Travelling Time to the Lighthouse: Virginia Woolf and Melanie Klein (Critical Essay‪)‬

A lighthouse stands on the headland and acts as guide for those traversing the treacherous seas around it. It is a complex icon (1), though, for it is the point toward which the sailor must not head--a direct journey to the Lighthouse would result in disaster on the rocks below. The duality of meaning and purpose of this central image acts as a useful frame for reading Virgina Woolf's To the Lighthouse (TTL) (1976) in conjunction with Melnaie Klein's A Study of Envy and Gratitude (EG), published in 1955. In my examination of TTL, the work of Klein provides a fruitful resource for reading the dynamics of Woolf's novel, since both deal with this concept of movement toward and away from the maternal figure. The centrality of Klein's maternal figure is mirrored by the centrality of Mrs Ramsay. The first section of TTL, entitled 'The Window', shows the reader Mrs Ramsay in the centre of the window. She is, at once, our window into the text and that upon which we must look. Lily Briscoe's preoccupation with Mrs Ramsay only deepens this textual focus. This location of Mrs Ramsay as entry point for TTL inscribes Klein's theoretical reconception of the mother as the one who contains all the things in the world; as the first object relation with the world which structures all subsequent relations. My reading of TTL uses these Kleinian concepts as they occur within the interplays between textual figures, but also as they structure the movement of the text itself. In this article, I briefly layout the Kleinian conceptions significant to my reading of TTL, arguing that Klein's particular focus on the role of the mother and time in forming subjectivity allow for a full appreciation of the importance of time and movement in Woolf's text. The importance of 'time pass[ing]' in TTL is examined in light of Klein's significant contribution to the temporal dimensions of psychoanalytic thought. I conclude by suggesting that Mrs Ramsay offers a revitalised subjectivity for the maternal figure, which extends Klein's focus on the intersubjective aspects of the mother-child dyad.