CORINNENOTES

“You can’t look into the soul as into a room”. Maurice Maeterlim.

Discuss any literary depictions of the self in the light of this quotation.

“What do we seek through millions of pages? Still hopefully turning the pages – oh, here is Jacob’s room”.[1]

For Virginia Woolf, as for Maurice Maeterlim, the self is not something which can be depicted via the external world. It does not manifest itself in possessions or surroundings and cannot be definitively expressed. It is fleeting and contradictory, incoherent and illusive, and any attempt by an author to produce a conclusive portrait is ultimately destined to failure. Through her novels Woolf attempts to address this problem, to dismantle the Victorian idea of self and to produce an impression of the soul that, while not conclusive, captures a fraction of the indefinable essence of life. She may take us into Jacob’s room but this does not mean that we are entitled to see Jacob.

When discussing Woolf’s portrayal of self it is important to consider the impact of Jacob’s Room. In many respects this fractured, if haunting, novel has more in common with Eliot’s The Waste Land and Joyce’s Ulysses than with Woolf’s later, more flowing and less jarring, novels. Indeed the passage describing “the hordes crossing Waterloo Bridge” is essentially a prose description of the living dead of the “Unreal City” passage of “The Burial of the Dead”. Equally Jacob is linked to Ulysses a number of times – in part, though not to the extent of Joyce, the novel is Jacob’s odyssey. However this is not to deny that in Jacob’s Room many of Woolf’s later concerns and preoccupations are present in embryonic form and, if anything, her view of the self, and its presentation is stated the most explicitly out of any of her novels. As with the lighthouse in To the Lighthouse Jacob’s room acts as the centre and focal point of the novel:

“Jacob’s room had a round table and two low chairs. There were yellow flags in a jar on the mantelpiece; a photograph of his mother; cards from societies with little raised crescents, coats of arms, and initials; notes and pipes; on the table lay paper ruled with a red margin – an essay, no doubt – ‘Does History consist of the Biographies of Great Men?’. There were books enough; very few French books; but then any one who’s worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, with extravagant enthusiasm”.[2]

In a further parallel with the lighthouse Woolf rejects the notion that Jacob’s room has any inherent symbolism. Unlike Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre where Thornfield symbolises Jane’s life, with the third floor containing her ‘double’, Jacob’s surroundings are given no such importance in the revelation of self. The table is simply a table and the chair simply a chair. The only thing regarding Jacob that we can infer from his room is, through the title of his essay and the later lack of any books written by women, with the exception of some Jane Austen which is kept purely in “deference… to someone else’s standard”, that he is in a male-centred world.[3] By seeing Jacob’s room we are not allowed to see Jacob, anymore than by seeing the lighthouse we see the inner thoughts of the Ramseys. Indeed in To the Lighthouse Woolf takes this idea further and shows, through the desires of the Ramsey’s to place their own symbolism on to the lighthouse, that any such attempt to assign meanings to inanimate objects is highly subjective and ultimately misleading – crucially when Mr Ramsey, Cam and James reach the lighthouse it does not resemble how they had imagined it. This rejection of symbolism links Woolf’s novels to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. In this novel Jay Gatsby, and indeed the eternally romantic and deeply flawed narrator Nick Caraway, comes to orient his life in relation to a green light at the end of a dock. For Gatsby the light symbolises his love for the married Daisy Buchanan. Crucially, however, the green light is not something which can be embraced – it can be pondered from afar but can never have Gatsby’s arms around it and, ultimately, it is simply a green light at the end of a dock and not some enchanted signal. If the characters cannot attach such symbolism then the reader should be equally wary in doing so, for, as Woolf emphatically states:

“Listless is the air in an empty room, just swelling the curtain; the flowers in the jar shift. One fibre in the wicker arm-chair creaks, though no one sits there”.

This idea becomes even more apparent at the end of Jacob’s Room. Jacob is dead and yet his room is still there, unchanged, with, as Bonamy notes, “everything just as it was”. A room is devoid of self, and, consequently, we should not expect to find it represented there.                   

If Woolf rejects the notion of depicting the self in relation to the surroundings of the characters in Jacob’s Room (and subsequently in her later novels) then she does not reject the attempt to evoke, at least in part, the self. For Woolf it is narratorial technique which reveals self. Again it is in Jacob’s Room where Woolf first attempts to merge the narratorial and characters voice in a modified version of free indirect discourse. In the opening chapter we experience the events as if we were Jacob – we feel the “cool…[and] light” crab, see the “enormous man and woman” and realise with him that the “large black woman” is not “Nanny”. Indeed this evocation of senses is typical of Woolf’s technique. In The Waves, the novel in which Woolf abandons the third person narrative to be replaced by a series of monologues from the six characters, the opening passages are filled by objects which the six children “see”, the sounds which they “hear” and the sensations which they “feel”. In this respect Woolf’s novels can be compared to the opening passages of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Here the character of Stephen is revealed through the senses – Stephen hears the song, evokes “warm” and “cold”, sees his father in the glass and experiences a “queer smell”. In Joyce’s novel however the censorship of the song which Stephen hears and the violence of Dante’s threat to Stephen indicate the suppression and restriction of the senses – and thereby the restrictions placed upon the self. The senses of those in Woolf’s novels do not have such restrictions placed immediately on them. In The Waves the imaginative, sensuous evocations of the world simply pour from the characters. This is not to say, however, that the characters are free from barriers in the realisation of self. After the words “see” and “hear” the most frequently used word in The Waves opening section is “alone”. If heightened senses can help to understand the world around the characters it also serves to separate them from one another, and in turn reminds the reader of their separation from the characters – we can never, however richly something is evoked, truly feel what they feel or see what they see.

The opening of Jacob’s Room is also important in that it introduces one of Woolf’s major concerns in representing the self – death. Jacob’s voice is described as being “mixed with life and death”, there is the “strong smell of camphor from the butterfly boxes” and, like James Ramsey, Jacob becomes attached to the skull of a dead sheep. For Woolf life, and therefore the soul, is inextricably linked with death, one cannot be considered without the other. In To the Lighthouse Mrs Ramsey, when alone, repeatedly thinks of death and while actual deaths are alluded to only in parentheses the after effects of these deaths, and Mr Ramsey’s empty arms, reverberate throughout the final section of the novel. In Mrs Dalloway there is Septimus’s suicide which acts as a catalyst for Clarissa to re-evaluate her self as well as the references to the dead of the First World War, which link back to Jacob’s Room, considering that Jacob is one of the dead who loom so large in this later novel[4]. The revelation of character in The Waves seems to pivot around the death of Percival, the silent and iconic figure at the heart of the characters narration, and it is only through the contemplation of his imminent death that Bernard finally accepts him self. Only in Orlando is death removed from the portrayal of self and this is due to the nature of this mock biography where the self can be revealed independent from constraints of gender and death. Woolf’s other characters are not as fortunate as Orlando and can only have their self revealed in relation to death and factors beyond their control. This portrayal of the self in relation to death is also an idea which pervades the work of Sylvia Plath. In “The Manor Garden”, Plath evokes “History”, “worms” and the “Incense of death” in relation to the life of her child. Later, in “Daddy”, only through the death of her father can the speaker define her self. Equally in The Bell Jar Joan has to die so that Esther may live. If the self cannot be represented in relation to a room then both Woolf and Plath attempt to represent it in relation to death.

Unlike Woolf’s later novels Jacob’s Room seems willing to accept that there may be no actual way to present the self to the reader. The novel echoes with the cry of “Jacob, Jacob, Jacob!” and this is precisely how the reader is left, calling out for Jacob but never actually seeing him. In Woolf’s later novels however she develops the techniques which I have previously discussed in relation to Jacob’s Room to provide a more substantial portrait of her characters. In relation to James Ramsey’s character in To the Lighthouse Woolf adopts a more innovative form of free indirect discourse. In the opening chapter of the novel Woolf attributes the opinion that Mrs Ramsey is “ten thousand times better” than Mr Ramsey to James, through the use of parentheses, even though it is part of the narration. What is more radical about the narration, however, is that the opinion that Mr Ramsey is “as sharp as a blade”, which is beyond the articulation of the six year old James, actually sums up the fear of his father which James feels. The narrator in To the Lighthouse, unlike the narrator in Jacob’s Room, therefore facilitates the expression of the feelings of the characters into a language which is beyond them. Through this method Woolf allows the reader to “see” James in a way that we never “see” Jacob.

At one point in To the Lighthouse Lily comments that to “see” Mrs Ramsey one would require fifty pairs of eyes, and it is this perspective which Woolf provides us with. We see Mr Ramsey as a “tyrant” and a “mother hen” and Mrs Ramsey as being “a source of…ever lasting attraction” as well as being “severe”. These multiple perspectives help to build the characters into a hybrid of contradictions and inconsistencies, which allow the reader access to their self. This presentation of self is also increased by Woolf’s use of fragments and flashbacks to the past of the characters. In Mrs Dalloway, which, like Joyce’s Ulysses, is set on a single day, the past is particularly important. Clarissa has a fascination, even obsession, with her past which is just as all consuming for her as the mentally unstable Septimus’s is for him. Clarissa has “borne about with her for years like an arrow sticking in her heart” the memory of her rejection of Peter and repeatedly reminisces about her youth at Bourton and her love for Sally. Peter even asks “why go back to the past like this?” and this could be asked of the majority of the characters in Woolf’s novels. In The Waves the structure of the novel means that the reader is as aware of the past as the characters are (in contrast, for example, with that of Mrs Ramsey where we can never be quite sure whether or not there really was some great sadness in her past) and this serves to heighten the repetition of and fixation with what has previously happened. Rhoda thinks of being alone in the school room, Jinny of Susan’s anger over her kiss with Louis and Bernard of the cold water running down his back from being washed as a child long after these concerns should have been replaced by more adult, immediate ones. Again this links with Fitzgerald’s Gatsby, who is also overly preoccupied with the past, and Caraway’s statement after Gatsby’s death that “we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” is just as appropriate for Woolf’s characters as it is for Fitzgerald’s. Equally the preoccupation with the past also suggests a failure – Mr Ramsey will never get past Q, Clarissa’s peak of happiness is behind her and Bernard sees “the complete human being which we have failed to be”. It is only through a mixture of multiple perspectives and the effects of the past, as well as the present, that the layers of character can be built up and represented, and it is something which Woolf is particularly successful at.

When considering Woolf’s depiction of the self it is worthwhile to examine The Waves independently from her other works. In this novel the third person narrator is dispensed with and it is the characters that are left to define themselves in a series of dramatic monologues. While each dramatic monologue contains “Louis said”,  “Rhoda said” etc. what they say is rarely said to an actual person, and probably rarely said aloud. For a novel which uses the word “said” so many times there is a notable lack of conversations, and it is difficult for the reader to recognise a conversation when one is actually taking place. This lack of communication, which is another common feature of Woolf’s novels, highlights the isolation of the characters. In the entirety of The Waves there are only two exceptions to this rule – and both are conversations which take place between Rhoda and Louis. As in To the Lighthouse Woolf uses parentheses, and here they highlight, and exclude, Rhoda and Louis from the rest of the group. They become unified and separated at the same time, two of the few people who actually talk. As with the frequent references to the past, the characters all appear destined to repeat phrases and images, and this is one of the major separating factors of the novel. Bernard is the self proclaimed story teller, who imagines himself as Byron and models his language accordingly. Susan’s language is filled with images of nature, as befits the only mother of the group. Louis repeatedly refers to his otherness through the phrase “My father is a banker in Brisbane and I speak with an Australian accent”. Jinny constantly views herself in mirrors. Rhoda’s speech is filled with the products of her highly active imagination (in contrast to Susan who complains at one point that the other characters can “fly” with language, while she remains unable to understand anything but “love and hate”) and Neville’s speech, while often poetic, is orderly and controlled. This repetition of language reveals and defines the characters, adding another layer to the self.

However if the techniques Woolf uses in The Waves emphasise the differences of the six characters they also serve to show how they are all ultimately connected. Central to this unification is Percival who is idolised by all of the characters, and loved by Neville. They all perceive Percival as a heroic character, though, ironically, he dies, not as part of some great quest, or even in war as Jacob does, but in falling off of his horse in India. Moreover it is Percival who leads Louis to contemplate the connections between the group:

“’It is Percival’ said Louis, “sitting silent as he sat among the tickling grasses when the breeze parted the clouds and they formed again, who makes us aware that these attempts to say “I am this, I am that”, which we make, coming together, like separated parts of one body, one soul are false. Something has been left out from fear…We have tried to accentuate differences. From the desire to be separate we have laid stress upon our faults, and what is particular to us. But there is a chain whirling round, round, in a steel-blue circle beneath’”[5].

Like the waves, the characteristics of each member of the group blend and flow into each other, together they become whole in a way that they never fully are as individuals. This collective self is also something which Eliot uses in The Waste Land. Here the one-eyed merchant is linked to Mr Eugenides, who is linked to Phlebas, who in turn is linked with the Fisher King and all meet in Tiresias (“the most important personage in the poem”), who also unites the women in the waste land. Again by using this collective self Woolf adds to the layers and the complexity of her portrayal of the individual.

It is not only in The Waves however that Woolf rejects D. H. Lawrence’s view that each character should be a “single, starry identity, each one distinct and immutable”. In Orlando this connection between different genders becomes emphatically obvious. After Orlando has changed into a woman the narrator comments “in every other respect, [she] remained precisely as she had been”. The character of Orlando also links closely to Eliot’s Tiresias as having lived as a man and a woman, as well as having lived throughout history. Indeed it is in this novel that Woolf most explicitly explores the idea that the past and present are inextricably linked, or, to use Eliot’s words, that “all time is eternally present”[6]. It is not just the fantasy of Orlando that embodies this duality though – it is also shown in Mrs Dalloway. As becomes clear at the end of this novel, just as Jane and Bertha in Jane Eyre and Esther and Joan in The Bell Jar are, Clarissa and Septimus are doubles, twin selves. This is not the only example of this blending of selves in the novel though, as it is in Mrs Dalloway where a society beyond the immediate confines of the main characters is most acutely felt. We encounter people in the street and children in the park. The characters of Mrs Dalloway are the most obviously part of a wider grouping of all of Woolf’s characters – the collision of Septimus’s and Clarissa’s stories shows this.

Woolf has one further method of linking apparently disparate characters and thereby revealing self –that of the echoing of imagery, motifs and events. The most obvious example of this is the journey motif. Just as in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Waugh’s A Handful of Dust and Forster’s A Room with a View the journey motif in Woolf is used to represent a discovery and revelation of self. Jacob travels to discover himself independently, away from his over powering mother. The journey to the lighthouse for the Ramsey family is even more central to their lives – even though only three of them actually make it there, ten years after it had originally been planned. They are joined, metaphorically, by Lily who makes the journey to accept the loss of Mrs Ramsey as well as the journey to the completion of her artistic endeavours – unlike Tony in A Handful of Dust who fails to find the city he searches for, Lily reaches her destination. Orlando of course leaves Britain and changes gender and Percival leaves to die in India. In this respect Woolf rejects the paralysis of Joyce’s Dubliners. In Joyce’s world the paralysis of self is central – no one can leave Dublin, or if they do leave they only manage to make it as far as London, which is portrayed as being as unhealthy and corrupt as in Waugh’s A Handful of Dust. When Eveline attempts to leave Dublin she entraps herself, and is forced to cling on to her half life. Woolf’s characters are at least allowed some respite from stagnation, and actually manage to travel and reveal their selves. The journey motif also links Mr Ramsey and James in that they both view life as being an “expedition”. Woolf also employs the more subtle method of the echoing of events to suggest links, for example the relationship between Clarissa and Richard Dalloway is echoed by that of the Ramseys. Richard intends to tell Clarissa that he loves her but he is unable to. In the final pages of “The Window” it is Mr Ramsey who questions why “[Mrs Ramsey] never could say what she felt”, in particular why she never tells him she loves him. This final layer of interpretation builds on the complex picture of self which Woolf manages to create in her novels.

Of course I started this essay with a room and it is fitting that we should return there. We can open the door, step inside and sit in a chair. A number of books line the shelves in the room – fairy tales for James, the Waverly novels for Mr Ramsey, Byron’s poems for Bernard, Shakespeare’s sonnets for Mrs Ramsey and of course, in deference to someone else’s opinion, some Austen . In front of us, Lily’s picture is hanging on the wall with Jacob’s photographs of the Greeks next to it. A pile of crumpled clothing, both male and female, and from a variety of centuries lays on the floor in the corner of the room. Through the slightly open door we can hear the refracted noise of one of Clarissa’s parties. To the left of our chair is a window from which we can see the waves lapping against the shore, and, if we look hard enough, out in the distance, is the lighthouse, illuminating with its powerful strokes the fast encroaching dusk. But, when the lighthouse shines on us, we realise that this is just a room, for quietly and softly Bernard’s words echo:

“I am not one and simple, but complex and many”.