Temporal Structure and the Sacred in Woolf’s To the Lighthouse

Abstract

Critics frequently agree that in the “Time Passes” section of To the Lighthouse, Woolf transcends linear time. In his article “History, Time and the Novel: reading Woolf’s To the Lighthouse”, however, Dominick LaCapra proposes a more complex theory of temporality, arguing that time has a two­ dimensional structure made up of a horizontal diachronic dimension, and a vertical synchronic dimension. The diachronic dimension comprises discrete “epochmaking events”, while the synchronic dimension seemingly immobilizes a particular moment in defiance of linear time. Woolf’s narrative focuses on the synchronic dimension of time, thus subverting the traditional narrative structure that focuses on plot­ driving events that occur on the diachronic temporal plane. I believe that the thematic prominence of time and the sacred in “Time Passes” is not arbitrary; in fact, I argue that it is Woolf’s innovative conception of temporal structure that allows her to engage so profoundly with themes of the sacred. The synchronic dimension of time provides an escape from the limitations that linear time imposes on our experience of the sacred; in other words, the synchronic dimension is what allows Woolf seemingly to immobilize an experience, to meditate on it in depth, and to convey more effectively the sacred nature of that experience. Throughout this section of To the Lighthouse Woolf suggests that by reframing how we exist in time, we can more readily feel the sacred that permeates everyday experience, and thus connect more intensely with existence