Micro-Landscapes of the Anthropocene

Nonhuman Vitality

Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse is acutely invested in highlighting the innate interconnectedness of the natural world and the human world. As part of her eco-critical approach, Woolf radically challenges human exceptionalism as she seeks to undermine the dichotomy of life and materiality (Lostoski 56). As such, Woolf explicitly engages with Jane Bennett’s theory of Vital Materialism and Bill Brown’s concept of thing power to liberate nonhuman entities from the constraints of anthropocentric values and create an equitable space for them in the foreground of her narrative. In the “Time Passes”, Woolf subversively omits the inclusion of human characters to focus her attention on the nonhuman elements that inhabit the “empty” Ramsay house. In describing the house as “empty”, Woolf paradoxically appeals to readers’ anthropocentric bias by way of challenging their human-centred perspective. She effectively does so when describing the furniture pieces, demonstrating the vitality of inanimate objects that continue to thrive and exist in the “empty” house: “hangings that flapped, wood that creaked, the bare legs of tables, saucepans and china already furred, tarnished, cracked.” Here, Woolf draws from Bennett’s theory of Vital Materialism to allow seemingly passive objects to exceed their human-imposed boundaries and limitations. Ultimately, Woolf revises the etymological meaning of the human constructed word “empty” by precariously suggesting the “empty” house is rather full of vitality. Moreover, Woolf continues to toy with this notion of thing power via her eco-diegetic representation of sunlight as an autonomous agent extending its unspoken influence on human sensibility. For example, Mrs Ramsay articulates that she feels deep injustice to “break up the shaft of sunlight, lying level across the floor”. In personifying the sunlight “lying” on the floor, Woolf’s aestheticisation of the natural world represents commodities as vibrant and spirited ‘things’ that are capable of transcending their human defined roles.

References:

Lostoski, Leanna. “"Imaginations of the Strangest Kind": The Vital Materialism of Virginia Woolf.” The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, vol. 49, no. 1, 2016, pp. 53–74, JSTOR Journals, https://doi.org/10.1353/mml.2016.0022.

Sarah Laanani (5260338)

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