Modernity And Visual Construction In Woolf’s To The Lighthouse

The early decades of the 20 th century witnessed cultural changes in Britain,and modernity and its imprint on society were visually or pictorially presented in novels.Modernity reflected itself along with the social and historical background of human beings.And visual presentation conveyed cultural awareness when a person experienced the contradiction and crisis of self-identity in modern life.This thesis aims to explore some characteristics of modernity and its visual construction in Woolf’s To the Lighthouse from the perspective of cultural studies.Woolf visually reflects three levels of cultural consciousness.The first level is the self-criticism created by modern artists who observes the modern age by visual art;and the second level is invisible anxiety of the middle class who do not trust in any organization but trust in their visualized information.The third level is the cultural hegemony of the British Empire concealed in the Exhibition.This thesis is composed of three parts.The first part is to discuss the relationship between images and modernity based on Anthony Giddens’ s theory and W.J.T.Mitchell’s.Since Christianity no longer convinces people to worship God,the absence of God’s image deconstructs idol worship.The progress of science in turn accelerates the progress of recognition that people see the world with reason and logic.However,the development of visual art enables people to experience the fragmental images constantly.Virginia Woolf explicates her aesthetic vision by posing questions from the perspective of Lily Briscoe.Lily is eager to explore the uncertainty for the future by representing the symbolic images,even though she is confronted with a vagueness of modernity.The biographical approach will be adopted to reveal how Woolf visually unfolds the nature of modernity.The second part reflects the insecurity of the middle class when the society is visualized discontinuously.The first section reveals the insecurity of the middle class based on Anthony Giddens’ theory.It discusses the problem of trust and risk prevailing in society at that time.When modernity increases the speed of exchanging information,which has great impact on the subjectivity of an individual and triggered the anxiety because an individual has to decide whether to trust the society or himself.For the subjectively unpleasant feelings of dread over anticipated events abate the force of connection between an individual and a society.The second section is concerned with infectious tuberculosis and milk safety based on eugenics theory.The rampant disease and the social policies unquestionably reinforce the discontinuous feature of modernity,because the modern world is no longer visualized as stable,systematic and regular.Woolf indicates that discontinuity and rupture have remarkably increased the middle class’ s anxieties.The third part mainly explores how national identity is reconstructed by visualized modernization.The architecture is signified as a symbol of power.Domestic decoration,in some way,is identified as a disguised power in modern age.However,Lily Briscoe intends to find a balance between domestic space and the public space.She resists the intrusion of the patriarchal power in the domestic space.At the same time,she does not want to be labeled as a traditional woman who engages in chores.However,WWI bursts out and house turned out an image of emptiness,which makes a sense of fragmentation as part of modernity.After WWI,British World Exhibition provided an opportunity for Woolf to realize that the British Empire endeavored to construct a national confidence so it visualized its power to the public.The image of the British Empire is transmitted unconsciously.Therefore,whether in the domestic space or public space,images are intertwined with modernity in the process of visualization.Based on the analysis of the relationship between images and modernity,this thesis investigates that Woolf expresses her understanding on modernity through a visual construction.The absence of God results in the fact that modern people stop being subverted to the authority of a religion.In modern world,they prefer to trust themselves and reexamine the alienated,fragmental,discontinuous modernity.