This is a quasi-autobiographical stream-of-consciousness novel in which the author devoted his efforts. The novel takes going to the lighthouse as the central clue throughout the book, and describes the life experiences of the Ramsey family and several guests before and after the First World War. Mr Ramsey's youngest son James wants to go to the lighthouse, but he can't because of the bad weather. After the war broke out, the Ramsey family went through many vicissitudes. After the war, Mr Ramsey took a pair of children to the sea by boat and finally reached the lighthouse. Lily Brisco, sitting on the shore painting, just arrived at the lighthouse when the Ramsey family arrived. In an instant, she fell into the center of the frame and finally drew an illusion that had troubled her for many years, thus surpassing herself and becoming a real artist. There are no ups and downs in the book, and the content is divided into three parts, namely: window; Time goes by; Lighthouse. Mrs Ramsey, the most important figure, died later, and her practical activities were limited to the first half of the novel. A series of descriptions about her are based on the author's own mother, while Mr. Ramsey has the shadow of the author's father. Besides, Lily Brisco is the most famous writer. On the surface, Lily doesn't have many languages, and her main behavior is painting for Mrs. Ramsey, but her characters' ideological activities are quite active. The author created this character according to himself, and "arranged potential double clues and compound levels for the novel structure". ..... Lily is not only in this novel world, but also outside this world; The Ramsey family's experience is a first-class story, and Lily's' art-life' is mainly a second-class story, which is another novel wrapped outside the novel. "

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In Virginia Woolf's masterpiece To the Lighthouse, the author reveals the difficulties and puzzles experienced by female artists in realizing their ideals in a patriarchal society and the true meaning of feminism through Lily Brisco's mental journey from being abandoned to being recognized and then being surpassed. It is pointed out that only cultivating bisexual thinking is the real way out for women's liberation. This is a quasi-autobiographical stream-of-consciousness novel in which the author devoted his efforts. The novel takes going to the lighthouse as the central clue throughout the book, and describes the life experiences of the Ramsey family and several guests before and after the First World War. Mr Ramsey's youngest son James wants to go to the lighthouse, but he can't because of the bad weather. After the war broke out, the Ramsey family went through many vicissitudes. After the war, Mr Ramsey took a pair of children to the sea by boat and finally reached the lighthouse. Lily Brisco, sitting on the shore painting, just arrived at the lighthouse when the Ramsey family arrived. In an instant, she fell into the center of the frame and finally drew an illusion that had troubled her for many years, thus surpassing herself and becoming a real artist. There are no ups and downs in the book, and the content is divided into three parts, namely: window; Time goes by; Lighthouse. Mrs Ramsey, the most important figure, died later, and her practical activities were limited to the first half of the novel. A series of descriptions about her are based on the author's own mother, while Mr. Ramsey has the shadow of the author's father. Besides, Lily Brisco is the most famous writer. On the surface, Lily doesn't have many languages, and her main behavior is painting for Mrs. Ramsey, but her characters' ideological activities are quite active. The author created this character according to himself, and "arranged potential double clues and compound levels for the novel structure". ..... Lily is not only in this novel world, but also outside this world; The Ramsey family's experience is a first-level story, and Lily's' art-life' is mainly a second-level story, which is another novel wrapped outside the novel. At the end of the first part of the novel, Mrs Ramsey's inner monologue-she died in the second part-may be even more important ... Bob blackstone said in Virginia Woolf: A Review: "Reading any ordinary novel after reading The Lighthouse will make you feel that you have left the day and devoted yourself to this world of puppets and cardboard." This represents a point of view about lighthouses. Readers who have read this book may have other or even completely opposite views. It may be that there are too few plot elements and the characters are not clear. Criticism of Woolf has always been directed at her characters; Character is usually expressed by plot, so it involves plot; Besides, she was accused of being too narrow-minded. Whether the above two opinions are noncommittal or not, it must be pointed out that Woolf does not intend to provide what critics or readers want at all, but what she provides is something else. Blackstone therefore denies that other works are not necessarily desirable, but To the Lighthouse is really no ordinary novel. Then you can't look at it with the eyes of ordinary novels. This sentence is simple, but it is not easy to implement. We want to

I want to have a relationship with a writer like Woolf, but that's all I can do. As she said, "don't give orders to your writer, try to get along with him." You should be his partner and assistant in creative activities. " (How to read a work) Every creative method is an independent value system; Different reading methods are suitable for different creative methods. Draw the ground as a prison, just don't look. For the above criticism, Woolf himself has already answered. For example, when it comes to characters, she said, "I want to find out what we mean by' characters' in our novels." (Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown) Eight years before the completion of To the Lighthouse, that is, when she was about to turn to stream-of-consciousness novels, what she said was very clear: "Let's examine the inner activities of an ordinary person on an ordinary day. The mind accepts thousands of impressions-trivial, strange, fleeting or carved with a sharp steel knife. They come from all directions, as if countless atoms are constantly showering; When these atoms fall, they constitute life on Monday or Tuesday, with different emphasis. The important moment is not here, but there. Therefore, if a writer is a free man instead of a slave, if he can do whatever he wants instead of sticking to the rules, if he can base his works on personal feelings instead of following the tradition, then there will be no established plot, comedy, tragedy, joy or disaster of love, and perhaps there will be no way of nailing buttons that tailors in Pound Street are used to. " (On Modern Fiction) This is obviously different from previous writers' understanding of characters such as Wells, Bennett and John Galsworthy, and also different from the understanding of readers who are still limited by traditional reading habits. The problem is not the name, but the content is completely different. And if you have such a good grasp of the characters, the plot will be arranged separately. Furthermore, the focus is neither the same direction nor the breadth of vision. Woolf said that this is the difference between "idealist" and "materialist"; In short, it looks "inside" and "outside". Whether the writer writes or we read, this is the premise; So you have to rap, or you won't get in the door. Compared with Woolf's early works, To the Lighthouse is full of the above characteristics. The content of the writing is as described in the "Modern Fiction" quoted earlier. The characters are Mrs. Ramsey and others, and the plot is "going to the lighthouse", that's all. There is only one question left, that is, how to write it like this. Compared with Woolf, the problem of writing hardly exists for Bennett and others before, so just follow the rules; But now she must solve this problem. Otherwise, all pursuits, especially the pursuit of characters, will go up in smoke. This is exactly what she is concerned about: "I believe that all novels should deal with characters and show their personalities-the reason why the form of novels has developed to such a stage of being so cumbersome, cumbersome, lacking in drama, so rich, flexible and full of vitality is precisely to show characters, not to preach, eulogize or celebrate the British Empire." (Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown) Just have different emphases. There are different views about the characters here, that is, the question of whether the characters are true or false; Woolf's repeated arguments also revolve around this point. However, when I read To the Lighthouse, I thought that if "the existence of characters" was used instead of "the truth of characters", I'm afraid it wouldn't be a problem. What doesn't exist is untrue; It doesn't matter how you write it. Lindel Gordon wrote in "Adeline Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life Course": "The passage of time dehumanizes the seasonal cycle and erases the lovely characters Mrs. Ramsey, Pru and Andrew in shocking random brackets. This is the creator's own perspective. " At this time, I feel very empty and lonely. Looking back-that is, returning to the human perspective-I really feel that everyone once existed; Their feelings, thoughts, words and manners are all proof. That is to say, as far as Mrs Ramsey is concerned, she exists so concretely that she can live and die freely. Other characters such as Mr Ramsey, Lily Brisco and James also exist. Then move on to the last one.

In other words, what exists is real; It doesn't matter how you write it.

Seems to echo the author's point of view In To the Lighthouse, Mrs Ramsey thinks: "Our image, that is, what you know about us, is superficial and ridiculous. Beneath these images is darkness, boundless and unfathomable; We only surface occasionally, and that's how you know us. " What is involved here is the aforementioned "internal" and "external" issues. However, Woolf's novels did not completely give up "outside", but wrote "inside" with the help of the connection with "outside"; That is, at the junction of real environment and inner activities, choose a perspective that can fully show the inner world of the characters. As auerbach said, "In the hands of Adeline Virginia Woolf, external events have actually lost their command position. They are used to publish and explain internal events. " ("Imitation-Reality Depicted in Western Literature") So the plot should be simplified as much as possible, because complexity is not beneficial, but hindering, but this is only one aspect; On the other hand, in general, we still need an event framework.

As far as the Ministry is concerned, all the psychological activities of the characters are placed within this framework, and the triggering and connection of those details have produced countless "important moments" as she emphasized, during which sewing is quite dense. нпп Michalska is right: "The structure of her works always gives people a sense of rationalism, which makes people feel that there is some kind of careful and painstaking thinking. This painstaking thinking makes her novels different from those of many chaotic and pretentious modernist writers. " (The development track of English novels in the 1920s and 1930s)

Generally speaking, "internal" or "internal events" can still ignore the key points of Woolf's stream of consciousness novels: the word "stream of consciousness" is used here, but what she writes is not pure stream of consciousness; As Dos Fuer said: "She is determined to let all kinds of impressions, personal analysis, feelings about the outside world and so on dominate her works;" She is determined to use the skills of observing angle, feeling and memory. "(Adeline Virginia Woolf) People exist as the main body of conscious activities and are also observed and analyzed; The writer does not fully agree with a certain character's point of view, and his point of view as an observer is still looming, and this observer's point of view is consistent with the external description of the character. This enables the writer to grasp the characters from both internal and external aspects at the same time, and freely enter and leave the inner world of the characters. If the psychological activities of the characters can be roughly divided into relatively introverted or independent consciousness and relatively external or casual feelings, Woolf will always tolerate and do his best to let them promote each other step by step according to his own standards, so as to achieve the purpose of "expressing the characters". It is worth mentioning that she has extraordinary experience and the ability to express her immediate feelings; In the final analysis, the relationship between "inside" and "outside" is based on the feelings of characters. The above is aimed at someone; To the Lighthouse is characterized by transcendence. Michalska Ya said that the writer "tried to integrate the' stream of consciousness' of several protagonists into the same riverbed and reproduce the complex picture of several people's consciousness carrying out intense activities at the same time"; As far as stream-of-consciousness novels are concerned, it is for entering the country on the first floor. It depends on what May Friedman pointed out: "The emotions and retrospection that dominate at the beginning and end are expressed in the context of real changes, not just based on the changes of memories as in Mrs. Dalloway." (Stream of Consciousness: A Study of Literary Methods) If the psychological activities of all the characters in Mrs. Dalloway point to the general direction of the past, then Mrs. Ramsey and others here are much more free, and their hearts are spreading in all directions. The psychological activities of the characters are more immediate and fragmented. Their convergence is first-class, and they are all completed in a series of carefully selected details in an "important moment"-the real environment, which not only triggered the emotional and conscious activities of different roles, but also contributed to the mutual connection and transformation. The "inside" of different characters and different levels of "inside", "inside" and "outside" are perfectly integrated in the writer's works; Only in this sense can I agree with what Amy Foster said in Adeline Virginia Woolf: Woolf is essentially a poet. Woolf's poetic features are probably reflected in the symbolic meaning of her works. Scholars have different opinions on this, especially the significance of The Lighthouse has been revealed. However, Woolf said, "writing to the lighthouse doesn't mean anything to me." A novel must have a main line running through the book to make it a whole. I think all kinds of emotions will arise from this, but I don't want to think about it carefully. I believe people will use it as a warehouse for self-expression-they have already done so. Some people think it's one thing, others think it's another. I can't control symbolism unless I use this vague and general method. As for whether it is right or wrong, I don't know, but in my opinion, it is a very annoying practice to tell me directly what this means. " (To roger fry on May 27th 1927) As mentioned above, the real environment plays a role in the psychological activities of the characters. As one of the components of this environment, the lighthouse has the same meaning as other components, but it plays a greater role because it runs through it. In fact, any environmental elements in To the Lighthouse are carefully selected. Woolf's first consideration may be novel writing. She has known and understood other aspects for a long time, just as she said in articles such as On Modern Novels. As for the problem of symbols, it is still outside the specific writing, whether there is or not; In other words, it is novels that lead to symbols, not symbols that lead to novels. Speaking of moral, at the end of the first novel, Mrs Ramsey's inner monologues-she died in the second novel-may be even more important: they will still exist, and no matter how long they exist, she will continue to think that she will return to this night, to this bright moon, to this sea breeze, to this house-to her side. The thought that no matter how long they exist, she will be firmly remembered and haunted in their hearts, which makes her feel complacent and she is easily tempted by such flattery; She will be cared for by them, and this, this and this, she thought, while climbing the stairs, smiling gently at the sofa (left by mom), rocking chair (left by dad) and the map of hebrides on the landing. All these will revive Mr. and Mrs. Lehrer in the lives of Paul and Mingta "-she tried to read this new name; When she put her hand on the door of the nursery, she felt the emotional communication between people, as if the gap between people was as thin as cicada's wings. In fact (this is a feeling of comfort and happiness), everything has merged into a running water. Those chairs, tables and maps are hers and theirs. Whose is no longer important? Even if she dies, Paul and Mingta will live on. This reminds people of Mrs. Dalloway. When Dancla Lisa heard the news of septimus's death, she retired to her cell alone to reflect: "She was glad that he left, he abandoned his life, and they continued to live. "The two seem to have something in common. It is also where you will go, and a certain spirit can continue. Its main purpose is to cherish life itself, cherish the existence state of life and cherish the creative activities of life. Before writing To the Lighthouse, Woolf emphasized that "everything I usually write in books-life and death." (May Diary 1925,14); Can we think that the relationship between the last surviving people in To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Ramsey corresponds to the relationship between Clarissa and septimus in Mrs. Dalloway, but it is more substantial and far-reaching?