Paper - 9 - Symbolism in 'To the Lighthouse'

Symbolism in To ‘The Lighthouse’

Introduction of Novel

To The Lighthouse is 20^th century novel which is written by Adline Virginia Woolf. She was an English Author, writer, publisher, essayist and short story writer. She is regarded as a famous figure of that era.

1)     Mrs. Dalloway (1925)

2)     To The Lighthouse (1927)

3)     Orlando (1928)

These are a famous novel of Virginia Woolf.

To The Lighthouse

This novel is published on 5^th May – 1927. The novel is landmark of high modernism. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf used the language of psychoanalysis. Reader can find stream of consciousness during reading the novel. The novel set on duration of 10 years (it deals with the year - 1910 to 1920). The centre of the novel is Mr. and Mrs. Ramsays and their visit to the Isle of Skye in Scotland.

Virginia Woolf wrote about this novel that – “I suppose that I did this work for myself.”

The novel captures its readers with its characterization of Ramsay family and their guest who meet at their holiday home on Isle of Skye, an island near the Scottish mainland. As know that novel is set on a ten years period of time,

1)     The novel’s first section taking place on a day before the First World War,

2)     A Middle period in which all the action happens “off stage” during the war

3)     Last section taking place on a day after the First World War.

Symbolism in To the Lighthouse

As a being Modernist writer, Virginia Woolf used may symbol in her work. If we look from normal eye site, we cannot find any image for the use of that symbol, but if we see it from different perspective, reader can understand the use of that symbol. Woolf did not follow the tradition of writing style in To the Lighthouses, the reader can tell that an image or object that appears in the novel is significant, it shows something but it may be hard to understand that what exactly it means – shows.

What is Symbolism?

•        In the broadest sense a symbol is anything which signifies something; in this sense all words are symbols.

•        In discussing literature, however, the term "symbol" is applied only to a word or phrase that signifies an object or event which in its turn signifies something, or has a range of reference, beyond itself.

Some symbols are "conventional" or "public": thus "the Cross,” "the Red, White, and Blue," and "the Good Shepherd" are terms that refer to symbolic objects of which the further significance is determinate within a particular culture.

(M.H.Abram ‘A Glossary of Literary Terms)

            In simple way, can say that symbol is something which can show some idea, thought, image, in one word or design. If only symbol can show, reader can understand whole idea of that concept.

For, Example: - Red Cross. This is one kind of symbol, if reader can see this kind of symbol.

This is one kind of symbol, if reader can see this kind of symbol that can understand that Hospital is nearby.

For, Example: - Traffic Lights

From above discussion we can see that in our day to day life we can see many symbols and interoperate as our knowledge.  If we see from the vision of Literature we can find that in the works of writer we can also find some image of symbol which can see normally, but it has a deep meaning.

What is Symbolism?

•        the artistic method of revealing ideas or truths through the use of symbols

Above definition may lead us towards that it a method, which draws our idea, thought in particular way with the use of some image or symbol.

•        Many novels have two layers of meaning. The first is in the literal plot, the second in a symbolic layer in which images and objects represent abstract ideas and feelings. Using symbols allows authors to express themselves indirectly on delicate or controversial matters.

(Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved)

What is Symbolism?  (In literature)

•        Poets, like all of us, use such conventional symbols; many poets, however, also use "private" or "personal symbols."

•        Often they do so by exploiting widely shared associations between an object or event or action and a particular concept;

For example,

ü  the general association of a Peacock with pride and of an Eagle with heroic endeavor,

ü   The Rising sun with birth of something good.

ü  The Setting sun with death, or surrender or failure.

•        Some poets, however, repeatedly use symbols whose significance they largely generate themselves, and these pose a more difficult problem in interpretation.

-        M.H.Abram ‘A Glossary of Literary Terms

If we look at Our Gujarati Literature there are many used many symbols –

We can find some UPNAM – TAKHALLUS of the name of writer, sometime they don’t write their full name, and they just used their UPNAM,

Sometime name of writer can be found in their work, that name is symbol of writer

પર્વત ને નામે પથ્થર, દરિયાને ને નામે પાણી,

ઈર્શાદ આપણે તો, ઈશ્વરને નામે વાણી.

This name ઈર્શાદ is shows the name of writer. That writer is Chinu Modi.

 Modernist Literature and Symbolism

•        The Modern Period, in the decades after World War I, was a notable era of symbolism in literature.

•        Many of the major writers of the period exploit symbols which are in part drawn from religious and esoteric traditions and in part invented.

•        Some of the works of the age are symbolist in their settings, their agents, and their actions, as well as in the objects they refer to.

•        Instances of a persistently symbolic procedure occur in lyrics (Yeats' "Byzantium" poems, Dylan Thomas' series of sonnets Altarwise by Owl-light),

In longer poems (Hart Crane's The Bridge, T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Wallace Stevens' "The Comedian as the Letter C"),

In novels (James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury

Era of Modern Literature deals with many symbols. During those days it was very dangerous and harmful to raise against the voice of authority, if you have raised voice against them then the writer and their life may be in danger. So they used the symbols and through those symbols they used to show reality.

Sometime writer use particular things to show something. For example if writer wanted to show

If we take an example of work of any writer, then we can find that one or another way they have used some symbols or images to show, something different. If from first reading reader can understand the normal reading, they cannot find deeper meaning of that symbol. They have to use their inner sense and they have to try to find out the meaning of those image.

  

Example from literary work:-

Gulliver’s Travel by Jonathan Swift is widely appreciated novel by critic and reader. The novel has four parts. Each part of that novel has symbol. The part of each novel is a symbol. The hegemony of the people of those days can be reflected in the novel.

If reader is not able to understand symbols of the novel, they can read as a child story, but the novel is just like a satire on society and people of that time, entire novel is full of symbol. Let’s find out how symbols used and worked in the novel.  

1)     A Voyage to Lilliput - The first part of that novel deals with the power position of White people on the entire society.

2)     A Voyage to Brobdingnag -The second part of that novel deals with ideology of white people and their ambitious.

3)     A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan -The third part of the novel is satire on science and blindly followed people, who make effortless, try which never convert into good result.

4)     A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms -The forth part of the novel deals with the human. It shows that animal is more rational and civilized in the novel. They live batter life than mankind. The animal portrayed more civilized then mankind. So it is one kind of symbol which used to show degradation of human.

To the lighthouse, this novel is full with the use of symbol; the symbol which is used in the novel can be interpreted in different way or perspective from various critics. The symbols in novel is used properly, one or another way it reflects the idea of writer. In the novel there are many symbols, they all are giving glimpses of some another idea. It draws towards the showing something else.

Let’s see variety of the symbols are used in the novel. Symbols used are in which context and let’s interpreted it. The all symbols are woven with each other. Let them study closely under the following heads.

v Lighthouse: Titular Significance

v Lily’s Painting

v Ramsay’s Summer House

v The Boar’s Skull

v Rose’s arrangement of the grapes and pears

v The Sea, the Storms, the rock, reefs and shallow water

v The Window

v Lighthouse: Titular Significance

This is the most important symbol in the novel. As it is also included in the title, the Lighthouse is also a symbol. This symbol is interpreted by different critic by different ways. It reflects the life of mankind. Building of The Lighthouse is showing something. As we see the building of Lighthouse is tall, huge and big stand alone on rock or island. It has light and darkness. During the night time it gives Light to ships and sea fares. The

It stands alone and tall in both light and darkness and it, along with its beacon, is a focal point which Symbolizes strength, guidance and safe harbor; it is Spiritual hermit guiding all those who are traveling by sea.

If we apply to character of the novel, each character has different meaning of the lighthouse.

If we see the lighthouse from the perspective of Mr. Ramsay, he sees the lighthouse as source of stability and comfort. It stands as strong feelings of ownership.

To Mrs. Ramsay, the predictability of the lighthouse is most important, implying that truth lies in the cycles that govern life.

For Lily Briscoe, the lighthouse becomes a sort of fixation during her final artistic vision – she is watching Mr. Ramsay’s boat reached at the lighthouse as she approaches the solution of how to finish her painting. As the lighthouse is difficult to understand just like that  Lily Briscoe finding problem to complete the picture of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay. Finally

 "the Lighthouse had become almost invisible, had melted away into a blue haze" (308)

And with this she is finally relieved, and her painting is finished. As the lighthouse disappear and Lily got some Idea to finish her picture. Thus, this suggest that the lighthouse is also inspirable to her and she got her vision.

For, James the lighthouse is also symbolized strongest feelings. At the beginning of the novel, it was ambition of James to go the lighthouse, at the end of the novel they reached at the lighthouse. Sees that:

 "The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye…." (276)

James arrives only to realize that it is not at all the mist-shrouded destination of his childhood. Instead, he is made to recon cite two competing and contradictory images of the tower-how it

appeared to him when he was a boy and how it appears to him when he is a man. He decided that both of these images contribute to the essence of the lighthouse.

And at the end of novel, Mr. Ramsay admires the effort of James. And their relation becomes stronger. Thus the lighthouse is symbol of goodness. The lighthouse surrounded by sea always describes and clarifies the human condition in some way. If we see from the perspective of general way that the lighthouse is symbols for something goodness.

The lighthouse is stand alone on a rock with the huge construction. At night it stands alone and the tip of lighthouse there is a ray of light. That light symbolized the ray of goodness, that light gives direction of sea voyages. So at this debate we can say that the lighthouse is symbolized and it gives glimpses of that it is source of snspiration.it is symbolized like truth triumph over darkness.

Let’s see that how different critic has explained this symbol in a different ways…

For example

Russel declares that the lighthouse is the feminine creative principle.

Jon Bennett calls the alternate light and shadows of the lighthouse the rhythm of joy and sorrow, understanding and misunderstanding.

F.L. Overcarsh, finds the novel as a whole an allegory of the old and New Testements:             Mrs. Ramsay is Eve, the Blessed virgin and Chirst; Mr. Ramsay is among other things God the Father; the lighthouse is Eden and Heaven.

The strokes of the lighthouse are the persons of the Trinity, the  third of them, long and steady representing the Holy Ghost.

The lighthouse as symbol has not one meaning, that it is a vital synthesis of time and eternity: an objective correlative for Mrs. Ramsay’s vision, after whose death it is her meaning.

It has been said to represent a religious symbol by some critics, a phallic symbol by some others. Metaphorically, as the element of Water represents the emotions, the Lighthouse is a Symbol for the Spiritual Strength and Emotional Guidance which is available to us during the times we feel we are being helplessly tossed around in a sea of inner turmoil. Mrs. Ramsay stands strong like the lighthouse amidst emotionally shattered beings; viz., Michael Ramsay, James, Lily, Carmichael, etc.

v Lily’s Painting

Lily’s painting is another and important symbol of this novel. Lily’s painting represents a struggle against gender convention, represented by Charles Tinsley’s statement that: “women can’t paint or write.” This symbol of picture is symbolizes the condition of woman during those days. It shows woman’s struggle of woman in the patriarchal society. She desire to express Mrs. Ramsay’s essence as an individual wife and mother in her painting. Lily’s vision depends on balanced and synthesis: how to bring together disparate thing in harmony; this mirror Woolf’s writing creed – “the novel is a both a critique and a tribute to the enduring power of Mrs. Ramsay.

This symbol is started in the starting of the novel and completed in the end of the novel when James and Mr. Ramsays reached at the lighthouse.  Perhaps the meaning of Lily’s Painting is unclear and the process of making that painting is difficult. The reflection of her Woolf’s character can be finding in Lily’s character. It is often suggested that Lily Briscoe is a semi-autobiographical character representing Woolf herself and her artistic process. The process of Lily’s painting throughout the novel can be seen as not only a symbol of the artistic dilemma faced by the modern artist, but especially o a female artist.

At the beginning of the novel, Lily is clearly self-conscious about her art - when looking at her painting, she sees only what could be different about it, constantly comparing it to how other painters would have depicted it, not wanting others to look at it

Lily’s Picture: Lily sees that Mrs. Ramsay’s gift of harmonizing human relationship into memorable moments is “almost like a work of art” and in the book art is the ultimate symbol for the enduring ‘reality’.

In life, as Mrs. Ramsay herself well knows relationships are doomed to imperfection, and are the spot of time and change; but in art the temporal and the eternal unity in an unchanging form- through, as in Lily’s picture, the form may be very inadequate. We cannot doubt that Lily’s struggles with the composition and texture of her painting are a counter part of Virginia

Woolf’s tussles and triumphs in her own medium, but she chooses poetry as the image that reminds mankind that the ever changing can yet become immortal. Lily is a Postimpressionist painter, descendant of a poor family, and has spent most of her life taking care of her father. In many ways, Lily is the chorus figure of the book—providing the histories of the characters and commenting on their actions. The beginning and completion of her painting form the frame of To the Lighthouse, and her final line, “I have had my vision,” is the final line of the novel, acting as Woolf's own comment on her book.

The painting also represents dedication to a feminine artistic vision, expressed through Lily’s anxiety over showing it to William Bankes. In deciding that completing the painting regardless of what happens to it is the most important thing, Lily makes the choice to establish her own artistic voice. In the end, she decides that her vision depends on balance.

Her desire is to express Mrs. Ramsay’s essence as a wife and mother in the painting. The painting also represents dedication to a feminine artistic vision, expressed through lily’s anxiety over showing it to William Bankes. Lily decides that her vision depends on balance and synthesis, How to bring disparate things together in harmony.

v Ramsay’s Summer House

Ramsay’s summer house is also one of the important symbols of the novel. This is a crucial symbol to understand. This is the place where all deed happens. Ramsay’s House is a place where Woolf and her characters explain their belief and observation. During her dinner party, Mrs. Ramsay’s sees her house display her own inner notions of shabbiness and her inability to preserve beauty. The house stands for the collective consciousness of those who stay in it. From the dinner party to the journey to The Lighthouse, Woolf shows the house from every angle.

The section of the novel that this symbol is especially important is in "Time Passes". Here the house takes over the plot development, all references to the main characters are brief and made parenthetically, literally. Ten years pass during this section, and with the Ramsay’s gone, the passage of time is conveyed through the house's gradual decay. There is huge use of personification in this section, with light, dark, wind, air, and other forces of nature portrayed almost as spirits taking over the house. These forces are given action verbs usually reserved for more human beings - "creeping", "toying", "musing", "nosing, "rubbing" – finally these airs "all together gave off an aimless gust of lamentation to which some door in the kitchen replied; swung wide; admitted nothing; and slammed to" (190-91).

During the dinner party, Mrs. Ramsay sees her house display her own inner notions of shabbiness and her inability to preserve the beauty.

     

The way nature is portrayed as an intruder, invading the house, causing its eventual decay, symbolizes the impermanence of man and his constructions - the question is explicitly posed in this section: "Did Nature [with a capital "N"] supplement what man advanced?" (201). The fact that the house is the primary image through which the effects of time are conveyed, even though time has profound effect on the Ramsay's - Mrs. Ramsay, Prue, and Andrew all die - represents the irrelevance of humanity on the grand scale of time and how nature alone ultimately persists, which is yet another common modernist theme.

There are several other images throughout the novel that serve as symbols for death, colonialisation, sex, but these three are the most predominate throughout the novel, so hopefully this explanation can help give a general overview of Woolf's use of symbolism and the ideas being portrayed through her symbols.

In the “Time Passes” section, the ravages of war and destruction and the passage of time are reflected in the condition of the house rather than in the emotional development or observable aging of the characters. The house stands in for the collective consciousness of those who stay in it. At times the characters long to escape it, while at other times it serves as refuge. From the dinner party to the journey to the lighthouse, Woolf shows the house from every angle, and its structure and contents mirror the interior of the characters that inhabit it.

v The Boar’s Skull

This is one of the important and mysterious symbols of the novel. It shows the reality and universal truth. It leads toward right way of life. That death is ultimate reality.  

            After the completing of dinner party, Children went upstairs for plating some games. Then Mrs. Ramsay went upstairs to find the children wide-awake, bothered by the boar’s skull that hangs on the nursery wall. The presence of that skull is something unpleasant and disturbing. This skull reminder us that death is always at hand. Even during life’s blissful moments. It explains that if we are so happy in any time, we should keep in mind that we have to die at some moment of life. We have to leave all things here. This symbol shows ultimate reality of this cruel life that we can die any time.

If we see in the play ‘Hamlet’ we can find that there is also a scene of Grave Digging Scene. We can see that there is also a symbol of ultimate reality of life that A great person were dead and their body convert into ashes. Thus we can say that Death is ultimate truth, no one can avoid it. Thus the symbol of boar’s skull is symbolized with death. Boar’s skull points out about the futility of life and death.

 v Rose’s arrangement of the grapes and pears (The Fruit Basket)

The arrangement of fruits in the basket by Rose, it symbolized some truth of life and death. Metaphorically it gives message. This is very important symbol of the novel. Rose arranges a fruit basket for her mother’s dinner party that serves to draw the partygoers out of their private suffering and unite them. Although Augustus Carmichael and Mrs. Ramsay appreciate the arrangement differently—he rips a bloom from it; she refuses to disturb it—the pair is brought harmoniously, if briefly, together. The basket testifies both to the “frozen” quality of beauty that Lily describes and to beauty’s seductive and soothing quality. The absence of fruit basket in 3^rd part signifies the transitory nature of beauty, art and truth.

v The Sea, the Storms, the rock, reefs and shallow water

•       The Sea

The symbol of Sea appears throughout the novel. The Sea shows the instability of time and life. The water of sea is symbolic one. The sound of waves of sea can be heard throughout the novel.  It symbolizes the eternal flux of time and life, in the midst of which we all exist; it constantly changes its character.

To Mrs. Ramsay at one moment it sounds soothing and consoling like a cradlesong,

at others, “like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beating a warning of death it brings terror. Sometimes its power “sweeping savagely in, “seems to reduce the individual to nothingness, at others it sends up ‘a fountain of bright water” – which seems to match the sudden springs of vitality in the human spirit.

Woolf describes the sea lovingly and beautifully, but her most evocative depictions of it point to its violence. As a force that brings destruction, has the power to decimate islands, and, as Mr. Ramsay reflects, “Eats away the ground we stand on,” the

sea is a powerful reminder of the impermanence and delicacy of human life and accomplishments.

Sometime Sea is beautiful but it may also be dangerous and also can become violent to destroy everything.

•       The Storm

The Storm is symbolized something horrible thing of life and death. As can see that in the storm there is a element of Air and Wind. It contains both the thing in it. Both are the constructive element of life. Air is representing the mind, and water is representing the emotion of life. The Storm symbolized agitated thoughts and emotions. Metaphorically, storms are our inner Demons which torment both our mind and subconscious.

·       The rock, Reefs and Shallow water

These symbols are showing certainty of life. The rock show the life is too hard to life. It gives suffer, as Mrs. Ramsays survived her life. The rocks, reefs and shallow water symbolized the final danger and miseries which seem to accompany the end of any turbulent voyage. Just as the saying. “its always seems always darkest before the dawn”, things always seem the most dangerous and hopeless as we reach the end of emotional turmoil. This is the point when we feel like tossing up our hands and giving up.

v The Window

The Window, a view to oneself: It is from the window that we have the little of the part-I of To the Lighthouse. It is not a transparent but a separating sheet of glass between reality and Mrs. Ramsay’s mind. Mrs. Ramsay experiences such moments of revelation and integration at watching the window.

Conclusion

At the near of our destiny you may be near to death or danger, because in Christianity it shows that there is a way to hell near the gate of haven. If u have done good deed throughout the life it may be possible that you may be in hell perhaps you may have done good deeds in your life, your life may be in misery or in good condition.

While finding symbols in the novel, it is still a subject of debates. Still critics are interpreting the symbols in different ways. Hopefully this brief overview of some of the major images throughout the novel can help give an idea of their basic symbolism while reading this novel. . To The Lighthouse is a masterpiece of construction through symbolism. It is an organic whole.