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The Construction of Female Discourse Authority: An Analysis of To the Lighthouse from the Perspective of Feminist Narratology

Received: 16 September 2023     Accepted: 12 October 2023     Published: 11 November 2023
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Abstract

To the Lighthouse, one of Virginia Woolf's masterpieces, has caught the attention of literary critics at home and abroad since its publication in 1927. Intensive studies have been made on its advanced feminist implication and unique narrative skills, yet few pay attention to the interaction of these two factors in the novel. Based on the theory of feminist narratology, the paper, through the analysis of narrative voice, narrative focalization and narrative speech in the novel, attempts to explore the effects of its feminist narration, namely how it uses narrative strategies to construct female discourse and establish female authority. The main argument of the paper is that To the Lighthouse is Woolf's intentionally planned narrative subversion of traditional male narrative and exhibition of her unique feminist consciousness. Woolf chooses to use the authorial voice to create a heterodiegetic narrator, laying the foundation for achieving a strong narrative authority. However, the modernist idea requires that the narrator cannot overtly present his or her voice to gain mighty authority. Thus, Woolf effaces the narrator's voice on the surface but retains it with the help of another two narrative techniques. Through the use of variable internal focalization, the authorial voice is kept indirectly by giving more chances to female characters to observe and speak. Through the use of free indirect speech, the authorial voice is preserved directly through being scattered in different characters' speeches. In this way, Woolf finally successfully maintains the feminist authorial voice and wins feminist discourse authority in the novel.

Published in English Language, Literature & Culture (Volume 8, Issue 4)
DOI 10.11648/j.ellc.20230804.14
Page(s) 108-114
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, Feminist Narratology, Discourse Authority, Authorial Voice, Internal Focalization, Free Indirect Discourse

References
[1] Derbyshire, S. H. (1942). An Analysis of Mrs. Woolf's To the Lighthouse. College English 3 (4), 353-360. doi: 10.2307/370770.
[2] Carolyn Heilbrun. (1974). Further notes toward a recognition of androgyny. Women's Studies 2 (2), 143-149. doi: 10.1080/00497878.1974.9978346.
[3] Rutledge, Thais. (2020). Woolf’s Feminine Spaces and the New Woman in To the Lighthouse: The Cases of Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe. South Central Review 37 (1), 73-101. doi: 10.1353/scr.2020.0008.
[4] Jenkins, Amber. (2023). Drafting Mrs Ramsay and Lily Briscoe: Feminist Aesthetics in the Manuscript of To the Lighthouse. In: Virginia Woolf, Literary Materiality, and Feminist Aesthetics. Material Modernisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-32491-8_5.
[5] Corner, Martin. (1981). Mysticism and Atheism in To the Lighthouse. Studies in the Novel 13 (4), 408-423. https://www.jstor.org/stable/29532126.
[6] Minogue, Sally. (1997). Was It a Vision? Structuring Emptiness in "To the Lighthouse". Journal of Modern Literature 21 (2), 281-294. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3831464.
[7] Sadrin, Anny. (2000). Time, Tense, Weather in Three ‘Flood Novels’, ‘Bleak House’, ‘The Mill on the Floss’, ‘To the Lighthouse’. The Yearbook of English Studies, 30, 96-105. doi: 10.2307/3509245.
[8] Koppen, Randi. (2001). Embodied Form: Art and Life in Virginia Woolf's" To the Lighthouse". New Literary History 32 (2), 375-389. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20057663.
[9] Lovelock, Julian. (2022). The Business of Reading: A Hundred Years of the English Novel. The Lutterworth Press. doi: 10.2307/j.ctv2bz2n0c.
[10] Lanser, Susan Sniader. (1981). The Narrative Act: Point of View in Prose Fiction. Princeton University Press. doi: 10.1086/391380.
[11] Lanser, Susan Sniader. (1986). Toward a feminist narratology. Style, 341-363. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42945612.
[12] Lanser, Susan Sniader. (1992). Fictions of Authority: Women Writers and Narrative Voice. Cornell University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt207g6vm.
[13] Shang, Biwu. (2022). Narrative theory across borders. Neohelicon 49, 3–12 (2022). doi: 10.1007/s11059-022-00637-x.
[14] Warhol, Robyn., & Lanser, Susan S. (Eds.). (2015). Narrative Theory Unbound: Queer and Feminist Interventions. Ohio State University Press. doi: 10.2307/j.ctv8j6sv.
[15] Lanser, Susan S., & Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. (2022). The Postclassical Chronotope: A Narratological Inquiry. Poetics today 43(3), 429-454. doi: 10.1215/03335372-9780375.
[16] Young, Tory. (Ed.). (2021). Queer and Feminist Theories of Narrative (1st ed.). Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003134268.
[17] Woolf, Virginia. (1992). To the Lighthouse. In: Collected Novels of Virginia Woolf. Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-1-349-22364-0_3.
[18] Joyce, James. (2000). A portrait of the artist as a young man. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0-19-283998-5.
[19] Mezei, Kathy. (2000). Ambiguous discourse: Feminist narratology and British women writers. ed. University of North Carolina Press. 81. ISBN: 0-8078-2290-6.
[20] Foulke, E. (2023). THE SINGLE WOMAN’S THOUSAND SHAPES1 OF LOVE IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S TO THE LIGHTHOUSE. Singular Selves: An Introduction to Singles Studies, 104. doi: 10.4324/9781003300793.
[21] Meg Harris Williams (2023). Reconstructing the internal parents in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Psychodynamic Practice 29(4), 328-342. doi: 10.1080/14753634.2023.2212667.
[22] Muhsin, Atheer J. (2021). Emotions, Consciousness, and Visions Shape the Painting of Lily Briscoe in Virginia Woolf's to the Lighthouse. Review of International Geographical Education Online 11(9), 836-844. doi: 10.48047/rigeo.11.09.72.
[23] Grisot, Grisot, Conklin, Kathy, & Sotirova, Violeta. (2020). Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? Readers’ responses to experimental techniques of speech, thought and consciousness presentation in Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway. Language and Literature 29(2), 103-123. doi: 10.1177/0963947020924202.
[24] Espinola, Judith. (1977). Narrative Discourse in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Studies in Interpretation (2), 29-43.
[25] Woolf, Virginia. (2003). A writer's diary: being extracts from the diary of Virginia Woolf. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN: 0-15-602791-7.
[26] Pascal, Roy. (1977). The dual voice: Free indirect speech and its functioning in the nineteenth-century European novel. Manchester University Press. ISBN: 0-7190-0654-6.
[27] Woolf, Virginia. (2014). A Room of One’s Own. The People, Place, and Space Reader. Routledge. 338-342. ISBN: 9781315816852.
[28] Delsandro, Erica Gene. (Ed.). (2020). Women Making Modernism (1st ed.). University Press of Florida. doi: org/10.2307/j.ctvx070vh.
[29] McIntire, Gabrielle. (2014). Feminism and Gender in To the Lighthouse. In Allison Pease (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to To The Lighthouse (pp. 80–91). chapter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CCO9781107280342.009.
Cite This Article
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    Ziying, G. (2023). The Construction of Female Discourse Authority: An Analysis of To the Lighthouse from the Perspective of Feminist Narratology. English Language, Literature & Culture, 8(4), 108-114. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20230804.14

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    ACS Style

    Ziying, G. The Construction of Female Discourse Authority: An Analysis of To the Lighthouse from the Perspective of Feminist Narratology. Engl. Lang. Lit. Cult. 2023, 8(4), 108-114. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20230804.14

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    AMA Style

    Ziying G. The Construction of Female Discourse Authority: An Analysis of To the Lighthouse from the Perspective of Feminist Narratology. Engl Lang Lit Cult. 2023;8(4):108-114. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20230804.14

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ellc.20230804.14,
      author = {Guan Ziying},
      title = {The Construction of Female Discourse Authority: An Analysis of To the Lighthouse from the Perspective of Feminist Narratology},
      journal = {English Language, Literature & Culture},
      volume = {8},
      number = {4},
      pages = {108-114},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ellc.20230804.14},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20230804.14},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ellc.20230804.14},
      abstract = {To the Lighthouse, one of Virginia Woolf's masterpieces, has caught the attention of literary critics at home and abroad since its publication in 1927. Intensive studies have been made on its advanced feminist implication and unique narrative skills, yet few pay attention to the interaction of these two factors in the novel. Based on the theory of feminist narratology, the paper, through the analysis of narrative voice, narrative focalization and narrative speech in the novel, attempts to explore the effects of its feminist narration, namely how it uses narrative strategies to construct female discourse and establish female authority. The main argument of the paper is that To the Lighthouse is Woolf's intentionally planned narrative subversion of traditional male narrative and exhibition of her unique feminist consciousness. Woolf chooses to use the authorial voice to create a heterodiegetic narrator, laying the foundation for achieving a strong narrative authority. However, the modernist idea requires that the narrator cannot overtly present his or her voice to gain mighty authority. Thus, Woolf effaces the narrator's voice on the surface but retains it with the help of another two narrative techniques. Through the use of variable internal focalization, the authorial voice is kept indirectly by giving more chances to female characters to observe and speak. Through the use of free indirect speech, the authorial voice is preserved directly through being scattered in different characters' speeches. In this way, Woolf finally successfully maintains the feminist authorial voice and wins feminist discourse authority in the novel.
    },
     year = {2023}
    }
    

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Author Information
  • School of Foreign Studies, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China

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