The Memory of A Family's Space: A Soul Searching Journey for Virginia Woolf

“Certainly there she was, in the very centre of that great Cathedral space which was childhood; there she was from the very first.” (Woolf, Moments of Being , 1985)

The reading of Virginia Woolf’s works, Sketch of the Past and To the Lighthouse, in tandem with the French philosophical work Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard , generates multiple intersections for the reader. This entry will discuss the allegory of the house for the human soul, the role of human memory in conjuring scenes, the dichotomy of inside and outside, and the ability of Woolf to engage and move readers utilizing these techniques aptly documented by Bachelard.

 Bachelard sets the tone for the ten-chapter book in the introduction by unleashing a fundamental analogy.  “Our soul is like an abode. And by remembering the houses and rooms, we learn to “abide within ourselves. Now everything becomes clear, the house images move in both directions: they are in us as much as we are in them…” Bachelard writes.  (Bachelard, 1964)

Bachelard pays homage to Carl Jung who, “asks his readers to consider the comparison of a multistory house with a nineteenth century upper story, and a sixteenth century ground floor, first proposing the house as a tool for analysis of the human soul. ” (Bachelard, 1964)

This space classification occurs to the reader in Woolf’s Sketch of the Past as Woolf describes her family’s Hyde Park home as a “cage.” “She emphasizes the divisions of generations and interests of the house through space, in that her father, with his library on the top floor or the house ‘pure intellect’ and downstairs, her brothers, with the social world of parties and professions, as ‘pure convention.’ ” (Johnston, 2003)

While To the Lighthouse represents a fictional work, Mark Hussey writes, “Woolf consciously used her own childhood memories of summer vacations in St. Ives, Cornwall and Talland House …. and drew portraits of her parents, Leslie Stephen and Julia Prinsep Stephen, in the figures of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey.” (Hussey, 1995)

In the Sketch of the Past, Woolf addresses the catharsis she experienced from creating To The Lighthouse. “But I wrote the book very quickly; and when it was written, I ceased to be obsessed with my mother. I no longer hear her voice. I do not see her,” Woolf writes. (Woolf, Moments of Being , 1985).  The details of Mrs. Ramsey replaced the remembrances of her own mother.

In To the Lighthouse Woolf provides intimate details of Mrs. Ramsey caring for her children, including her young needy James, while engaging with her husband and society. Bachelard states that individuals can conjure memories via place-based mechanism. “When we dream of the house we were born in, in the utmost depths of revery, we participate in the original warmth, in this well-tempered matter of the material paradise. This is the environment in which the protective beings live. We shall come back to the maternal features of the house,” Bachelard writes. (Bachelard, 1964)

This is certainly the case for Woolf who took a mental journey back in time to a familiar place that enabled her to generate rich memories and her mother.  As the narrator of To The Lighthouse, Woolf artfully detailed the lives of the Ramseys,  with glimpses of their marriage, the antics of children and teens, and domestic duties. Bachelard underscores the idea that “localization” of spaces and events triggers rich memories that individuals (and writers) can access for information and descriptions.  

 “Memories are motionless, and the more securely they are fixed in space, the sounder they are,” Bachelard writes.  “For a knowledge of intimacy, localization in the spaces of our intimacy is more urgent than the determination of dates,” according to Bachelard. (Bachelard, 1964).

Woolf offers insights about remembering scenes, “I find that scene making is my natural way of marking the past. A scene always comes to the top; arranged; representative. This confirms in me my instinctive notion – it is irrational; it will not stand to argument. ” (Woolf, Moments of Being , 1985)

Johnson points out that Woolf’s role as the narrator in Sketch of the Past catalyzes a “loss of innocence in the space” and produces a space for the spectator that allows for action and audience. (Johnston, 2003)

By establishing a dialectic of inside and outside, we may observe a partitioning of the domestic sphere and the public sphere in Woolf’s work.  “Outside and inside form a dialectic of division, the obvious geometry of which blinds us as soon as we bring it into play in metaphorical domains. It has the sharpness of the dialectics of “yes and no”, which decides everything,” Bachelard writes in the chapter titled, Dialectics of the Outside and Inside. (Bachelard, 1964) During Part I of To the Lighthouse, The Window, the protagonist moves from inside to outside, following along after her husband, watching over children and interacting with Lily.

Always attentive to her children, cautious of their feeling and her own words, Mrs. Ramsey expresses a sense of relief at the end of the day. “No, she thought …. Children never forget. For this reason, it was so important what one said, and what one did, and it was a relief when they went to bed. For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself.” (Woolf, 1927).

I was particularly tickled by this passage, as Mrs. Ramsey cleaned up James’ handiwork of hand cut magazine clippings, as it reminds me of the night-time ritual of getting my own little James to bed and experiencing a moment of pure silence.

 “But what a joy reading is, when we recognize the importance of these insignificant things, when we can add our own personal daydreams to the ‘insignificant 'recollections of the author! Then insignificance become the sign of extreme sensitivity to the intimate meanings that establish spiritual understanding between writer and reader,” states Bachelard. (Bachelard, 1964)

Bibliography

Bachelard, G. (1964). The Poetics of Space. The Orion Press, Inc. .

Hussey, M. (1995). Virginia Woolf A to Z. New York: Facts on File, Inc. .

Johnston, G. (2003). Politics of Restrospective Space in Virginia Woolf's Memoir "A Sketch of the Past" . Mapping teh self; space, identity, discourse in British autobiography, 285-296.

Woolf, V. (1927). To The Lighthouse. Harcourt: London.

Woolf, V. (1985). Moments of Being . New York: Harcourt, Inc. .