Tec Empresarial

P-ISSN: 1659-2395; E-ISSN: 1659-3359

AN EXPLORATION OF SYMBOLISM IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S TO THE

LIGHTHOUSE.

Montu Borah
Research Scholar (PhD), Department Of Assamese, Dibrugarh University

Sanaton Hazarika
Research Scholar (PhD), Department Of Assamese, Dibrugarh University

Abstract:
The use of symbols in a literary work is referred to as symbolism, which is a literary device.
Symbols are things that stand for or imply something else; they represent ideas or concepts that go
beyond their literal meaning. Being a Modernist writer, Virginia Woolf used many symbols in her
works. In To the Lighthouse we may find many symbols but it is quite difficult to know their
meanings.
To the Lighthouse is not a conventional story; it is written from several points of view,
gracefully navigating between times and characters. Instead, it reads characters' minds and relates
their many experiences as they happen through an intricate symbolic web. In this paper, the
symbols that are employed in the novel and their significance will be interpreted. The major
symbols that Woolf used in her novel are - the lighthouse, Lily’s painting, Ramsay’s summer
house, the boar’s skull, Rosei’s arrangement of the grapes and pears, the sea, the storms, the rock,
reefs, and shallow water, the window etc. Besides these, there are some minor symbols which are
also important.
Keywords: Symbols, significance, modernism, Interpretations.

Introduction:
Virginia Woolf was one of the most symbolic writers of her age. To the Lighthouse is Woolf’s one
of the most experimental works. She wrote about this novel – “I suppose that I did this work for
myself.” The story of the novel is about Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay and their visit to the Isle of Skye in
Scotland. The story takes place over a period of ten years which deals with the year - 1910 to 1920.
The first section of the novel takes place on a day before World War I. In the middle part, all the
action happens “off-stage” during the war. And the last section takes place on a day after the First
World War.
In the novel, one can find many symbols. Symbolization is present everywhere in Virginia
Woolf’s works. She gets a great pleasure in discovering the hidden meanings behind the
appearance of things. She believes that there are always some real meanings behind the outer
appearances and she calls this discovery a "shock".

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The novel was published in 1927. It is a significant piece of high modernism. Virginia
Woolf spoke in terms of psychoanalysis in To the Lighthouse. While reading the book, we may
come across a stream of consciousness also.
Symbolism is basically an artistic method of revealing ideas or truths through the use of
symbols. It is a method which draws our idea in a particular way with the use of some images or
symbols. In the symbol, the relation between the signifying item and what it signifies is not
definite, but can be various. A word, item, event, character, or concept that encapsulates and
invokes a variety of additional meaning and significance is known as a symbol in literature.

Objectives of the Study:

The objectives of the study are_
Firstly, to highlight the symbols and their thematic implications in the novel.
Secondly, to analyze the use of symbolism by Virginia Woolf.

Data and Methodology:

This study is based on primary and secondary sources. The primary source is the text entitled To
the Lighthouse. The secondary source include journals, articles and reviews. Objects, symbols and
their thematic roles are analyzed in details to show their significance in determining the meaning
in the novel.

Symbol as a Psychoanalytic Process:

From a psychoanalytic perspective, the term ‘symbol’ refers to all indirect and figurative
manifestations of unconscious desires like symptoms, nightmares, slips of the tongue etc. This
conception of the unconscious symbol depends on a relation of general substitution where
one thing takes the place of another; but unlike the term's conventional meaning, defined by the
conjunction between the symbol and what is symbolized the unconscious symbol is defined by a
disjunction between symbol and symbolized.
Sigmund Freud clarified this conception of the symbol following the "Project for
a Scientific Psychology" (1950c [1895]), describing it as a mnemic symbol subsequent to his
research into hysterical symptoms. In the case of a "standard" symbol, the connection between the
symbol and what is symbolized remains. In this synecdoche of part for whole the conjunction of
meaning is clear. With hysteria however, it is the loss of the connection between the symbol and
what is symbolized that is noteworthy.
Use of Symbols:
Being a modernist writer, Virginia Woolf used many symbols in her work. With a normal
interpretation, we cannot find an image for the use of particular symbols, but we have to see it
from various perspectives to understand the use of those symbols. The novel To the Lighthouse is
full of symbols; the symbols which are used in the novel can be interpreted in different ways or
perspectives. The symbols in the novel are used properly, one or another way it reflects the idea

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of the writer. In the novel there are many symbols. They all are giving glimpses of another idea.
However, all symbols are woven with each other.
One of the most important and meaningful symbols of the novel is the Lighthouse itself.
There are numerous interpretations of the lighthouse. Different critics offer different meanings.
Jean Guiguet believes that "the Lighthouse presents the symbol, at the peak of its development, as
lodestar and distant guide, intermittent and yet enduring, identical with Being". According to
David Daiches, "The Lighthouse… standing lonely in the midst of the sea, is a symbol of the
individual who is at once a unique being and a part of the flux of history". However, there are
critics like Graham Hough who believe that "what it means depends on who is looking at it: it has
no single limited meaning, hence its power as a symbol.”
Light itself is the symbolism of the lighthouse. Light is the positive aspect of imaginative
consciousness in "The Window," the negative aspect of deceased awareness in "Time Passes," and
the reanimation of consciousness in "The Lighthouse" as it searches for the spiritual and aesthetic
one. The Lighthouse is built as a towering, massive stand-alone on a rock or island. It is both light
and dark. It provides light to ships and sea passengers at night. It is a focal point that represents
power, direction, and a safe harbor. It is a spiritual hermit that leads all mariners which stands
strong and alone in both light and gloom. If we apply it to the characters of the novel, each character
has a different meaning of the lighthouse.
If we see the lighthouse from the perspective of Mr. Ramsay, he sees the lighthouse as a
source of stability and comfort. It stands as strong feelings of ownership. To Mrs. Ramsay, the
predictability of the lighthouse is most important, implying that truth lies in the cycles that govern
life. For Lily Briscoe, the lighthouse becomes a sort of fixation during her final artistic vision –
she is watching Mr. Ramsay’s boat reach the lighthouse as she approaches the solution of how to
finish her painting. As the lighthouse is difficult to understand, just like that Lily Briscoe is finding
problems in completing the picture of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay. Finally "The Lighthouse had become
almost invisible, had melted away into a blue haze" (103). And with this, she is finally relieved,
and her painting is finished. As the lighthouse disappeared, Lily got some ideas to finish her
picture. Thus, this suggests that the lighthouse is also an inspiration to her and she got her vision.
For James, the lighthouse also symbolized the strongest feelings. At the beginning of the novel, it
was the ambition of James to go to the lighthouse. At the end of the novel, they reach the lighthouse
and see that: "The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye that
opened suddenly and softly in the evening." (92). James arrives only to realize that it is not at all
the mist-shrouded destination of his childhood. Instead, he is made to reconcile two competing
and contradictory images of the tower-how it appeared to him when he was a boy and how it
appears to him when he is a man. He decided that both of these images contribute to the essence
of the lighthouse.
And at the end of the novel, Mr. Ramsay admires the effort of James. And their relationship
becomes stronger. Thus the lighthouse is a symbol of goodness. The lighthouse surrounded by the
sea always describes and clarifies the human condition in some way. If we see from the perspective
of the general way that the lighthouse is a symbol of something good. The lighthouse stands alone

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on a rock with huge construction. At night it stands alone and at the tip of the lighthouse there is a
ray of light. That light symbolized the ray of goodness, that light gives the direction to sea voyages.
So at this debate, we can say that the lighthouse is symbolized and it gives glimpses of that it is
the source of inspiration. It is symbolized like truth triumphing over darkness. Moreover, it has
been said to represent a religious symbol by some critics, a phallic symbol by some others.
Metaphorically, as the element of Water represents the emotions, the Lighthouse is a Symbol of
Spiritual Strength and Emotional Guidance which is available to us during the times we feel we
are being helplessly tossed around in a sea of inner turmoil. Mrs. Ramsay stands strong like the
lighthouse amidst emotionally shattered beings; viz., Michael Ramsay, James, Lily, Carmichael,
etc.
Lily’s painting is another important symbol of this novel. Lily’s painting represents a
struggle against gender convention, represented by Charles Tinsley’s statement that: “women can’t
paint or write.” This symbol of the picture symbolizes the condition of women during those days.
It shows woman’s struggle in a patriarchal society. She desires to express Mrs. Ramsay’s essence
as an individual wife and mother in her painting. Lily’s vision depends on balance and synthesis:
how to bring together disparate things in harmony. The symbol is started at the starting of the novel
and completed at the end of the novel when James and Mr. Ramsay reached the lighthouse. Perhaps
the meaning of Lily’s Painting is unclear and the process of making that painting is difficult. The
reflection of Woolf’s character can be found in Lily’s character. It is often suggested that Lily
Briscoe is a semi-autobiographical character representing Woolf herself and her artistic process.
The process of Lily’s painting throughout the novel can be seen as a symbol of the artistic dilemma
faced by the modern artist, especially a female artist.
In life, as Mrs. Ramsay herself well knows relationships are doomed to imperfection and
are the spot of time and change; but in art the temporal and the eternal unity in an unchanging
form- through, as in Lily’s picture, the form may be very inadequate. We cannot doubt that Lily’s
struggles with the composition and texture of her painting are a counterpart of Virginia Woolf’s
tussles and triumphs in her own medium, but she chooses poetry as the image that reminds
mankind that the ever-changing can yet become immortal. Lily is a post-impressionist painter, a
descendant of a poor family, and has spent most of her life taking care of her father. In many ways,
Lily is the chorus figure of the book—providing the histories of the characters and commenting
on their actions. The beginning and completion of her painting form the frame of To the
Lighthouse, and her final line, “I have had my vision,” is the final line of the novel, acting as
Woolf's own comment on her book. The painting also represents dedication to a feminine artistic
vision, expressed through Lily’s anxiety over showing it to William Bankes. In deciding that
completing the painting regardless of what happens to it is the most important thing, Lily makes
the choice to establish her own artistic voice. In the end, she decides that her vision depends on
balance.
Ramsay’s summer house is also one of the important symbols of the novel. This is a crucial
symbol to understand. This is the place where all deeds happen. Ramsay’s House is a place where
Woolf and her characters explain their belief and observation. During her dinner party, Mrs.

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Ramsay sees her house display her own inner notions of shabbiness and her inability to preserve
beauty. The house stands for the collective consciousness of those who stay in it. From the dinner
party to the journey to the Lighthouse, Woolf shows the house from various angles. The section
of the novel that this symbol is especially important is in "Time Passes". Here the house takes over
the plot development, all references to the main characters are brief and made parenthetically,
literally. Ten years pass during this section, and with Ramsay gone, the passage of time is conveyed
through the house's gradual decay. There is a huge use of personification in this section, with light,
dark, wind, air, and other forces of nature portrayed almost as spirits taking over the house. These
forces are given action verbs usually reserved for more human beings - "creeping", "toying",
"musing", "nosing, "rubbing" – finally these airs "all together gave off an aimless gust of
lamentation to which some door in the kitchen replied; swung wide; admitted nothing, and
slammed to" (190-91).
During the dinner party, Mrs. Ramsay sees her house display her own inner notions of
shabbiness and her inability to preserve beauty. The way nature is portrayed as an intruder,
invading the house, causing its eventual decay, symbolizes the impermanence of man and his
constructions - the question is explicitly posed in this section: "Did Nature [with a capital "N"]
supplement what man advanced?" (201). The fact that the house is the primary image through
which the effects of time are conveyed, even though time has a profound effect on the Ramsay's -
Mrs. Ramsay, Prue, and Andrew all die - represents the irrelevance of humanity on the grand scale
of time and how nature alone ultimately persists, which is yet another common modernist theme.
The house stands in for the collective consciousness of those who stay in it. At times the
characters long to escape it, while at other times it serves as a refugee. Furthermore, its structure
and contents mirror the interior of the characters that inhabit it.
The Boar’s Skull is one of the important and mysterious symbols of the novel. It shows the
reality and universal truth. It leads toward the right way of life that death is the ultimate reality.
After the completion of the dinner party, children went upstairs to play some games. Then Mrs.
Ramsay went upstairs to find the children wide-awake, bothered by the boar’s skull that hangs on
the nursery wall. The presence of that skull is something unpleasant and disturbing. This skull
reminds us that death is always at hand, even during the blissful moments of life. It explains that
if we are so happy at any time, we should keep in mind that we have to die at some moment in life.
We have to leave all things here. This symbol shows the ultimate reality of this cruel life.
If we see in the play ‘Hamlet’ we can find that there is also a scene of Grave Digging. We
can see that there is also a symbol of the ultimate reality of life that a great person was dead and
their body was converted into ashes. Thus we can say that death is the ultimate truth, no one can
avoid it. Thus, the symbol of the boar’s skull is symbolized with death. Boar’s skull points out the
futility of life and death.
Rose’s arrangement of the grapes and pears (the fruit basket) is another example of
symbolism. The arrangement of fruits in the basket by Rose, symbolized some truth of life and
death. Metaphorically it gives the message. This is a very important symbol of the novel. Rose
arranges a fruit basket for her mother’s dinner party that serves to draw the partygoers out of their

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private suffering and unite them. Although Augustus Carmichael and Mrs. Ramsay appreciate the
arrangement differently—he rips a bloom from it; she refuses to disturb it—the pair are brought
harmoniously, if briefly, together. The basket testifies both to the “frozen” quality of beauty that
Lily describes and to beauty’s seductive and soothing quality. The absence of a fruit basket in the
third part signifies the transitory nature of beauty, art and truth.
The symbol of the sea appears throughout the novel. The sea shows the instability of time
and life. The water of the sea is a symbolic one. The sound of waves of the sea can be heard
throughout the novel. It symbolizes the eternal flux of time and life, in the midst of which we all
exist; it constantly changes its character. To Mrs. Ramsay at one moment it sounds soothing and
consoling like a cradlesong, at others, “like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beating a warning
of death it brings terror. Sometimes its power “sweeping savagely in, “seems to reduce the
individual to nothingness, at others, it sends up a fountain of bright water” – which seems to match
the sudden springs of vitality in the human spirit. Woolf describes the sea lovingly and beautifully,
but her most evocative depictions of it point to its violence. As a force that brings destruction, has
the power to decimate islands, and, as Mr. Ramsay reflects, “Eats away the ground we stand on,”
the sea is a powerful reminder of the impermanence and delicacy of human life and
accomplishments. Sometimes Sea is beautiful but it may also be dangerous and also can become
violent to destroy everything.
The storm symbolized something horrible about life and death. In the storm, there is an
element of air and wind. It contains both the things in it. Both are the constructive elements of life.
Air is representing the mind, and water is representing the emotion of life. The storm symbolized
agitated thoughts and emotions. Metaphorically, storms are our inner demons that torment both
our mind and subconscious.
The rock, reefs, and shallow water: these symbols are showing certainty of life. The rock
shows that life is too hard to live. It gives suffering, as Mrs. Ramsay survived her life. The rocks,
reefs, and shallow water symbolized the final danger and miseries which seem to accompany the
end of any turbulent voyage. Just as the saying goes “it always seems always darkest before the
dawn”, things always seem the most dangerous and hopeless as we reach the end of emotional
turmoil. This is the point when we feel like tossing up our hands and giving up.
The Window, a view to oneself: it is from the window that we have a little of the part-I of
To the Lighthouse. It is not transparent but a separating sheet of glass between reality and Mrs.
Ramsay’s mind. Mrs. Ramsay experiences such moments of revelation and integration at watching
the window.

Conclusion:
To conclude, while finding symbols in the novel, it is still a subject of debate. Still, critics are
interpreting the symbols in different ways. Hopefully, this brief overview of some of the major
images throughout the novel can help in giving an idea of their basic symbolism while reading this
novel. To the Lighthouse is a masterpiece of construction through symbolism. It is an organic
whole.

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Works Cited:
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse, Global Grey Ebooks, 2021, [Link]/to-
[Link]
Stewart, Jack F. “Light in To the Lighthouse.” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 23, no. 3, 1977,
pp. 377–89. JSTOR, [Link] Accessed 25 Nov. 2022.
Mosonyi, Dora. Symbolism is Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.
Research Journal of Language, Literature and Humanities, Objects, Symbols, and Their Thematic
Roles in Virginia Woolf’s to the Lighthouse, Vol. 2(9), 1-4, September (2015)

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