Symbolism in Virginia Woolf`s novels The Voyege Out and To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf is generally regarded as one of the most outstanding novelists of the twentieth century English literature. This thesis focuses on two of her works, namely The Voyage Out and To the Lighthouse. It is aimed to analyse these two novels in terms of symbolism and to find out various symbolic elements shared by both novels. In Preface, a brief summary of Virginia Woolf s life and writing career is presented. In Introduction, general information on the parts of the thesis is given. The third part of the thesis entitled A General Look at Symbolism deals with some of the basic features of symbol and symbolism. In Symbolism in The Voyage Out, the novel in question is analysed with regard to its symbolic elements, considering the fact that it is the first novel written by Virginia Woolf. In this part, the emphasis is laid on characters and events that have symbolic importance. In Symbolism in To the Lighthouse, the novel consisting of three parts is studied in terms of symbolism. This part aims to enlighten the extremely complicated structure of the novel and attempts to discover some of its symbolic elements. In A Comparison of the Symbolic Elements in The Voyage Oat and To the Lighthouse, various symbolic elements shared by both novels are handled, taking into consideration the fact that these novels naturally have some common features since they are created by the same author. In Conclusion, the insights that are derived in the analyses of The Voyage Out and To the Lighthouse are presented. And it is concluded that these two novels by Virginia Woolf are not totally different from each other although they were written at different periods of her literary career.