The Use of Free Indirect Speech in Virginia Woolf’s to the Lighthouse

【Abstract】To the Lighthouse， a novel of Streams of Consciousness， has a unique writing style， in which Free Indirect Speech is adopted to present the inner world of the characters and to exhibit the novelistic theme. This paper aims at analyzing some excerpts from the novel and shows how the use of Free Indirect Speech has helped with the expression of the theme.

【Key words】To the Lighthouse; Free Indirect Speech; Streams of Consciousness

【作者簡介】潘明辰，首都师范大学外国语学院。

1. the Use of Free Indirect Speech

The major studies on FID are conducted by scholars such as Pascal， McHale， Leech and Short. Pascal proposed the “dual voice” hypothesis for FID， where the narrator and the character spoke together. McHale took the view that FID was an intermediate mode between DD and ID grammatically and mimetically.

Leech and Short developed a cline of speech presentation consisting of five types of discourse in the order of the narrators control degree： Narrative Report of Speech Acts， Indirect Speech， Free Indirect Speech， Direct Speech， and Free Direct Speech.

Free Indirect Speech， also called Represented Speech or Oblique Speech， is an important way of expressing the characters ideas and thinking.

2. Free Indirect Speech in to the Lighthouse

2.1 Free Indirect Speech makes readers know more about the character

Take the novel as an example：

If she finished it tonight，…and some tobacco， indeed， whatever she could find lying about， not really wanted， but only littering the room， to give those poor fellows， who must be bored to death sitting all day with nothing to do….

——To the Lighthouse

In this part， the author Virginia Woolf used the irony technique from the perspective of the narrator. This part is the natural and realistic thinking of Mrs. Ramsay. The words “indeed” shows her tone as frank towards herself and implies this is what her real idea. The words “whatever” and “poor fellows” shows clearly what Mrs. Ramsays thinking. For her， those “poor fellows” of the lighthouse keeps are just for littering the room and for things that she doesnt want anymore. The use of Free Indirect Speech shows Mrs. Ramsays thinking and the contrast between her real idea and other peoples praise towards her is very irony. This deepened the theme of the novel and evolved her action of helping others is lack of the motivation of being sincere.

2.2 Free Indirect Speech enhances the vocality of the novel

Free Indirect Speech enhances the bi-vocality or even poly-vocality of the text by bring into play a plurality of speakers and attitudes.

For example：

She was wild and fierce. She would not “give a flower to the gentleman” as the nursemaid told her. No！ no！ no！ she would not！ She clenched her fist. She stamped. And Mr. Bankes felt aged and saddened and somehow put into the wrong by her about his friendship. He must have dried and shrunk.

——To the Lighthouse

Based on the context of this passage， the employment of the third person pronoun “she” ， simple past tense “would” and four exclamation marks in a row， it is obvious to understand that the bolded part （“No！ no！ no！ she would not！ ”） should be the words of Cam， Mrs. Ramsays youngest daughter， represented in Free Indirect Speech. Due to FIDs pronominal and temporal alignment with narration， it looks as if the narrator also joins in the expression. The bolded part echoes the feeling of the reader as well. It seems justifiable to compare that FID “No！ no！ no！ she would not！ ” is a chorus of three voices and intensifies the semantic density as a result.

3. Conclusion

In the novel to the Lighthouse， the use of Free Indirect Speech makes the work more vivid and naturalistic to read， enriches the means of expression and deepened the theme at the same time.

References：

[1] Virginia Woolf. To the Lighthouse [Z]. London： Vantage， 2000.

[2]汪艷.谁在说话？——以《到灯塔去》为例分析人物话语及其翻译[J].文学界（理论版），2012（09）：179-180+182.