论《到灯塔去》的全知视角

论《到灯塔去》的全知视角
作者：陈健
来源：《价值工程》2010年第22期
摘要: 伍尔夫在小说艺术表现形式方面有着独特的创造性与开拓性,她在摒弃19世纪现实主义小说常规的同时,又借鉴了传统小说的某些创作手法,最终形成了自己特有的现代主义小说创作风格。

作为现代派小说家,伍尔夫在小说中虽极大地降低全知全能型叙述者的叙述比例,但传统小说中常常使用的全知视角依然出现在《到灯塔去》这部现代主义经典之作中。

Abstract: Virginia Woolf is an innovator who attempts to free the novel from the traditional forms prescribed by 19th century writers. She investigates the artistic techniques of traditional fictions and absorbs them with her own innovation. Although she has given a new form and a new spiritual awareness to the modern novel, artistic techniques of traditional fictions are also employed in her works. The omniscient point of view in To the Lighthouse will be discussed in detail in this paper.
关键词: 全知视角;叙述者;《到灯塔去》
Key words: omniscient point of view;narrator;To the Lighthouse
中图分类号:I206 文献标识码:A文章编号:1006-4311(2010)22-0226-02
1Introduction
Anyone who studies the fiction will encounter such terms as point of view and narrator. One can’t analyze the narr ative techniques of a novel without these terms. Simply speaking, point of view is the position from which the story is told. The term was used as early as July 1866 in criticism, but “it was not until Henry James wrote the prefaces for the New York editio n of his novels (1907-9) that it came into its own as a technical term”. [1].
In order to achieve subjectivity, Woolf adopted limited point of view for rendering characters’ interior life. In To the Lighthouse, “almost everything stated appears by way of reflection in the consciousness of the dramatis personae.” [2](P534) In this way, the focal character tells the story in the third person, and he (she) stays inside the confines of what is perceived, felt and thought by himself (herself). “Reality” is presented to the reader through the particular perceptions of the focal character. Meanwhile, Woolf frequently shifted the limited point of view held by different characters throughout the novel. Through the minds of constantly changing focal characters, the reader gains access to the reality and to the persons experiencing that reality. However, To the Lighthouse is not narrated by the characters alone; omniscient point of view is still employed in this novel.
2Omniscient Point of View in Traditional Novels
In the traditional novels (the novel of Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, etc.), the authors usually adopt the omniscient point of view. This point of view is completely unlimited and the story can be seen from any or all angles. Thus, the narrator is standing beyond the world of story and knows all. He sometimes accompanies the reader as commentator and inserts authorial comments. Within this mode, the narrator can not only report but also comment on the actions as well as motives of the characters. In some traditional novels, for instance, in Fielding’s Tom Jones, the intrusive narrator goes so far that he even interpolates commentary which consists of several paragraphs on the subject matter or characters of the novel.
Although the omniscient point of view confers great flexibility on the novelist to achieve varied effects, it has its faults and limitations. The intrusive commentary often breaks the fluidity of the whole wor k. Sometimes the narrator’s moral preachment makes the novel dull. Furthermore, the method of revealing characters’ inner life in the traditional novels keeps the reader away from the world of story. In most traditional novels, the omniscient narrator only makes general observations of the characters’ inner life.
The omniscient narrator merely interprets and analyzes the character’s consciousness instead of “showing” it to the reader. The narrator “stands at the borders of feeling as he describes Do bbin with ironic and knowing distance.” [3] Therefore, the reader is only acquainted with the character’s feelings indirectly, and he can not obtain access to the continual activity of the characters’ minds.
As a representative of modernism, Woolf attempted to free the novel from the conventional forms prescribed by the traditional novelists. In To the Lighthouse, she developed the technique of point of view. Woolf minimized the authoritative external narrator and employed the limited point of view. She gave the reader insight into the inner world of her characters by presenting their feelings, thoughts, memories, etc. Meanwhile, Woolf constantly shifted the viewpoints of different characters.
3Omniscient Point of View in To the Lighthouse
3.1 ProportionIn to the Lighthouse, Woolf’s ability to depict characters’ interior life has led many critics to assert that the omniscient point of view and narrator’s comments have been refined out of existence. For example, Shahnaz Hashmi states th at “ To [to] see life with the eyes of those who live it was the first desire that drove Virginia Woolf to discard narration and comment altogether…”[4](P112) Likewise, in his penetrating examination of To the Lighthouse, Mitchell Leaska implies that Woolf has discarded single, unifying narrative voice. Although he “recognizes the existence of an omniscient narrator, he sees her as fulfilling a function similar to that performed by each character.” [5]
In To the Lighthouse, the single point of view of the traditional narrator is replaced by the multiple viewpoints of different characters, but omniscient point of view is never obliterated. In the fifth section of Part I:
Knitting her reddish-brown hairy stocking, with her head outlined absurdly by the gilt frame, the green shawl with she had tossed over the edge of the frame, and the authenticated masterpiece by
Michael Angelo, Mrs. Ramsay smoothed out what had been harsh in her manner a moment before, raised his head, and kiss her little boy on the forehead.[6]
Who is looking at Mrs. Ramsay? There is no one in the room but Mrs. Ramsay and her little son. It can’t be Mrs. Ramsay herself. Since her son James is sitting on the floor busily cutting pictures, it can’t be James, either. Obvio usly, this passage is described by the omniscient narrator, and she is looking at Mrs. Ramsay. The reader can meet more like this throughout the novel.
The role of the omniscient narrator becomes predominant in the second part, Time Passes. In this part, emphasis is put on “generalized, philosophical concerns, such as the meaning of life, death, and the transience of human experience.”[5](P642)Some passages in this part consist of the narrator’s comments, and some also summarize actions. Although the narrator is most obviously present as commentator here, her comments are only covert.
However, Woolf greatly reduced the omniscient point of view in To the Lighthouse. Mitchell Leaska reveals it in a statistical study: in the first part, the omniscient point of view accounts for 17%; and in the third part, it accounts for 10%. Although the omniscient point of view is predominant in the second part, this part only covers less than one tenth of the whole novel.
3.2 Function Although Woolf makes her omniscient narrator available and present to the reader
in this modernist novel, the function of her narrator is different from that of the traditional narrator. The “submission of the narrator’s ego”[7] is one of the typical features of To the Lighthouse. Woolf’s narrator is no longer “God” who controls, orders and unifies the various material and interprets it for the reader. She comes down from the role of “God” and becomes a guide.
Disappearing as stealthily as stags from the dinner-table directly the meal was over, the eight sons and daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay sought their bedrooms, their fastness in a house where there was no other privacy to debate anything, everything; Tansley's tie; the passing of the Reform Bill; sea birds and butterflies; people…
Strife, divisions, difference of opinion, prejudices twisted into the very fibre of being, oh that they should begin so early, Mrs. Ramsay deplored (6)
The first paragraph describes Mrs. Ramsay’s children, whi le the second one describes Mrs. Ramsay’s feelings and thoughts. Since there is no transitional sentence between these two paragraphs, the reader may feel confused. However, “Mrs. Ramsay deplored” is narrated through the narrator’s perspective, and it implies the transition between different consciousnesses.
Sometimes Woolf’s technique is so unobtrusive that the reader reads the novel almost without noticing the narrator’s guide. It is difficult for the reader to tell where the voice of narrator lea ves off and where the voices of the characters begin. The following paragraph is about Mrs. Ramsay and Charles Tansley when they walk to town in the first section of Part I:
It flattered him; snubbed as he had been, it soothed him that Mrs. Ramsay should tell him this. Charles Tansley revived. Insinuating, too, as she did the greatness of man's intellect, even in its decay, the subjection of all wives--not that she blamed the girl, and the marriage had been happy enough, she believed--to their husband's labours, she made him feel better pleased with himself than he had done yet, and he would have liked, had they taken a cab, for example, to have paid the fare. As for her little bag, might he not carry that? No, no, she said, she always carried that herself. She did too. Yes, he felt that in her. He felt many things, something in particular that excited him and disturbed him for reasons which he could not give. He would like her to see him, gowned and hooded, walking in a procession.
A fellowship, a professorship, ——he felt capable of anything (6)
In the above quotation, Woolf depicted every variation in Tansley’s emotion. At first, he was
self-abased. Later, a bit of flattery restored him, and sent him off into a daydream. The first few sentences seem an objective statement about Tansley: “It flattered him; snubbed as he had been, it soothed him that Mrs. Ramsay should tell him this.” These lines are narrated by the narrator, because “It [it] seems unlikely that he [Tansley] would be c apable of such self-detachment.” [7] However, the narrator seems to imitate the rhythm of Tansley’s thoughts so that the narrator’s brief guide is glued to the consciousness of the character.
Other lines in this paragraph seem “ambiguous”: “Yes, he felt that in her. He felt many things, something in particular that excited him and disturbed him for reasons which he could not give.” The first sentence is probably Tansley’s consciousness, but what about the second? The reader can’t be completely sure whether it is the narrator’s comment or it is character’s feeling. It is the typical characteristic of Woolf’s rendition of narrator’s role.
4Conclusion
Demonstrating more interest in mental and sentient experience, Woolf employed experimental techniques to depict subjective and internal reality. In To the Lighthouse, Woolf created new styles and methods to accommodate the tendency towards subjectivity, and away from what might be called objective realism. Her flexible and impressionistic style is highlighted through individualized and experimental narrative techniques.
Woolf’s narrator in To the Lighthouse is no longer “God” who controls, orders and unifies the various material and interprets it for the reader. She comes down from th e role of “God” and becomes a guide. The techniques employed help Woolf to achieve subjectivity, the core of her literary theory.
References:
[1]Erwin R. Steinberg. ed. The Stream-of-consciousness Technique in the Modern Novel [M]. New York: Kennikat Press Corp., 1979.
[2]Erich Auerbach. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature [M]. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953:534.
[3]Patricia O. Laurence. The Reading of Slience: Virginia Woolf in the English Tradition [M]. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991:29.
[4]Hashmi, Shahnaz. “Indirect Style in To the Lighthouse” in Indian Journal of English Studies [J].Vol. 2 (1961), 109-113,112.
[5]Eleanor McNees. ed. Virginia Woolf Critical Assessments Vol.III [M]. Mountfield: Helm Information Ltd., 1994:639.
[6]Virginia Woolf. To the Lighthouse[M].London: The Hogarth Press,1927:51,18-19.
[7]James Naremore. The World Without a Self: Virginia Woolf and the Novel [M]. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973:27,120.。