An Ethical Interpretation Of Virginia Woolf's Stream Of Consciousness Novels

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) occupies a significant place in the twentieth century literary history, so her works and she herself have attracted great attention of scholars both in China and other countries. Because of great numbers of studies on her, it is difficult for people to make research from a new angle. In recent years, a few people make a general analysis on her masterpieces, Mrs. Dalloway and To The Lighthouse from the perspective of ethics, so it still leaves much room for further study on Virginia Woolf by making use of the theory of Ethical Literary Criticism.This thesis attempts to apply Ethical Literary Criticism to analyze by rereading the texts in detail in order to explore the ethical thinking embodied in Woolf's major novels. Although Woolf is usually taken as a typically modernist stream-of-consciousness novelist, far away from social and political reality, there is actually abundant ethical thinking which is worthy of examining and evaluating in her works.The thesis is composed of six chapters. The first chapter is a brief introduction of the whole thesis, including a general understanding of Woolf's lives and literary works, the development of Woolf studies both in China and other countries, and the feasibility and significance of this study. The second chapter is the theoretical perspective of the thesis. The highlight of the whole research is the combination of ethics and literature, so the development of Ethical Literary Criticism will be carefully analyzed. The third chapter traces the factors contributing to Woolf's ethical thinking to explore the origin of her ethical awareness. The fourth chapter and fifth chapter are the most important parts of the thesis. Woolf's ethical thinking in her four major stream-of-consciousness novels: Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and The Waves here is discussed by specifying the notion according to its reflection through the contents and through her artistic techniques. She is unique in the literary history because she not only has peculiar perspective and innovative spirit to represent human life in a new way, but also brings forth her special attitude toward man-nature relationship, man-society relationship, man-other relationship and man-self relationship. Throughout her life, Woolf pursues a kind of inner harmonious state, which is the final value and moral aim for people in her eyes. She believes women are born to reach this inner harmonious state and the ultimate promise of life. The last chapter is the conclusion which proves that it is possible and feasible to apply the theory to analyze Woolf's major novels. By the use of the theory of Ethical Literary Criticism, people could understand Woolf and her works much more deeply, exploring those ethical connotations usually ignored by former critics and scholars. Therefore, it hopes to supplement the variety of the studies on Woolf and to provide a model by the use of the theory to analyze other writers'literary works.