On The Stream Of Consciuousness In To The Lighthouse By Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf is the most outstanding woman writer of stream of consciousness inEngland in20th century. She has made valuable contribution to western literature in herspecial way of writing. On the basis of present researches, the paper tries to study the writingtechnique of stream-of-consciousness in To the Lighthouse.Woolf challenges traditionall novels both in forms and techniques. She moves plots intothe characters’ inner hearts, and transfers consistent thoughts into stream-of-consciousness informs; and she abandons traditional third-person narrative, in which the speaker is referred toas omniscient narrator. However, Woolf sketches several subjective worlds in the objectiveworld through overlapping of several characters’ point of views, and developes experimentalsubjectivity in novel writing. To the Lighthouse is considered as the best work in experimentalwriting. Thus, the paper analyzes this novel as the text, to approach Woolf’s writingpersonality, and to focus on her understaning of life and death.The paper is divided into five parts, which includes introduction, three chapters of mainbody and conclusion. The introduction summarizes status of oversea and domestic researcheson Woolf, points out the reasons why I choose To the Lighthouse to do research, and putforward the argument of the paper. Chapter one introduces the development process of streamof consciousness, and also Woolf’s life influences on her stream-of-consciousness writing,compared to Joyce’s stream of consciousness theory, to show Woolf’s own peculiar writingtechnique. Chapter two focuses on the writing style in To the Lighthouse, and seeks to howWoolf creates and controls the well known steam of consciousness novel. And the chapterthree points out Woolf’s unique writing style, deals with Woolf’s experimental subjectivityproblems, such as: identity and self, life and death. The conclusion summarizes the paper andputs forward the significance of the research.