On the Ambiguity in Virginia Woolf's Novel To the Lighthouse from the Perspective of Dual Narrative Procession
Journal: Arts Studies and Criticism DOI: 10.32629/asc.v5i5.2981
Abstract
The characteristic of ambiguity in the novels of the modernist, Virginia Woolf has always been a focus of attention, and the ambiguity in her works has achieved Woolf's aesthetic art and political concerns. This paper finds that the overt plot of Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse contains contradiction between anti-patriarchy and nostalgia for the Victorian era, while the incompatibility of the text hides the covert progression of modern nostalgia. The reasons for the emergence of the ambiguity of dual narrative dynamics are related to the writer's rich creative intentions, Woolf’s reader concepts, and free indirect discourse and other ambiguous elements. At the same time, this paper points out that dual narrative progression is an important part of the ambiguity in Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse. It depends and promotes with other ambiguous elements. Therefore, re-examining the ambiguity in To the Lighthouse from the perspective of dual narrative progression can not only reveal the literary value of Woolf's works more deeply but also help to explore the poetics of ambiguity in modernist novels.
Keywords
dual narrative progression, ambiguity, nostalgia of modernity, To the Lighthouse
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[3]Auerbach Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Garden City: Doubleday, 1957.
[4]Boym Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
[5]Cuddy-Keane Melba. Virginia Woolf, the Intellectual, and the Public Sphere. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
[6]Ellis Steve. Virginia Woolf and the Victorians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
[7]Pease Allison. ed. The Cambridge Companion to to the Lighthouse. New York：Cambridge University Press, 2015.
[8]Penner Erin. Character and Mourning: Woolf, Faulkner, and the Novel Elegy of the First World War. New York: University of Virginia Press, 2019.
[9]Quigley Megan. Modernist Fiction and Vagueness: Philosophy, Form, and Language. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
[10]William Empson. Seven Types of Ambiguity. London: Chatto and Windus, 1963.
[11]Woolf Virginia. Moments of Being. San Diego: Harcourt, 1985.
[12]Woolf Virginia. The Captain's Death Bed and Other Essays. New York: Harcourt, 1950.
[13]Woolf Virginia. The Common Reader. New York: Harcourt, 1984.
[14]Woolf Virginia. The Death of the Moth and Other Essays. San Diego: Harcourt, 1974.
[15]Woolf Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf Volume Three. New York: Harcourt, 1977.
[16]Woolf Virginia. The Letter of Virginia Woolf Volume 3. New York: Harcourt, 1975.
[17]Woolf Virginia. The Second Common Reader. New York: Harcourt, 1960.
[18]Woolf Virginia. To the Lighthouse. San Diego: Harcourt, 1989.
[19]Shen Dan. A Study of Dual Narrative Progression. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2021.
[20]Shen Dan. “New Explorations in Narratology: International Dialogues on the Theory of Dual Narrative Processes”. Foreign Literature, 2022(1): 82-113.
[21]Zhou Xian. Cultural Modernity and Aesthetic Issues. Beijing: China Renmin University Press, 2005.
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