{"id":370,"date":"2021-12-03T03:39:50","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T03:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/?p=370"},"modified":"2022-04-05T21:45:31","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T21:45:31","slug":"comparative-manifestations-of-chaos-in-the-dynamic-narratives-of-to-the-lighthouse-and-the-sound-and-the-fury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/?p=370","title":{"rendered":"Comparative Manifestations of Chaos in the Dynamic Narratives of To the Lighthouse and The Sound and The Fury"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In his 1907 autobiographical narrative, The Education of Henry Adams<\/em>, Adams observes an emergent scientific and philosophical tenet growing in popularity among his contemporary generation of scholars.1<\/sup> In his own summation, it claims \u201cChaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man\u201d (Adams xxxi). Imbedded in this statement is a notion that undermines the principles of Newtonian physics\u2014those which had formerly proven the physical world and the natural events therein to be calculable systems of predictability and overarching order. It is from Adams\u2019 divergent school of logic that the scientific theory of chaos eventually derives.2<\/sup> Yet from a metaphysical point of view, the sentiment espoused by such a statement\u2014that chaos is the ruling force of nature and order is merely a construct of false hope\u2014ostensibly aligns with a bleak and nihilistic perspective of the world, and especially of human life. This very sentiment is also a strikingly accurate representation of western thought in the early twentieth century, the beginnings of the modernist period that emerged during the First World War. In Europe, this era ushered in a period of inconceivable destruction and loss with the onset of the Great War, and the result was a devastated generation trying to make sense of life in the midst of shattered worlds and world-views. While the United States was not as severely affected by the horrors of WWI, they were still, in a raw and tangible sense, recovering from the effects of their own Civil War which had occurred less than 50 years before. The national disunity that marked the Civil War also, in many ways, marked the recovery process\u2014particularly for the southern states which experienced the uprooting and decay of their long-established cultural systems and ways of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it is certain that the events of this period impelled human thought toward a likely rulership of chaos in nature, they also appear to have propelled it with equal force in the opposite direction, reinforcing Adams\u2019 notion that \u201corder [is] the dream of man\u201d\u2014and not merely a dream, but a quest<\/em>. In the midst of the intense chaos that defines the lost generation, this period is also replete with attempts of mankind to envision, create, and reclaim order in new and progressive ways.3<\/sup> Many artists of the era, although often producing pieces representative of chaos\u2019s reign in the world, actually served to order the disordered by creating fixed and concrete visions of life, more easily approachable to the questioning modernist mind. In the visual arts, pioneers of abstraction and surrealism such as Picasso and Dal\u00ed began introducing distorted, obscure, and arguably disturbing impressions of reality to reflect their times. Likewise, in the performing arts, Stravinsky\u2019s rough and disorderly The Rite of Spring<\/em> ballet and accompaniment peaked in popularity in the wake of WWI, whereas before it had been met with riots and severe criticism. In literary arts, poetry and other mediums experienced shifts toward unordered systems in form and content, as seen in the emergence of stream-of-consciousness narration and the subjects of T.S. Eliot\u2019s The Waste Land<\/em>. By observing chaos and portraying chaos, these modernist artists, in turn, created their own forms of order through works of art\u2014works defined by uncontainable thoughts and ideas pieced together into individual and concrete visions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This phenomenon is reflective of a recent scientific discovery known as Parrondo\u2019s paradox. Originally observed in the context of game theory, it was later applied to the physical sciences and posits that \u201ca dynamics combined by more than two discrete chaotic dynamics in deterministic manners can give rise to order when combined\u201d (Fulai 1). It is more commonly known as a physical and mathematical idea that for certain dynamic systems \u201cchaos + chaos = order.\u201d4<\/sup> Comparatively, as modernist artists of the early 20th century strove to represent, often mimicking, chaos in their works as a means grappling with the natural reality of its presence in the world, the result was ordered art\u2014chaotic observations of reality brought together into manageable visions of life for both artists and outside interpreters. In this essay, I apply the metaphysical idea behind Parrondo\u2019s paradox to the western, intercontinental literary world of the early 20th century, specifically observing authorial representations of chaos in Virginia Woolf\u2019s To the Lighthouse<\/em> and William Faulkner\u2019s The Sound and The Fury<\/em>. By comparing how the authors portray the evidence of a chaotic world in their respective novels, and specifically how they appear to reconcile the implications of chaos in the subjects of unwelcome change, ever-passing time, and death, it is evident that underlying the prominent theme of chaotic decay in each narrative, the authors ultimately create an overarching vision of beauty, order, and hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Representing Chaotic Systems through Dynamic Narratives<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jo Alyson Parker uses the term \u201cdynamic narrative\u201d to identify literary works which possess what she calls \u201cnarrative structures [that] resemble chaotic nonlinear dynamical systems\u201d (Parker 21). In her book, Narrative Form and Chaos Theory<\/em>, Parker argues that certain narratives, like the physical systems of chaos theory, are dynamic in that they \u201cpla[y] games with repetition, order, and duration\u2026[and] pointedly implicat[e] the reader in the process of meaning making\u201d (29). Like mathematical equations, they are also models of reality, created for interpretation as a means of prescribing some form of order to observable phenomena in the external world. In her study, she analyzes four exemplary texts including Woolf\u2019s Mrs. Dalloway<\/em> and Faulkner\u2019s Absalom, Absalom!<\/em>. In observing these texts, Parker believes them to have \u201cemerge[d] from concrete issues with which the writers attempt[ed] to deal,\u201d explaining that the \u201cdisorderly order\u201d of the narratives \u201cserves as a deliberate resistance to the cultural determinations of their time\u201d (29). For Faulkner, she identifies the issue as reverberations of racial inequality in the southern United States after the Civil War. For Woolf, she posits it is an issue of writing as a woman, writing in defiance of \u201ctraditional, male-authorized sentence and sequence\u201d (89). I would add to both the broader cultural issues of the authors\u2019 time and spaces: for Faulkner the decay of the old south in the aftermath of the Civil War, and for Woolf the devastation of Europe through WWI. In all cases, there is disruption and disorder in the cultural matrix of their time.5<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Applying Parker\u2019s narrational observations to To the Lighthouse<\/em> and The Sound and the Fury<\/em>, equally evident (as in their other aforementioned novels) is the implementation of chaotic literary devices, or rather devices that model dynamical physical systems.6<\/sup> Both authors employ stream of consciousness narration and repetition of crucial events and themes. The order of the narratives is often disruptive, unbalanced, and seemingly random at times. In The Sound,<\/em> the plot-line jumps sporadically between time and space, relaying similar events through various perspectives, and portraying, at times, characters\u2019 nearly uninterpretable and chaotic perceptions of the world. Similarly, Lighthouse<\/em> is unbalanced in structure; the first section, although depicting only one day in the narrative, occupies half of the novel\u2019s length, while the second section covering ten years of time in the narrative, only occupies twenty pages. Time and space, in this manner, appear to be intentionally unordered and nonlinear, as do the human perceptions of reality, as \u201cthoughts, memories, images, sounds, and emotions\u201d are \u201cinterfus[ed]\u201d between characters and scenes in both texts, all reflecting the ideology of modernism (Kern 167).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This modernist ideology, as Georg Luk\u00e1cs explains, is characterized by a \u201clack of objectivity\u201d in mankind\u2019s perception of the world, manifesting in a null \u201cdistinction between abstract and concrete potentialities\u201d of life and meaning (Luk\u00e1cs 110, 107). In short, chaos appears to rule as the only evidential law of nature; all that was once objective is undermined and now entirely subjective, including literary processes. Luk\u00e1cs identifies the \u201crejection of narrative objectivity, the surrender to subjectivity\u201d in literary realms as \u201ctak[ing] the form of Joyce\u2019s stream of consciousness,\u201d among other devices (107). Yet even in these literary representations of the chaotic, abstract world of modernism, the authors evidently desire, as Alice van Buren Kelly observes from Woolf, \u201cto reveal the order hidden behind the daily blur, to bring together through some delicate arrangements, some central line, the opposing aspects of life, variously defined\u201d (van Buren Kelly 75). Likewise, Aliz Farkas identifies systems of cohesion in Benjy\u2019s section in The Sound<\/em>, arguably the most difficult section to interpret, which she claims were intentionally woven into the narrative by the author like \u201ca finely sewn, varicoloured patchwork,\u201d in order to \u201chelp the reader keep track of the events\u201d across time and space; thus producing forms of order in representational chaos\u2014\u201cdisorderly order\u201d in Parker\u2019s terms (Farkas 168; Parker 29). Across these texts there are several ways in which chaos is represented and order is surmised, as these critics observe, and among them are the symbolic implications of three overarching themes\u2014change, time, and death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat can it all mean?\u201d: Chaos as Unwelcome Change<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Both Woolf and Faulkner experienced cultures of unwelcome change in their times, although in different spheres and contexts, and these cultures appear in the content of their novels. For Woolf, and particularly evident in Lighthouse<\/em>, the pivotal factor of change is found the middle section, \u201cTime Passes,\u201d which spans ten years in the narrative and hinges around WWI. As Stephen Kern observes, \u201cWoolf describes that period with obvious reference to the destruction of the war\u2026track[ing] the fragmentation of things in the house\u2026 [and] paralleling the fragmentation of Europe during World War I\u201d (Kern 157, 161). In the first section, \u201cThe Window,\u201d before the second segment unleashes the forces of chaos on the family members and summer home, Mrs. Ramsay, observing the particular innocence, blissful inexperience of her children in their stable environment, quietly laments, \u201cThey were happier now than they would ever be again\u201d (Lighthouse<\/em> 59). Indeed, the nature of the first section is that of a captured moment in time, a fixed point encircled by an eternity of chaos and change. Just before expressing this sense of the impending ruin of her children\u2019s innocence, Mrs. Ramsay particularly observes the virtues of two of them: \u201cPrue, a perfect angel with the others, and\u2026she took one’s breath away with her beauty. Andrew\u2014even her husband admitted that his gift for mathematics was extraordinary\u201d (58). By highlighting the gifts of these children\u2014beauty and intelligence, order in the body and mind\u2014Woolf in turn reinforces the notion of the inexplicable, random, and careless ways of chaos in human life. For we learn in the second section, as the house falls into disrepair over the subsequent years, that Prue and Andrew die young and suddenly, one in childbirth and the other in the sporadic blasts of WWI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this manner, Woolf demonstrates that change is chaotic, constantly in motion, often unpredictable, and in such cases, entirely uncontrollable. Mrs. Ramsay, too,\u2014the heartbeat of the story\u2014dies unexpectedly in her sleep. It is for these forms of unwanted change, change that is incurred by death, war, familial and cultural devastation that at the ten-year reunion, Mr. Ramsay repetitively stews on his new reality, telling Lily \u201cYou find us much changed\u201d (148). Likewise it is for this change that Lily ponders, \u201cHow aimless it was, how chaotic, how unreal it was,\u201d the reality of the absences at the summer home, of death and loss (146). For Lily, the artist of the narrative, such unwelcome change leaves her with one powerful question that reverberates throughout the final portion of the novel: \u201cWhat can it all mean?\u201d (145). The process she endures of creating her painting over the fragmented course of ten years reflects her desire to turn a chaotic perception of reality into something concrete and unchangeable, \u201cto make something beautiful and unified out of her canvas and paint,\u201d as she is unable to do so in the medium of her wandering thoughts (Kern 164). In a modernist fashion, her painting is abstract, as she portrays Mrs. Ramsay by a \u201ctriangular purple shape\u201d which Mr. Banks argues \u201cno one could tell it for a human\u201d (Lighthouse<\/em> 52). This form is demonstrative of the fragmentation she feels, yet the whole is nonetheless a singular, unified, and unalterable image of her reality. Lily\u2019s artistic view is ostensibly a reflection of Woolf\u2019s, who explains that in her own creative writing process<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Putting severed parts together] is the strongest pleasure known to me. It is the rapture I get when in writing I seem to be discovering what belongs to what; making a scene come right; making a character come together. From this I reach what I might call a philosophy [\u2026] a constant idea of mine [\u2026] that we\u2014I mean all human beings\u2014are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art: that we are parts of the work of art (\u201cA Sketch\u201d 70).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Although depicting a world of chaos and unwelcome change\u2014the world she, too, sees and feels so powerfully\u2014Woolf strives behind every line to explore how one can create their own order, and \u201cunify [one\u2019s] world aesthetically through art\u201d (Kern 165).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a similar manner, Faulkner witnessed, and with conflicting sentiment, experienced what John T. Matthews calls the \u201cseismic upheavals that formed [southern] modern life [\u2026], disruptions [that] caused [\u2026] confusion and ambivalence, as one predominant way of life gave way to another\u201d (Matthews 1). After the Civil War, the general worldview of the southern United States was shattered as \u201c\u2018Yankee\u2019 progress and change\u201d infiltrated the social and political spheres, uprooting the \u201cold mythologies that exalted the antebellum ideal of plantation life (Wetta 78; Matthews 4). Faulkner\u2019s acknowledgement of this change, of its necessity and its impact on the southern way of life manifests within The Sound and the Fury<\/em> through the image of the Compson family\u2019s decline, and the chaos that defines it. With the narrative in continuous, and often incomprehensible motion, the structural image it offers to the reader is a downward spiral full of debris and senselessness, reflecting Lily\u2019s resounding question, \u201cWhat can it all mean?\u201d (Lighthouse<\/em> 145). The Shakespearean reference of The Sound<\/em>\u2019s title offers a similar picture: \u201cLife\u2019s but a walking shadow, a poor player, \/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, \/And then is heard no more. It is a tale \/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, \/ Signifying nothing\u201d (Shakespeare V.v.24-28). It is this sentiment of chaos\u2019s rule over human life, of a fragmented search for meaning in the midst of tumult that Faulkner\u2019s narrative captures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fundamental moment of unwelcome change in the Compson family\u2019s lives is when Mr. Compson sells Benjy\u2019s pasture to pay for Quentin\u2019s Harvard education and Caddy\u2019s wedding. This exchange not only marks the the diminishment of the Compson property and influence, but also of the family\u2019s stability, encompassing an ironic expression of the chaotic ends that change often entails. The money put toward Quentin\u2019s education was wasted because of his early death by suicide; that which went toward Caddy\u2019s wedding was squandered, too, by the couple\u2019s early divorce. Thus, the sale of Benjy\u2019s pasture ultimately occurred in vain and accomplished nothing but further diminishment of the family\u2019s influence and constancy. The recognition of this torments Quentin before his death, which is evident through Quentin\u2019s repetitive recollection of his father\u2019s words, \u201cWe have sold Benjy\u2019s pasture<\/em>\u2026for a fine sound\u201d (The Sound<\/em> 60, 110 italics original). The prestigious name, \u201cHarvard\u201d is the fine sound for which Benjy\u2019s pasture is sold\u2014an empty sound as it was purchased in vain. Just before his suicide, Quentin acknowledges the vanity of it, \u201cA fine dead sound we will swap Benjy\u2019s pasture for a fine dead sound.\u201d (110).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sale of Benjy\u2019s pasture coincides with Caddy\u2019s loss of virginity, another factor marking unwelcome change in the family. Caddy\u2019s virginity is representative of the siblings\u2019 childhood innocence (like the Ramsay children in Lighthouse<\/em>), and the pure, stable structure of the Compson\u2019s longstanding home. Yet this family stability hinges upon her purity, which once lost, renders the family incapable of recovery, marking the beginning of their chaotic decline. The necessity of Caddy\u2019s purity for family success is a reflection of old traditions that equate feminine virtue with virginity. Losing her virginity, the purity of southern tradition, is an unredeemable societal scandal for which she alone bears responsibility. This is clear in Quentin\u2019s lament, \u201cWhy couldn\u2019t it have been me and not her who is unvirgin\u201d (50). The term \u201cunvirgin\u201d marks the nature of the unwelcome change that Caddy brought upon the family\u2014no longer pure, no longer icons of southern idealism. Thus, with the early image of Dilsey trying to brush off the mud from Caddy\u2019s undergarments, Faulkner foreshadows not only Caddy\u2019s fall, but the fall of the entire family. Dilsey\u2019s apparent awareness of Caddy\u2019s looming downfall echos Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s prophetic sentiments toward her maturing children, \u201cWhy must they grow up and lose it all?\u201d (Lighthouse<\/em> 59). Dilsey\u2019s role as attempting to mitigate the impending decline of the family is clarified in Faulkner\u2019s explanation in the 1933 introduction to The Sound<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dilsey with the mudstained drawers scrubbing the naked backside of that doomed little girl–trying to cleanse with the sorry byblow of its soiling that body, flesh, whose shame they symbolised and prophesied, as though she already saw the dark future and the part she was to play in it trying to hold that crumbling household together (\u201cAn Introduction\u201d 231).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Dilsey, like Mrs. Ramsay, can see that the future holds dark and foreboding mysteries, the effects of chaotic change which no one can prevent. As she watches the Compson family disintegrate, she herself remains steadfast. Dilsey is The Sound<\/em>\u2019s image of stability in the midst of chaos, as Faulkner evidently intended her character to be: \u201cThere was Dilsey to be the future, to stand above the fallen ruins of the family like a ruined chimney, gaunt, patient and indomitable\u201d (ibid. 231). While Dilsey cannot prevent the destructive change for the Compson family, she herself withstands it, she endures as a fragment of order in the midst of a whirlwind of chaos. It is not that she is unaffected by change, but that change is unaffected by her; she moves through and with it in harmony, and in turn maintains order in her world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chaotic Decay and the Dynamics of Time and Death<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Recalling Henry Adams\u2019 observations, embedded in the implications of metaphysical chaos, is a parallel notion that all things over time tend toward disorder and decay. This notion derives from the second law of thermodynamics (see footnote 1), for which N. Katherine Hayles explains, \u201c[Adams] used classical thermodynamic arguments to demonstrate that the world and human intellect were running down, [\u2026undergoing] entropic decline\u201d (Hayles 87). While Adams envisioned this entropic phenomenon broadly across history, it is also applicable in more specific arenas of life; particularly in the concept of death. The popular phrase and prominent thought of modernism that insinuates \u2018from the moment of birth we begin dying\u2019 reflects this notion of continuous decay over time.7<\/sup> In this manner, time and death are interconnected, the former a vehicle for the latter, and both ostensibly servants of chaos. The implications of time and death are crucial elements of Lighthouse<\/em> and The Sound<\/em>, manifesting throughout the texts in symbolic imagery and, specifically in The Sound<\/em>, as motifs like a clock or a chiming bell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Quentin\u2019s section of The Sound<\/em>, time is inescapable. Images of clocks, watches, and the sounds of ticking noises, church bells, and chimes permeate the chapter. It is evident Quentin has an obsession with time, always asking the hour, always hearing its marks, and more profoundly, always anticipating its end in his own life\u2014his death. Moments before his suicide, Quentin observes this profound connection between time and death: \u201cA quarter hour yet. And then I’ll not be. The peacefullest words. Peacefullest words. Non fui. Sum. Fui. Non sum.<\/em> Somewhere I heard bells once\u201d (The Sound<\/em> 110). Note that Quentin\u2019s death-thoughts are framed by two markers of time\u2014his countdown to death and the sound of bells. In an assessment of Faulkner\u2019s literary influences, Floyd Watkins claims that \u201c[o]nce Faulkner asked his publishers to send him the works of Donne, but if he studied Donne, he never demonstrated his knowledge of the seventeenth-century poet\u201d (Watkins 107). I disagree. The association of bells with death that is so apparent in The Sound<\/em> is evidence to suggest that Faulkner likely read and alludes to John Donne\u2019s Meditation 17<\/em>: \u201cThis Bell tolling softly for another saies to me thou must die\u201d (Donne 445). The bell is a reminder that all lives will eventually come to an end, and to hear the death-bell of another is to hear it also for oneself, as every person\u2019s time will come. The bell is also a marker of time, the ever-progressing force that pushes all living humanity toward death. Likewise, after Jason loses Miss Quentin in a chase, and the sheriff is unwilling to help him track her down, a similar scene plays out: \u201cThe sheriff watched him drive away, turn, and rush past the house toward town. The bells were ringing again, high in the scudding sunlight in bright disorderly tatters of sound\u201d (The Sound<\/em> 189). As Jason drives off it becomes clear, through the ominous reminder of \u2018disorderly tattering\u2019 bells, that there is nothing left for him in life but his impending death and the subsequent erasure of the Compson family name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Compsons strive unsuccessfully to order their lives within the construct of linear time, Dilsey demonstrates a distinctive manner of living beyond it. In his book, What is Time?<\/em>, G. J. Whitrow posits that \u201cthe invention of a mechanical clock [\u2026] greatly influenced the belief in the quasi-geometrical homogeneity and continuity of time,\u201d which is a modern conception of time, where time is naturally a force beyond human comprehension (Whitrow 55). In other words, the mechanical clock is a human construct created as a means of linearly ordering the force of time, which in its natural state is likely dynamic<\/em>. To the Compson family, order is built on their understanding of linear time\u2014reminiscing past glory days, counting down present moments, and making vain plans for a bleak future\u2014all of which reflect Adams\u2019 notion of entropic decay. For Dilsey, however, while time remains beyond her control and comprehension, the order in her life is not built upon it. This is evident through the image of her personal clock:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the wall above a cupboard, invisible save at night, by lamp light and even then evincing an enigmatic profundity because it had but one hand, a cabinet clock ticked, then with a preliminary sound as if it had cleared its throat, struck five times. \u2018Eight oclock,\u2019 Dilsey said (The Sound<\/em> 171).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Of all the clocks, church bells, and watches present in The Sound<\/em>, Dilsey\u2019s means of telling time is three hours behind\u2014a clock with only one hand that struggles even to chime\u2014and yet she always knows what time it really is. Thus, Dilsey\u2019s order is not built on external factors but an internal stability. She does not live in the past nor in the future, but abides in the present, allowing time to move her harmoniously where it will, as she does with change. This is how she is able to look upon the Compson family\u2019s decay, \u201clike a ruined chimney, gaunt, patient and indomitable\u201d and say, \u201cI seed de beginnin, en now I sees de endin\u201d (\u201cAn Introduction\u201d 231; The Sound<\/em> 185). She lives beyond and through time, and in this manner maintains order in her world. Thus, while Faulkner depicts primarily the fall of a southern family into ruin, his story is framed by Dilsey\u2019s vision of the family and her outward stable perspective. She who is able to see the grand picture of time and decay provides order to the narrative and the chaotic events therein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The notion of time leading toward decay is a prominent theme in Lighthouse<\/em> as well. Mrs. Ramsay, in particular, notices time passing swiftly beyond her reach and control. At the close of the dinner party scene, she makes a singular effort to capture the moment, fully embracing it as she knows that it\u2014like all precious things in life\u2014will not last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With her foot on the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was vanishing even as she looked, and then, as she moved and took Minta\u2019s arm and left the room, it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past. (Lighthouse<\/em> 111).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The image of a moment in time transforming from the present to the past echoes Adams\u2019 entropic observations of human history\u2014the dissolution of something ordered and concrete into something disordered and abstract. It is with this realization that Mrs. Ramsay \u201cfelt rather inclined just for a moment to stand still after all that chatter, and pick out one particular thing; the thing that mattered; to detach it; separate it off,\u201d and fixing her eye upon elm branches outside the window observes, \u201cHer world was changing: they were still\u201d (112-113). Mrs. Ramsay feels the dynamic nature of time altering her world and ushering her ever forward toward change and ultimately death. Amidst the heaviness of this chaotic reality, she responds by isolating individual objects and capturing the stillness there as a means of applying stability to her own changing world. In doing so, she makes time appear to stand still for a moment, similar to what Lily does with her painting, as they both, \u201clike Woolf herself, struggle to make shape out of chaos\u201d (Kern 168).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second section, \u201cTime Passes,\u201d the notion of time is inextricably linked to death and decay. Sporadically woven into the eloquent descriptions of the decaying summer home over the course of ten years are small, seemingly inconsequential and bracketed sentences, casually announcing the deaths of Mrs. Ramsay, Prue, and Andrew. The randomness of nature\u2019s work upon the summer home appears to mirror the ostensible randomness of the familial deaths, their causes, and their structural positioning within the text. In this manner, the author paints a picture of a world in which chaos rules over nature and time, enabling decay, and giving way to death. Entropic phenomena are also evident in the portrayal of the familial deaths, each occurring after a crescendo of lines depicting chaos\u2019s hand in nature, after images like \u201cwind and destruction,\u201d \u201cleaves fly[ing] helter skelter,\u201d \u201cthe sea toss[ing] itself,\u201d \u201cpools of uneasy water,\u201d \u201cpassing shadows,\u201d \u201cominous sounds,\u201d and \u201cshriek[s]\u201d (Lighthouse<\/em> 128, 132, 133).  These descriptions reflect the impact of time and nature on the summer home as well, as the image of the decaying house symbolizes the process of entropy in the natural world and in human death:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The house was left; the house was deserted. It was left like a shell on a sandhill to fill with dry salt grains now that life had left it. The long night seemed to have set in; the trifling airs, nibbling, the clammy breaths, fumbling, seemed to have triumphed. The saucepan had rusted and the mat decayed (Lighthouse<\/em> 137).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Just as the home becomes a shell, given to the decay of chaos over time, so do human bodies after life has left them. This imagery is also notably similar to Faulkner\u2019s description of the Compson home, which he portrays with phrases like \u201ccrumbling household,\u201d and \u201cfalling ruins\u201d (\u201cAn Introduction\u201d 231). The decaying homes and decaying bodies present in both texts are symbols of chaos\u2019s power in nature, and they particularly emphasize the authors\u2019 observations of chaotic processes permeating their own worlds\u2014for Woolf, the blasts, shrieks, and recovery of war, and for Faulkner the collapse and tumbling decline of the old southern worldview. Yet, while the authors portray grim observations of chaos within their texts, they ultimately work to reconcile any nihilistic implications of chaotic decay by inserting moments of ordered perspectives and hopeful insinuations, as seen in Dilsey\u2019s final and external observations of the Compson family, and Lily\u2019s final touches to her painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the third section of Lighthouse<\/em>, after ten years have passed in entropic decay, Lily reflects on Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s ability to unify the fragmented pieces of life that surrounded her\u2014her ability to make ordered masterpieces out of seemingly disjointed and fleeting moments in time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mrs. Ramsay bringing them together; Mrs. Ramsay saying, \u201cLife stand still here\u201d; Mrs. Ramsay making of the moment something permanent (as in another sphere Lily herself tried to make of the moment something permanent)–this was of the nature of a revelation. In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves shaking) was struck into stability (Lighthouse<\/em> 161).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Lily\u2019s statement that Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s attempts to make moments permanent is \u201cthe nature of a revelation\u201d underscores the importance of this message throughout the book. The revelation that emerges from the dust and ashes of crumbling homes and broken bodies is that \u201c[i]n the midst of chaos there [is] shape.\u201d This is what both Woolf and Faulkner prove with the construction of their novels. Observing chaos, they portray chaos, and in doing so make it something concrete, whole, and approachable\u2014Parrando\u2019s paradox.8<\/sup> They piece together fragments of disorderly life and create a holistic, beautiful image of humanity, capable of evoking powerful sentiments within the hearts of the readers, and drawing their audiences toward an all-encompassing vision of a hopeful existence. Dilsey and her family endure, standing intact above the smoking ruins of the old south all around them, pressing on with the insinuation that they among others will lead the south into its recovery. \u2018In the midst of chaos there is shape.\u2019<\/em> Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe capture moments, making them \u201cstand still,\u201d defying the power of chaos long enough to breathe in the calm air of the present and appreciate the ordered beauty therein. \u2018In the midst of chaos there is shape<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 7, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Henry Adams was a nineteenth-century, American historian and political voice during the American Civil War and its aftermath. He is a direct descendent of the familial American presidents, John and J. Quincy Adams, and served in a variety of occupations throughout his life, including secretary to his father as Lincoln\u2019s UK ambassador, journalist for political papers, writer, editor, and professor of history at Harvard University. He is known for his theory of history in terms of the second law of thermodynamics and chaos\u2014an idea that in history, as in physics, all things tend toward disorder. The Education was posthumously published in 1918, and was received immediately as a booming success, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1919 (See \u201cThe Education\u201d under \u2018References\u2019).<\/li>
  2. Newtonian Physics is also known as classical physics which interprets the systems of nature as pattered and calculable, leading to an idea that everything is deterministic, life and the events therein are all predetermined by natural, ordered laws. Chaos theory undermines this classical notion, and observes that there are certain systems in nature that are unpredictable, variable, and indeterminable (See Jo Alyson Parker\u2019s book chapter \u201cChaos Theory\u201d under \u2018References\u2019).<\/li>
  3. The term, \u2018lost generation,\u2019 was coined by Gertrude Stein to define a group of artists, musicians, and authors in post-WWI era. It has been adopted as a generational term for all those emerging in the aftermath of WWI (see \u201cLost Generation\u201d under \u2018References\u2019).<\/li>
  4. Discovered in the study of Game Theory by Juan Parrondo in 1996, under the observance that \u2018a losing strategy + a losing strategy = a winning strategy,\u2019 the paradox was applied by Almeida et al. (see \u2018References\u2019) to \u201cone-dimensional quadratic maps,\u201d essentially mathematical models of physical reality, in which they discovered that the same principle is true in the realm of science and mathematics as \u201cchaos + chaos = order.\u201d<\/li>
  5. A \u201ccultural matrix,\u201d according to N. Katherine Hayles, is the mutually shared time and space of contemporary individuals within a given era. It is how \u201cconnections between literature and science\u2026are mediated;\u201d how, for example the United States, although less impacted by WWI, could share in the modernist ideas that emerged from its aftermath (Hayles 4, see \u2018References\u2019).<\/li>
  6. Another name for chaos theory is \u201cnonlinear dynamics\u201d or \u201cdynamical systems theory,\u201d which is a more accurate description according to Hayles. The study of chaotic systems is the study of dynamic, variable, and seemingly unpredictable systems (Hayles 8, see \u2018References\u2019).<\/li>
  7. This phrase has been published in various forms by various people over the years, two of whom are authors Jane Teller and Amelia Mysko. Respectively, their renditions appear, \u201cFrom the moment we are born, we begin to die,\u201d and \u201cThe second we are born, we start dying\u201d (See goodreads.com under \u2018Jane Teller\u2019 and \u2018Amelia Mysko\u2019). It is also a central theme in Walt Whitman\u2019s famous poem, \u201cOut of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.\u201d<\/li>
  8. \u201cChaos + chaos = order\u201d (See footnote 4).<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Works Cited:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Adams, Henry. The Education of Henry Adams<\/em>. 1907. Reprint. Project Gutenberg EBook, 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Donne, John. \u201cXVII Meditation.\u201d The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne<\/em>. Edited by Charles M. Coffin, The Modern Library, New York, 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Farkas, Aliz. \u201cOrganized Chaos: Cohesive Devices in Benjy\u2019s Sections of William Faulkner\u2019s The Sound and the Fury.\u201d Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, Vol. 8, Iss. 2 (2016), pp. 167\u2013176, De Gruyter Open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Faulkner, William. \u201cAn Introduction to The Sound and the Fury<\/em>.\u201d The Sound and the Fury<\/em>., pp. 228-232, (1933). W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2nd Ed., Edited by David Minter, New York, 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury<\/em>. (1929). W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2nd Ed., Edited by David Minter, New York,1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Fulai, Wang. \u201cImprovement and empirical research on chaos control by theory of \u2018chaos + chaos = order.\u2019\u201d Chaos 22<\/em>, 043145 (December 2012), American Institute of Physics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Hayles, N. Katherine. \u201cThe Necessary Gap: Chaos as Self in The Education of Henry Adams.\u201d Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science<\/em>, Cornell University Press, ITHACA; LONDON, 1990, pp. 61\u201390.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Kern, Stephen. \u201cVirginia Woolf: Creating Shape Out of Chaos.\u201d Modernism After the Death of God Christianity, Fragmentation, and Unification<\/em>, 1st Ed, pp. 149-171, Routledge, New York, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Luk\u00e1cs, Georg. \u201cThe Ideology of Modernism.\u201d Modernism<\/em>., pp. 102-113, Edited by Michael H. Whitworth, et al., Blackwell Publishing, Ltd., Oxford, 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Matthews, John T. \u201cSeeing Through the South: Faulkner and the Life of Writing.\u201d William <\/em>Faulkner: Seeing Through the South<\/em>., pp. 1-18, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Parker, Jo Alyson. \u201cChapter 1: Chaos Theory and the Dynamics of Narrative.\u201d Narrative Form and Chaos Theory in Sterne, Proust, Woolf, and Faulkner<\/em>, pp. 1-29. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Shakespeare, William. \u201cThe Tragedy of Macbeth.\u201d The Complete Works of William Shakespeare<\/em>, Edited by Jeremy Hylton, The Tech, Massachusetts Institution of Technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    van Buren Kelly, Alice. To the Lighthouse: The Marriage of Life and Art. <\/em>Twayne Publishers, Boston, 1987.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Watkins, Floyd C. \u201cThe Hound Under the Wagon: Faulkner and the Southern Literati.\u201d Faulkner and the Southern Renaissance<\/em>, pp. 93-119, Edited by Doreen Fowler and Ann J. Abadie, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 1982.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Wetta, Frank J.; Novelli, Martin A. \u201cWilkes & Kennedy Inc. War and the Destruction of the Old Order.\u201d The Long Reconstruction: The Post-Civil War South in History, Film, and Memory<\/em>, pp. 76-91, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Whitrow, G. J. What is Time? The classic account of the nature of time<\/em>. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Woolf, Virginia. \u201cA Sketch of the Past.\u201d Moments of Being<\/em>. Harcourt, Inc., New York, 1985.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse<\/em>. (1927). Harcourt, Inc., New York, 1957.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    References:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Almeida J. et al<\/em>. \u201cCan two chaotic systems give rise to order?\u201d Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena Vol. 200, Iss. 1\u20132, January 2005, pp. 124-132<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Harmer, G., Abbott, D. \u201cLosing strategies can win by Parrondo’s paradox.\u201d Nature Vol. 402, Iss. 864 (1999). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Hayles, N. Katherine. \u201cThe Necessary Gap: Chaos as Self in The Education of Henry Adams.\u201d Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science<\/em>, Cornell University Press, ITHACA; LONDON, 1990, pp. 61\u201390.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cLost Generation.\u201d Encyclopaedia Britannica<\/em>, edited by J.E. Luebering, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Parker, Jo Alyson. \u201cChapter 1: Chaos Theory and the Dynamics of Narrative.\u201d Narrative Form and Chaos Theory in Sterne, Proust, Woolf, and Faulkner<\/em>, pp. 1-29. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cThe Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography.\u201d Random House Books<\/em>, website, http:\/\/www.randomhousebooks.com\/books\/695\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In his 1907 autobiographical narrative, The Education of Henry Adams, Adams observes an emergent scientific and philosophical tenet growing in popularity among his contemporary generation of scholars.1 In his own summation, it claims \u201cChaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man\u201d (Adams xxxi). Imbedded in this statement is a notion that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[224,226,225,222,223,220,221],"class_list":["post-370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critical-analyses","tag-chaos","tag-chaos-theory","tag-the-education-of-henry-adams","tag-the-sound-and-the-fury","tag-to-the-lighthouse","tag-virginia-woolf","tag-william-faulkner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}