A Road to Ecocritical Insight in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse

Abstract

This article is going to study the ecocritical conception in Virginia Woolf’s (1882-1941) novel, To the Lighthouse (TL) (1927). This is an ecocritical reading which uses Lawrence Buell (1939- ) and Derek Wall’s (1965- ) ideas of ecocriticism. Lawrence Buell defined eco-criticism as the study of the relationships between literature and environment in an environmentalist praxis or as a critical insurgency mainly focused on the issue rather than methodology like what cultural studies of identity and body have done. Writers create their works under the influence of environment and nature and a literary work is not created void of nature. Literary works beyond of concepts and contents which are addressed by writers indicate the interaction of human and nature. Wall believes that ecology in particular and the environmental sciences in general have demonstrated how closely one’s species is connected to all other in a web or net of life connections. To the Lighthouse (TL) takes place in a summerhouse near the sea and its main goal is traveling to the Lighthouse amid the sea. There are many natural parts and nature’s elements which are studied in detail to reveal the relation of ecocriticism and literature. This article studies the close relation of man and nature and notes that there is an intimate relation between them. There is a bilateral relation between nature and man; they affect each other in several ways. Woolf’s To the Lighthouse is a good context to portray ecocriticism and green cultural studies. Woolf constructs a remarkable and moving examination of the complex tensions and allegiances of family life from the seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse.