In Search Of The Lost Self

Virginia Woolf's novels of stream of consciousness are mostly tinted with a lyrical sense and are capable of being interpreted from different perspectives. Woolf s subtle and exquisite literary sensibility displayed in her unique style has received a wide recognition from among literary critics, while the very subtlety and exquisiteness prevent many readers from a profound understanding about her humanistic concerns. Almost every one of Woolf s novels manifests her philosophical speculation to some extent. A predominant theme that is found to be running through her literary experiments is the exploration of human consciousness and selfhood in the modern world. Her Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse are two typical examples of this exploration. In these two novels, Woolf applies various experimental narrative techniques and most particular about them is her treatment of time. By devising a specific temporal structure for each of the two texts, Woolf tries to convey a continuous theme in her writing career:a quest for an integrated selfhood in a society teeming with various kinds of tearing forces.Virginia Woolf is not alone in probing the theme about the lost self in the history of modern writing. An internalized philosophical interest characterizes the intellectual climate of her times. In his philosophical studies, Henri Bergson, one of the most influential philosophers of the late 19th and early 20th century, displays astonishing similarities to Woolf. And a comparison between the theme of Woolf s novels and that of Bergson's philosophical theories might help to deepen our understanding about some of the common concerns found to obtain between philosophers and literary writers. By applying some of Bergson's philosophical tenets in my close reading of Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, I attempt to study the relationship between the interior self and the exterior self, together with their conflicts, co-existence and the possibility of their integration.The two novels under discussion are both good examples of the combination of themes and narrative techniques as well as of contents and forms, but my interpretation of the themes will be primarily based on an analysis of their forms. The distinction Bergson makes between psychological time and physical time in his Time and Free Will provides me with a new perspective for analyzing Woolfs narrative skills, while his conclusion about the two modes of self—the profound self and the exterior self, will find its exemplification in my treatment of the themes of the two novels. Then I will gradually move on to a discussion of the temporal structures of the two novels, which I take to be formed mainly by a Bergsonian distinction between psychological time and physical time. And this has much to do with the theme of searching for the lost self, whose ways of presenting itself in the two novels are bewilderingly various. Even though it is hardly possible to maintain the pure interior self, an awareness of it has a strong spiritual significance in human life.