Virginia Woolf ( )
Features of her writings one of the most gifted and innovative of the stream of consciousness novelists, attempting to explore the consciousness of her characters by accumulating many details.
Features of her writings While limiting her story to a short span of time, this accumulation of details created a strong feeling of intensity. “Let’s record the atoms as they fall upon the wind in the order in which they fall” (Woolf, 见陈嘉第 4 册 451 页 ).
To the Lighthouse (1927) time of the action is short, allowing space for much detail. Mr. Ramsay’s truth: truth of facts; Mrs. Ramsay’s truth: truth that lies below the facts
To the Lighthouse At the beginning, a family is on holiday in an island off Scotland in Sep The youngest son, James Ramsay, wants very much to go by boat to the lighthouse but is prevented by his father, and the novel ends with the same family in the same house, but this time he hates his father for making him go to the lighthouse.
Mrs. Dalloway Mrs. Dalloway Stream of consciousness She showed a thorough grasp of Joyce’s devices, imitating some of them but working for high condensation and glimpses of moments of experience rather than attempting the illusion of a total picture.
Mrs. Dalloway Stream of consciousness She tried to capture the “shower of atoms” and the discontinuity of experience, and picture [sic] men and women as enclosed in their “envelop” of consciousness from birth to death.
Mrs. Dalloway Stream of consciousness 1.a web of thoughts of different characters 2.from one mind to another; 3.Big Ben(real time)in contrast to psychological time.
She uses her own poetic medium vs. Joyce’s letting characters to express themselves in their own idiom.