An Analysis of Stream-of-Consciousness Technique in To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf, one of the prominent representatives of modernist novelist in England, has contributed significantly to the development of modern novel in both theory and practice. She abandoned traditional fictional devices and formulated her own distinctive techniques. The novels of Woolf tend to be less concerned with outward reality than with the inner life. Her masterpiece, To the Lighthouse, serves as an excellent sample in analyzing Woolf’s literary theory and her experimental techniques.This paper deals with the use of modern stream-of-consciousness literary techniques: indirect interior monologue and free association.