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Memory in To The Lighthouse

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174 views1 page

Memory in To The Lighthouse

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2020020mpbp
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Bloom's Literature

memory in To the Lighthouse


To the Lighthouse originated in Virginia Woolf's own process of recollecting her childhood and family, and this is
mirrored in the novel by the predominance of the theme of memory. Furthermore, memory is portrayed in terms that
connect this work to A Sketch of the Past (1937), an autobiographical text in which Woolf not only narrates meaningful
moments of her childhood but also explains how she believes the process of memory works.

The very first scene of To the Lighthouse testifies to both the centrality of the theme of memory in the novel and the
peculiar terms in which Woolf conceives of memory. James, one of the Ramsays' children, hears his mother talking about
the boat trip to the lighthouse planned for the following day, and the anticipation of this event intensifies his perception of
the present moment. The child is cutting out pictures from a catalogue, and this simple activity is transfigured by James's
enthusiasm for the upcoming trip, so that even the smallest details of what he is doing are destined to remain impressed in
his mind. James is, in fact, described as belonging to that group of sensitive people to whom "any turn in the wheel of
sensation has the power to crystallize and transfix the moment upon which its gloom and radiance rests." In this sense,
memory is defined in To the Lighthouse not as a rational act of recalling but, rather, as a process involving sensations. In
Woolf's conception, the moments that hold a particular significance, defined by the writer in a posthumously published
collection of essays as "moments of being," stay in memory, since in them the subject has experienced more intense
feelings and revelations. In time, these moments are able to come back to the subject's mind, not under the form of distant
memories but as experienced again in the present.

The third part of To the Lighthouse particularly focuses on the process of memory, which allows the subject to feel the
past as present again. The 10-year gap of time from the day narrated in section 1 makes the characters feel distant and
separated from their previous life. In particular, Lily Briscoe experiences, at the beginning of section 3, a sense of
emptiness that prevents her from remembering the fullness of life previously felt in the same place. Nevertheless, she
starts working again on the painting that she had conceived there 10 years earlier, and this obliges her to face the process
of remembering. The painting is, in fact, based on the impressions left in her memory by the landscape she intends to
portray: "There was something … something she remembered in the relations of those lines … which had stayed in her
mind; which had tied a knot in her mind." Furthermore, in her painting, Lily wants to convey the lost atmosphere of the
days spent in the house and the figure of her close friend Mrs. Ramsay, who has now died. In this sense, the artistic
process and the process of memory overlap in the character of Lily, since her proceeding with the artistic act coincides
with the reemergence of her memories, and these are incorporated into the painting. When Lily traces the first lines on the
canvas, she also experiences a state of trance, which gives impulse to her inspiration and makes her feel positioned again
in the past and close to her lost friend: "At the same time, she seemed to be sitting beside Mrs. Ramsay on the beach."

In the last pages of the novel, while Lily is accomplishing her artwork, Mr. Ramsay and his sons finally take that boat trip
to the lighthouse, which was only planned and never done in section 1 of the novel. This gives To the Lighthouse a
circular narrative structure, since the opening scene involving James and his joy for the planned trip is here recalled: The
character remembers the feelings of that day and confirms that they are still present in his memory. James experiences a
double perception of the lighthouse. On one hand, he perceives its real image in the present; on the other hand, this
overlaps with the image kept in his memory, showing how in Woolf the process of remembering is portrayed as taking
place in the overlapping of the past and present.

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