The Beauty Of Oneness In To The Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is one of the most important English novelists, critics andessayists of the20thcentury. Her novels are unstrained and exquisite in style. To theLighthouse is considered as her most representative novel fully exhibiting her writingtechniques and life attitude. Literary critics have approached it from various theoreticalperspectives, such as modernism, stream-of-consciousness technique, feminism,psychoanalysis, etc. However, to appreciate and explore Woolf’s unique writing style,“oneness of nature and man”, a concept in Chinese classical aesthetics, can serve as an angle.“Oneness of nature and man” is an important concept in Chinese classical aesthetics. Itunites binary aspects into a harmonious integration. The thesis attempts to interpret the form,contents and rich aesthetic thoughts of the novel To the Lighthouse in light of three variants of“oneness of nature and man”. There are six parts in the thesis: Introduction, four main bodychapters and Conclusion.Introduction involves a background information of the author Virginia Woolf and thenovel To the Lighthouse, including her lives, accomplishments and writing technique; next,the literature review of the novel; then, the significance of the thesis. That is, from the viewpoints of “substantial” and “insubstantial”,“social ethics” and “personal feeling”, and “themeof life”, which are three variants of “oneness of nature and man” in Chinese classicalaesthetics, the thesis analyzes the novel’s writing form and plot, and then exposes theconnotation of the novel.Chapter One is the theoretical foundation of the paper. It expounds “oneness of natureand man” and its variants.“Oneness of nature and man” has its specific aesthetic standard.“Nature” and “man” can refer to any binary objects, while “oneness” mean the two objects harmoniously in one. Then,“substantial” and “insubstantial”,“social ethics” and “personalfeeling”, and “reflection” and “action” of theme of life are three variants that embody andextend the concept “oneness of nature and man”. Particularly,“substantial” and“insubstantial” can be analyzed as artistic feature or writing techniques.“Substantial” refers topeople’s direct experience arisen from the works, and “insubstantial” resorts to people’saesthetic imagination.“Social ethics and personal feeling” can explain two emotional attitudesin social ideology. That is, emotions for the outside world and for the inner self world, which fuseeach other rather than contrast. Moreover,“theme of life” is the questioning and subliming of lifedilemma, revealing man’s struggle and reflection when facing the dilemma.Chapter Two provides an analysis of Woolf’s writing technique from the perspective of“substantial and insubstantial”, in which research on space and time is emphasized. The firstsection introduces the “substantial” physical space and the “insubstantial” psychologicalspace of the characters. The transition and complement of the two generates an organic wholefor the story development. The second section expounds the “substantial” physical time and“insubstantial” psychological time. The combination of physical time and psychological time,and the marriage between memory and actuality wind through the whole story. Thisaccomplishes the marriage between the substantial and the insubstantial in narrative structureof the novel.Chapter Three focuses on characters’ emotion in term of “social ethics” and “personalfeeling”. On one hand, man needs “social ethics” to provide guidance for social behaviors. Onthe other hand,“personal feeling” helps one to establish his personality. Mrs. Ramsay is busydealing with the human relations with few self-feeling. Lily Briscoe emphasizes on herpersonal feeling too much to lose her social being. Either emotion extreme cannot fulfill aperson. If people would like to live a complete life, they must unite and balance these twoemotions. After ten years’ vicissitudes, Lily finally unites social ethics and personal feeling, and realizes the harmonious happiness.Chapter Four analyzes the topic idea of the novel in light of “theme of life”. As a painter,the paintings mirror Lily’s inner world. The dilemma of life brings her into rethinking andreflection. During these ten years, a series of life accidents have taken place: marriage ofMinta Doyle and Paul Rayley turning from passionate to ordinary, the death of Mrs. Ramsay,Prue Ramsay and Andrew Ramsay… All of these make Lily feel the fickleness of life andunderstand the importance to treasure everything around her. After merely reflecting on lifepassively, she finds the courage to face life dilemmas positively. The unity of reflection andaction enables Lily to realize the meaning of life. Then, she applies her understanding of thetheme of life into her action and painting.Being reviewed the whole paper, Conclusion points out that the research is to analyze thenovel’s narrative structure, characters and theme in light of three variants of “oneness ofnature and man”.“Oneness of nature and man” can appreciate the beauty of Woolf’s specialwriting style, which may not be explored or explained reasonably through other theoreticalperspectives. Analyzing narration by substantial and insubstantial, observing characters’minds by the balance of emotional extremes, and looking at life vicissitudes with two sides oflife attitudes, all of these provide an access to appreciate the beauty of stream ofconsciousness. Besides, artists have the same idea to seek for unity in spite of their differentcultural backgrounds. Moreover, Chinese classical culture releases special vigor once againwhen it gives insights into beauty as well as social phenomenon.