Virginia Woolf's sense of time

Abstract

In the twentieth century, thanks to new scientific, philosophical and psychological theories, the view modern literature had of the passing of time considerably changed. Virginia Woolf, being born in this literary environment, was impressed by the need writers had to create a new approach to the idea of time in their novels. She soon started to elaborate her own personal sense of time, which is extremely distant from the traditional chronological sequence. The aim of this thesis is to present the urge Virginia Woolf had to break with the previous literary tradition, based on a chronological pattern, and to introduce a new example of personal and subjective time in her novels. Woolf suggests that time is a personal process of the individual’s mind. According to her view, time exists only within the individual’s mind and constantly flows in uninterrupted successions. Her novels demonstrate Virginia Woolf’s desire to use new forms to convey the function of the human mind on the page and she often uses new experimental patterns, like the stream of consciousness technique. The study will analyse the content and the structural development of three of her major time-oriented novels: Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando and To the Lighthouse. It will be divided into five chapters, each examining a particular aspect of time. The first chapter will firstly be dedicated to some theoretical notions and to the influences on Woolf’s concept of time. Afterwards, it will focus on the three novels examining the use Woolf made of these theories by giving precise examples. In particular, it will consider the aspects of time of the mind in Orlando, the structure of a single-day novel in Mrs. Dalloway and the complexity of the tripartite structure of To the Lighthouse. The second chapter will be dedicated to the aspect of simultaneity. It will cover the problem of the uninterrupted succession of past, present and future and the simultaneous existence of the three times. It will analyse the use of parody in Orlando to dissolve time barriers and it will then focus on the protagonist’s personal and multiple identities. Furthermore, it will focus on the second section of To the Lighthouse, in which past, present and future are linked together. The last part of the chapter will be dedicated to memory. In fact, past, present and future coincide while a character is remembering something. The third chapter will address the problem of the negative nature of the clock. In fact, the clock appears to be often considered an antagonist. The analysis will illustrate the consequences Big Ben has in Mrs. Dalloway on the different characters, as it mostly appears as a reminder of reality. On the other hand, the clock also links the characters together, creating simultaneous activities happening at the same time. Moreover, the function of other clocks will be discussed, as they serve other purposes compared to Big Ben. The chapter will conclude by providing an investigation on the nature of the clock in Orlando, which is felt by the protagonist as a negative assault and it is used in the novel to mark turning points. Chapter four will be dedicated to the devices which can contrast linear time. Four systems allow the characters to escape the present: memory, literature, nature and love. The study will then focus on the emphatic moments of being, in which time is immobilized and on the second section of To the Lighthouse, where time is neutralized by the absence of human beings. The fifth and final chapter will investigate the theme of time in three other adaptations of Woolf’s novels. The first adaptation will be Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours, in which the aspect of chronology is disrupted. Then, Stephen Daldry’s film The Hours will be analysed as it returns to Woolf’s novel and creates another disruption of chronology. To conclude, a comparative study of Sally Potter’s film Orlando and Virginia Woolf’s novel will be proposed.