Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse: Syntax and the Female Center

In the opening sentence of Viginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse,1 we find a rhetorical pattern of syntax which initiates a repeated structural motif. The pattern is not restricted to the organization of this sentence, but is found in other guises throughout the novel—e.g., in the three-part format both of the novel itself and of Lily Briscoe's painting. Moreover, the pattern has roots in Woolf's general way of perceiving and in several particular traumatic experiences, both of which she describes in her autobiographical writings. Although the pattern gives the novel its striking aesthetic cohesiveness, it is not simply ornamental. Rather, it carries a series of “statements” about male and female behavior and relationships. Thus, the formal pattern we will examine transforms personal experience, elaborates the overt concerns of the novel, and serves to resolve conflict. The pattern encodes two basic messages: the male intrudes and destroys, and the female intervenes and harmonizes. The following analysis will explore the various conflicts, anxieties and wishes which these “facts” give rise to. In sum, there is a formal aesthetic pattern in Woolf's novel which conveys psychological meaning; the meaning can be derived from the novel itself as well as from autobiographical writings; and finally, the activity of making the pattern is a primary means of resolving the conflicts which the pattern bespeaks.

Abstractly, the pattern concerns a Something in the Middle of Something Else. Schematically it looks thus: (A (B) A). At issue is the relationship of the middle to the frame, and sometimes of the two sides of the frame to each other. Given the many variations this thematic motif can