War and Modernism: How Fussell’s theories are explored in Woolf’s To The Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse is a three-part novel centered on a family and their series of visits to their summer estate on the Isle of Skye between 1910 and 1920. Woolf published the novel in 1927, less than a year after the end of the First World War. To The Lighthouse represents a collection of newly explored subjects and themes in response to the dramatic socio-political post-war reformations. In her 1921 essay, Modern Fiction, Woolf argues that the purpose of Modernism is to detach itself from the “symmetrical arrangement” of life. The purpose of the Modernist novelist lies in their depiction of “the beginning of consciousness to the end [whatever] complexity or aberration it may display.” Modernism, however, has its source. A reactionary movement, it functioned as a response to the radical changes of society. Theorists fervently attempt to localize this source, and delve into various fields in their search. Paul Fussell, the literary historian, published The Great War and Modern Memory in 1975. Fussell’s central argument contends that the shared trauma of the First World War wove and burrowed itself into the foundations of Modernist literature, the suffering firmly rooted in the framework of texts. For Fussell, the prolonged exposure to war caused a cultural shift that saw literaries break away from – exactly as Woolf put it – the “symmetrical arrangement” of life. Through an analysis of Woolf’s distortion of reality, exploration of consciousness as well as her satirization of both the unspeakable and the ordinary, this analysis will reveal the links between Fussell’s theories and To The Lighthouse. 

Fussell claims that the disintegration of space and temporality as well as the conscious misrepresentation of reality were explored by literaries as a consequence of the war’s incomprehensible suffering. Woolf’s novel embodies Fussell’s arguments through its motifs, language, and themes. The transitory section of the novel, Time Passes, begins shortly before the outbreak of war, and, in another one of Woolf’s temporal disjunctions, rapidly traverses a ten-year period. As the characters spend their final evening at the Ramsay’s, the opening scene vividly elucidates a progressive descent into darkness. It is a darkness that transcends its physical barriers, corrupting both the material and immaterial. Mr. Bankes claims that the group “must wait for the future to show,” only for Andrew to reply with “it’s (...) too dark to see.” The unanswered questions of “show what?,” and “see what?,” suggest that the characters are not addressing the anticipated revelation of some material object that, in the descent of nightfall, remained unrevealed, but rather their futures. The darkness that Woolf elucidates transcends its boundaries of definition. It acts as an extended metaphor for a war that has not yet arrived, but will inevitably transform the characters’ realities. And so, as time passes, the “downpouring of immense darkness began,” where “nothing could survive the flood (...) of darkness,”  as it “crep[t],” “stole,” “came,” and “swallowed.” Fussell firmly believed that the language of Modernism “detache[d] itself from normal (...) chronology,” and became “all encompassing, all-pervading, both internal and external at once,” resulting in the disintegration of reality. Woolf’s simultaneous comparison of “the darkness” with water (“downpouring,” “the flood”) and its personification does exactly as Fussell describes. The language distorts and it detaches. It presents life in fragments of images, accentuating the pervasive nature of “the darkness” as it “crep[t]” and “swallowed.” As a result, the euphemistic utilisation of “the darkness” transcends its basic associations to light and color. Much like the war, “the darkness” becomes interminable, and progresses into its eternally cyclical state: “night”, which “succeeds to night.” Altogether, Woolf employs “the darkness” a prefiguration for the damage and destruction the Great War will eventually cause. The language misrepresents reality and creates ambiguity. This supports Fussell’s argument as the origin of Woolf’s choices are indicative of a war that, like the darkness, pervades and corrupts all.

Fusell also contends that Modernism’s disintegration of reality was synonymous with a new form of language use. He claims that the images imprinted upon the soldiers by their experiences were linked and carried into texts. For Fusell, the language of modernism carries connotations to the war. Firstly, Woolf directly reveals the relationship between battlefield and reality through two distinct phrases. Again, the “the darkness” corrupts and obscures: “there scarcely anything anything left of the body or mind by which one could say, ‘this is he,’ or ‘this is she.’” Although initially a commentary on the dissolution of consciousness, a “body” where “scarcely anything” remains is a crudely carnal image. Woolf mimics the images that would be seen on the battlefield. Even “letters” become “torn,” airs “become detached from the body of the wind,” as Woolf fractures both the material and immaterial, a statement for the inescapability of the pervasive nature of war. Secondly, Woolf indirectly links the battlefield to the novel through her language selection. In ‘Oh What a Literary War,’ Chapter 5 of The Great War and Modern Memory, Fussell argues that Modernist texts employ the semantic fields of a newly emergent post-war discourse. Woolf weaves many of these terms into the sections of Time Passes following the outbreak of war. The discourse of battle is omnipresent throughout the passage – “ventured,” “torn,” “allies,” “enemies,” “foe,” “cease,” “steadfast,” “destroy,” “shut eyes.” It weaves together to form, as Fussell describes it, “the literature of war.” 

Fussell presents another detailed argument entitled The Satire of Circumstance. Fussell argues that a war which, in 1914, “many had hoped to be over by Christmas,” was going to extend itself into literature and manifest itself through hyper-satirization and irony. Fussell insists that Modernist literaries employed greater use of situational irony in a form that was emotionally devoid. Modernism normalized the unspeakable. In a 1996 interview, Fussell described the concept – “a new order of things was necessary, (...) it was hacked and ridiculed and satirized and objected to much more than it had ever had been before.” Woolf’s To The Lighthouse is rife with Fussel’s so-called ‘satire of circumstance.’ Yet again, passages in Time Passes demonstrate this “decisive break with the Victorian past.” This time, Woolf’s use of clochets will be under investigation, which are used as brief asides from the main body of the text. The death of Andrew is recorded crudely: [A shell exploded. Twenty of thirty young men were blown up in France, among them Andrew Ramsay, whose death, mercifully, was instantaneous.]” This passage is representative of the new order of irony. In the phrase, “twenty or thirty,” the conjunction, “or,” suggests complete disregard for the deaths. The phrase is succinct and banalizes the unspeakable. The deaths of the men simply becomes a matter of uncertainty, of “imprecise statistics,” despite the fact that each individual must have had a life as complex and a consciousness as intricate as that of one of Woolf’s characters. The term “mercifully” also accentuates Woolf’s use of ridicule and satire, for how could a death of such manner truly be merciful? Prue’s death is presented in a similar fashion: “[Prue Ramsay died that summer in some illness connected with childbirth, which was indeed a tragedy, people said.]” Just as with Andrew’s death, the term “some,” is one of uncertainty, it is nonchalant. Woolf describes the death as “indeed a tragedy,” phrased as if it needed a confirmation of its calamity, as long as “people said” it was. The use of the term “indeed” holds tremendous power, as if suggesting that in some cases, it could not be deemed a tragedy. Woolf’s over-recognition of it as one “indeed” has the exact adverse effect and is emotionally devoid. In another brief clochet, Mrs. Ramsay is pronounced dead; the reader begins to make visual correlations between them and the revelation of death. Woolf however, destroys all anticipation, as in the following clochet, she merely informs us: “[The war, (...) had revived (...) interest in poetry].” This banal statement, in contrast to the shocking deaths in the previous ones, is a perfect example of Modernism’s ‘ satire of circumstance’ and normalization of the unspeakable.

For Paul Fussell, the literary response to the First World War was a protective one, one that deviated “from emotional openness which might destroy or weaken one,” turning “experience toward intellect and away from emotion.” The changes were natural responses to a wounded world. Fussell’s theories are present throughout Woolf’s To The Lighthouse. Woolf draws from the language of war in the construction of her novel. The disintegration of reality, choice of diction, and hyper-satirization found within To The Lighthouse corroborate with Fussell’s argument. World War I inevitably impacted all aspects of society. The people of nations suffered prolonged trauma to events out of their control. Endurance and resilience were by-products of conflict, manifested in Modernist literature – as Fussell describes it – by a ‘new order of language’. The 20th century, however, saw more than international conflict. A new set of ideals were brought to a very rapidly developing post-Victorian society. The rise in urbanization saw increased mobility across social classes. Divisions in society were less distinct. Modernists like Woolf challenged the external world while turning towards the internal one. Modernism’s cause, its source, however, will forever remain under debate by theorists.

Works Cited

Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modern Memory 1975, Oxford University Press, 2013.  

Lewis, Pericles, The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism, Cambridge University Press, May 3, 2007

National Endowment for the Humanities, Sheldon Hackney and Paul Fussell, The Initial Shock: A Conversation with Paul Fussell, 1996.

Woolf, Virginia, Modern Fiction, from McNeille, Andrew, Ed. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1984)

Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse, 1927, Harvest Books, 1993