without any outside influence. Readers are given the thoughts of all the characters and then can
judge, rather than given supposed thoughts and feelings. Human thoughts are seen to be naturally
erratic, this can only be mirrored through the use of stream of consciousness. (Nussbaum, 733).
Nussbaum states that it is not possible for dialogue and language to comparably portray thoughts
and feelings as experienced in the mind (Nussbaum, 733). Language is very limited and word
choice is very important in a conversation or dialogue, “common language become inflected with
the peculiarities of each person’s history and character and taste” (Nussbaum, 735). Dialogue
filters thought and tries to perfect it; it is only a “linguistic simplification” of the unimaginably
complicated process of thoughts (Nussbaum, 734). Woolf had not only used stream of
consciousness instead of dialogue to give an honest portrayal of her characters; it parallels one of
the messages in the novel as many of her characters, especially Lily, strive to gain this honest
perception and unity with others.
Dialogue in Woolf’s novel would have served against one of the major themes of the
novel. We see with every character worries about their future and their insatiable yearning of
creating something which would last passed their death. We see Mr.Ramsay’s unhappiness when
he realizes that he had already reached the prime of his life; we see Lily try to create a painting
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which she knows will remain, but worries where. One of the major themes in the novel surrounds
the accuracy and reliability of perception of others. Lily yearns to understand Mrs. Ramsay
beyond from what she is superficially perceived by everyone. From early in the novel it can be
seen that Lily admires Mrs. Ramsay. Lily strives to be like her, and even by the end of the novel
with Mrs. Ramsay’s passing, Lily still feels inadequate and feels as though, unlike Mrs. Ramsay
who comforted her husband, Lily cannot do the same for Mr. Ramsay who so desperately needs
encouragement. Lily wishes to know Mrs. Ramsay; Lily yearns to know find out what it takes to
genuinely understand and know another. Lily wishes to know what it would be like to be “waters
poured into one jar, inextricably the same.” Lily not only wishes to know how it is possible to
gain such intimacy with another being, but how it would be to feel unified. This can be seen
with Lily when she wonders if there is any way to know the truth within someone:
Sitting on the floor with her arms round Mrs. Ramsay’s knees, close as she could get,
smiling to think that Mrs. Ramsay would never know the reason of that pressure, she
imagined how in the chambers of the mind and heart of the woman who was physically,
touching her, were stood, like the treasures in the tombs of kings, tablets bearing sacred
inscriptions, which if one could spell them out, would teach one everything, but they
would never be offered openly, never made public. What art was there, known to love or
cunning by which one pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for
becoming like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the object one
adored? Could the body achieve, or the mind, subtly mingling in the intricate passages of
the brain? Or the heart? Could loving, as people called it, make her and Mrs. Ramsay
one? For t it was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets,
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nothing could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is
knowledge, she had thought, leaning her head on Mrs. Ramsay’s knee(Woolf, 54).
Through Woolf’s use of stream of consciousness readers can trust Lily’s thoughts and see
her innermost thoughts. Lily realizes that what she yearns for is not the same as knowledge- that
knowledge can be gained through reading and studying, intimacy and unity is a far more difficult
process. Lily’s thought process and feelings, just like the other characters’ in Woolf’s novel
honestly reflect the way human beings reflect and ponder. Syntactically stream of consciousness
truly reveals mental processes.
Following those lines, we see Lily draw an analogy between humans and bees and the
gaining of honest perception. Firstly we saw her internal strive for genuine perception from not
only Mrs. Ramsay but anyone else. Following those lines we see her know draw a beautiful
conclusion from this by finding a clever connection between humans and bees:
How then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people,
sealed as they were? Only like a bee, drawn by some sweetness or sharpness in the air
intangible to touch or taste, one haunted the dome-shaped hives, ranged the wastes of the
air over the countries of the world alone, and then haunted the hives with the murmurs
and their stirrings; the hives, which were people (Woolf, 54-55).
These lines address Lily’s longing to understand Mrs. Ramsey and humanity’s longing to
understand each other. Humans are like bees; they belong to only their own hive. But what they
long for, intimacy and knowledge are beyond their own hive. We, the bees and humans are
reminded by bees’ buzzes and the appeal of vibrancy that the attractiveness of knowledge, the
longing for intimacy, the sweet smell of honey and the bitterness of knowing that these desires
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are insatiable and unattainable. We only hear of the bees’ buzzes, we are not sure about from
where they come from, we can never grasp what it means, “and yet we pursue the goal
obsessively” (Nussbaum, 731-732). Through these thoughts we are given another example of
Woolf’s theme of insatiable longing for knowledge, intimacy and unity. Lily gives us a beautiful
analogy of humanity’s and her own longing for honest perception.
“To the Lighthouse” does not have perhaps a very relatable plot; however it wouldn’t be
accurate to assume that this hinders readers from connecting with the characters. The use of
stream of consciousness is not only vital for the theme in the novel, but it provides the innermost
intimate thoughts of these characters- and it is these thoughts, not the plot of the novel, which
most certainly lets the readers relate.
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Citations
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, Inc, 1927. Print.
Nussbaum, Martha C. “The Window: Knowledge of Other Minds in Virginia Woolf’s To the
Lighthouse.” New Literary History 1995: 731-753. JSTOR. Web. May 7 2011