Reading Nietzsche After Nietzsche Net

8/12/2019 Reading Nietzsche After Nietzsche Net

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the limitless uni/ue /ualities of the ob#ects that occupy it! "hus in Dionysian thought

meaningful relationships between ob#ects are based on their shared presence in the moment and

their shared interactions with the force of change that both generates and destroys!

Interestingly and somewhat counterintuiti$ely Nietzsche+s descriptions of these modes of

thought re$eal how the Apollonian effort to preser$e meaning across time has the destructi$e

effect of eliminating in#ivi#ual "eaning while the Dionysian embrace of the $ery transitoriness

of the ob#ect and the moment opens up a wealth of new meanings based on an e1ploration of the

ways in which these ob#ects na$igate the force of change!

4ur readings of 5roust and 6oolf because of the concern in their wor. for locating the

meanings of ob#ects and e1periences as they relate to the ine$itable passing of time can be

informed by Nietzsche+s writings on the Dionysian and the Appollonian!

"he first section of To the Lighthouse entitled ,"he 6indow - e1plores the thoughts and

e1periences of $arious characters paying close attention to the ways in which the characters

deri$e satisfaction and meaning from their e1periences in relation to one another! In the

following passage for e1ample 7ily 8riscoe and 6illiam 8an.es share the e1perience of

watching a boat on the water:

"hey both felt a common hilarity e1cited by the mo$ing wa$es; and then

by the swift cutting race of a sailing boat which ha$ing sliced a cur$e in the bay

stopped; shi$ered; let its sails drop down; and then with a natural instinct to

complete the picture after this swift mo$ement both of them loo.ed at the dunes

far away and instead of merriment felt come o$er them some sadness22 because

the thing was completed partly and partly because distant $iews seem to outlast


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psychological or philosophical systems these inherent meanings are in fact far more resilient!

"he reality of the natural world is secure: man+s attempts to fit nature into an ordered sub#ecti$e

structure of meaning can ha$e no effect on a world ,entirely at rest!-

"he security of the natural world in this passage contrasts with the transitoriness of

meaning that 7ily and 6illiam 8an.es e1perience! "he image of the sailboat letting fall its sails

indicates a completion of an action; the phrase ,swift cutting race- suggests the briefness and the

ine$itable end of all purpose and intention22 as a race only e1ists by its $ery ending and only in

being won and thus in being e1hausted of significance comes to be completed so any purpose

by definition e1ists to be fulfilled and in being fulfilled is at once emptied! In such a way this passage addresses one of Nietzsche+s main concerns in his discussion of the Apollonian and the

Dionysian the concern with time and the temporality of e1istence! It is a realization of the

temporariness of human meaning and e1perience by 7ily that re$eals the permanent meaning of

nature and the world in itself!

"he middle section of 6oolf+s no$el To the Lighthouse entitled ,"ime 5asses- describes

the changes that occur to the Ramsay family+s summer house as the house stands abandoned for

years after rs! Ramsay+s death! "he characters whose thoughts and actions populate the first

section of the no$el ,"he 6indow - disappear for most of ,"ime 5asses - reflecting the general

concern of each section: whereas ,"he 6indow- e1plores how meaning is created by the human

sub#ect ,"ime 5asses- e1amines how meaning both continues and fails to function in the

absence of a thin.ing percei$ing sub#ect!

In spring the garden urns casually filled with wind2blown plants were

gay as e$er!


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there loo.ing before them loo.ing up yet beholding nothing eyeless and so

terrible! %To the Lighthouse$ p! ='9*

As in the pre$ious passage 6oolf presents the ob#ecti$e world in great detail naming the types

of flowers growing in the garden; the mentions of ,spring- and ,the brightness of day-

emphasize the gaiety that would be percei$ed by a human $iewer! >owe$er without a percei$er

to comprehend and categorize them the /ualities of ,stillness- and ,brightness- that would be

meaningful to the human mind remain ,strange as the chaos and tumult of the night!- 6oolf

represents the uni$erse as a dichotomy between a natural primordial chaos that e1ists beyond the

scope and time of human society and a meaningful but artificially constructed human reality; heruse of images of dar.ness and light to describe the chaotic natural world and the human world

respecti$ely suggests the absolute importance of per eption in the generation of human meaning!

Dar.ness after all cannot be seen and is in fact defined by the $ery way in which it resists sight

and thus pre$ents the generation of .nowledge while light allows for perception and thus opens

the way to the creation of meaning! "hus whate$er is not percei$ed by a human sub#ect remains

entirely chaotic as the signs of the coming spring season in 6oolf+s passage that might under

other circumstances be percei$ed as gay and bright remains ,strange!- "he final image of the

passage which describes the unthin.ing unpercei$ing trees as ,terrible - performs a sub#ecti$e

interpretation of the e1perience of chaotic reality! "he narrator of this passage ac.nowledges the

reality of a natural chaos that e1ists entirely outside human .nowledge and is unable to resist

ma.ing a sub#ecti$e $alue #udgment upon this reality suggesting the impossibility of a true

comprehension of reality by human thought; the human sub#ect will ine$itably interfere in and

alter the perception of reality it renders!

6oolf+s no$el then can be understood as addressing Nietzsche+s concepts of the


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Apollonian and Dionysian worlds as discussed in the introduction to this paper! 8oth passages

from To the Lighthouse discussed abo$e demonstrate the way in which 6oolf draws meaning out

of the $ery obliteration of ob#ects and perceptions: 7ily+s perceptions and emotions are transient

and the human perceptions of the house and its garden are completely eliminated but the passing

of these temporary human meanings is necessary in order to re$eal a glimpse of ob#ecti$e truth

that they co$er namely the reality of chaos and dar.ness a reality that resists human

understanding: the Dionysian ocean of simultaneous destruction and creation in which meaning

only e1ists without shape or form! "he characters in To the Lighthouse consistently e1perience

what Nietzsche might describe as the Apollonian an1iety of attempting to pro$iding structure andmeaning to a chaotic world22 in a sense this $ery struggle that of the indi$idual wor.ing to

contain the immensity of the uni$erse within his or her limited sub#ecti$e e1perience can be

understood as the primary conflict of the no$el!

?arly in ,"he 6indow- rs! Ramsay e1periences the power of the chaos of the ocean:

,this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the other sounds suddenly thundered

hollow in her ears and made her loo. up with an impulse of terror!- In this moment she

recognizes a reality underneath that which she normally e1periences that of the Dionysian

chaos but it is a reality that seems to be ,hollow- or without meaning! "his recognition of the

hollowness of ob#ecti$e truth poses a threat to the familiar concepts of human meaning %as

earlier in the passage rs! Ramsay imagines the wa$es causing ,the destruction of the island

and its engulfment in the sea-* and thus generates a negati$e sensation of fear!

It seems that 6oolf fully recognizes Nietzsche+s categories of Dionysian and Apollonian

recognizes in other words the chaotic nature of the uni$erse upon which human beings impose

through thought and language the artificial structures of their societies and personal


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perspecti$es! >owe$er 6oolf engages with these categories in a different manner and with a

different attitude than Nietzsche! Nietzsche e1presses through his writing a desire to embrace

,the world as it is without subtraction e1ception or selection- % The Will to Power$ &'(&* and a

$iew of human consciousness as mere illusion caused by the appearance of causality; he writes

of ,the absurd o$erestimation of consciousness the transformation of it into a unity an entity:

+spirit + +soul + something that feels thin.s wills- % The Will to Power$ 3=)*! "o Nietzsche any

assertion of the Apollonian human perspecti$e must necessarily perform $iolence against the

Dionysian truth! 6oolf in contrast $iews the ,triumph of Apollo - the acti$ity of human

consciousness and creati$ity in a chaotic world as something to be celebrated! ?ach of the threesections of To the Lighthouse e1plores the challenges faced by human characters as they attempt

to assert their indi$idual wills and structured perspecti$es upon a fluid chaotic world! In ,"he

6indow- the dinner party that occurs near the end of the boo. wor.s as a figuration of the great

conflict between structured Apollonian human unity and the chaos of the world; ,they were all

conscious of ma.ing a party together in a hollow on an island; had their common cause against

that fluidity out there- % To the Lighthouse p! &(@*! It is upon the success of this dinner party that

the characters+ senses of happiness and fulfillment depends! Indeed the entire no$el ends with

7ily+s $ictorious assertion of structure upon the natural world as she completes her wor. of art :

,with a sudden intensity as if she saw it clear for a second she drew a line there in the centre-

%To the Lighthouse$ p! 9&'*! "he way in which 6oolf aligns the human capacity to achie$e

personal fulfillment with the e1pansion and maintenance of human structures of meaning upon a

chaotic world suggests that in contrast with Nietzsche+s perspecti$e it is in the $ery imposition

of human sub#ecti$ity that meaning can be created! 6hereas Nietzsche interprets human thought

as a process that ignores and thus eliminates the uni/ueness of each transcient moment and of the


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boundless reality occupying that moment 6oolf understands the process of generating

Apollonian meaning as being more $aluable than the recognition the reality of the unstructured

world! ltimately the disagreement between Nietzsche and 6oolf can be understood as being

based in a difference of priority: whereas 6oolf+s argument uses the tendencies of human nature

as a measure of $alue22 essentially arguing that the $alue of the ob#ecti$e world comes from its

ability to ser$e human sub#ecti$ity22 Nietzsche prioritizes an understanding and acceptance of

the inherent chaos of the uni$erse! 6oolf understands the imposition of meanings upon the world

as a testament to the power courage and $alue of the human sub#ect22 she understands human

meaning to be arbitrary and artificial but recognizes the e1pression of energy in the process ofcreating meaning as being itself a sort of absolute meaning22 while Nietzsche ta.es the

artificiality of human meaning to be proof of its insignificance!

5roust addresses the relationship between perception and reality in his no$el Swann's

Way! In particular 5roust e1plores the nature of the process by which indi$iduals create

meaningful e1perience! "he following passage in which the narrator arcel describes his se1ual

e1periences as a youth illustrates some of 5roust+s ideas about uni/ueness and $alue:

I was still and must for long remain in that period of life when one has

not yet separated the fact of this sensual pleasure from the $arious women in

whose company one has tasted it when one has not yet reduced it to a general

idea which ma.es one regard them thenceforward as the interchangeable

instruments of a pleasure that is always the same! % Swann's Way pp! ==&2===*

5roust describes in this passage how ob#ects and the /ualities they possess come to be remo$ed

from one another! "he narrator identifies two $ery different ways he has appreciated the se1ual

pleasure that women ha$e pro$ided for him: as a youth he understood pleasure as belonging


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indi$idually and uni/uely to each of the women with whom he e1perienced it while as an adult

in contrast he e1periences the different moments pleasure he e1periences with each woman as

being the sa"e pleasure ! In fact the adult narrator is able to recognize only the uniformity of all

pleasure; the women ha$e lost their indi$idual $alues and ha$e become mere ,interchangeable

instruments- subordinate to the pleasure itself! 5roust identifies in this passage the same process

Nietzsche associates with the $iolence of Apollonianism: the recognition an ob#ect for its form22

the recognition of which re/uires comparison to other ob#ects22 and for the attributes it shares

with other ob#ects instead of for its uni/ueness and for the $alue of its being in and of itself! In

other words the $alue of a woman can be determined either by her indi$iduality in a Dionysian process in which case the $alue is located ob e tively in the woman herself and in the specific

pleasure she alone can pro$ide or alternati$ely by the e1tent to which she conforms to

sub e tive e&pe tation ! "his latter sort of $alue the Apollonian $alue locates the $alue of an

ob#ect in the sub#ect that percei$es it in a sense obliterating any inherent $alue contained within

the ob#ect itself! In a sense it is this process of creating Apollonian $alue a $alue that prioritizes

the perception of the human sub#ect o$er the reality of the world that 6oolf is interested in

e1ploring and arguably promoting in To the Lighthouse ! In contrast 5roust in Swann's Way

attempts to locate the meaningfulness of e1istence in beauty and comple1ity of the Dionysian

world

In Swann's Way 5roust figures the Dionysian appreciation of life as it is as a celebration

through emotional and sensory attenti$eness and through description of nature and of ob#ects; as

the abo$e passage illustrates this Dionysian mode is associated closely for 5roust with

childhood while Apollonian categorization is associated with the adult world! In fact 5roust

$iews the adult world particularly the world of society as being formed entirely of sub#ecti$e


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perception! In fact he often measures the $alue of an ob#ect is by considering the amount of

sub#ecti$e memories and feelings that the ob#ect yields; the e$ocation of these memories and

feelings howe$er are distinctly treated not as a manipulation of the ob#ect by the sub#ect+s fitting

it into a specific function but rather as a way in which the ob#ect comes to e1ert its power o$er

the percei$ing sub#ect! In other words in 5roust the relationship between the human percei$er

and the thing being percei$ed is not one of domination by the sub#ect of a submissi$e ob#ect; it is

rather a cooperati$e process in which the mutual energy of the percei$er and the ob#ect come

together to produce a comple1 and continually changing set of perceptions memories thoughts

and feelings"he following description of a stained2glass window demonstrates the comple1ity of the

relationship between the human percei$er and ob#ect he percei$es:

"here was one among them which was a tall panel composed of a hundred

little rectangular panes of blue principally li.e an enormous pac. of cards of the

.ind planned to beguile Bing Charles


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energy of the sun22 ,because a ray of sunlight had gleamed through it-22 or is an effect of his

,own shifting glance!- In other words the powers of ob#ecti$ity represented here by the

sunlight and of arcel+s sub#ecti$ity are confused! arcel ne$er determines the cause of the

change and seems in fact /uite unconcerned with doing so; he is much more interested in the

effect itself! 5roust describes in e1/uisite detail arcel+s perception of the colorful window; by

comparing the window to a ,peacoc.+s tail-22 a li$ing animal22 and using $erbs such as

,/ui$ered- and ,streamed- that generate a sense of motion and energy 5roust emphasizes /uite

dramatically the $itality the window seems to possess! "o young arcel the window has a

tremendous effect and causes him e$en to reinterpret his surroundings! In a re$ersal of thetraditional Apollonian sub#ectEob#ect relationship in which it is the sub#ect that acts upon the

ob#ect fitting the ob#ect into a predetermined structure of meanings and eliminating the ob#ect+s

uni/ueness in this moment in Swann's Way it is the $ery ob#ect with which arcel interacts22 the

stained2glass window22 that subordinates him using its power to remo$e him from the church

and placing him into a ,grotto glowing with sinuous stalactites!- It is almost as if the passage

under consideration is a description of the combination of arcel+s perception of the window and

the window+s perception of arcel!

5roust finds $alue in the processuality of perception in the une1pected way that out of

the brief sub#ecti$e perception of a seemingly simple ob#ect can spring an infinity of e1periences

and emotions; this process is e1plored in the narrati$e structure of Swann's Way in which

sensory perceptions emotional recollections character portraits and stories are continuously

interwo$en! In other words to 5roust meaning is generated not out a sense of direction towards a

goal of structure and .nowledge but rather out of an understanding of the $ery transcience of

e1perience and .nowledge22 ob#ects are understood as being connected not by similarity of


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/uality or form %a $ertical metaphorical similarity that effecti$ely preser$es a broad category or

attribute o$er time* but by similarity of situation or conte1t %a horizontal metonymic similarity

of being connected by place and action of simply being alive and present or in Nietzsche+s

terms of possessing ,the eternal will to procreation to fruitfulness to recurrence; the feeling of

the necessary unity of creation and destruction-*! "his is in contrast with the way meaning is

defined in 6oolf+s To the Lighthouse in which as discussed abo$e $alue is generated through

the effort of the human sub#ect to contain the ob#ect within structures of intellectual and social

thought an effort which has the effect of resisting the destructi$e effects of time!

?$en the titles of the two no$els Swann's Way and To the Lighthouse$ when we e1aminethe significance of the image to which each title refers in the broader conte1t of each no$el

reflect the great philosophical differences between them! "he title To the Lighthouse references a

trip to the island lighthouse near the Ramsay+s house the feasibility of which is /uestioned

throughout ,"he 6indow - that is made only near the $ery end of ,"he 7ighthouse - the final

section of the no$el! "he title Swann's Way refers to a path one of two along which the narrator

ta.es fre/uent wal.s with his family! 8oth titles refer to #ourneys22 both no$els are after all

about the ,#ourney- of the human sub#ect attempting to disco$er the meaning of e1perience22 but

the two #ourneys are remar.ably different! 6oolf+s #ourney is unidirectional a mo$ement from

one place to another without return and with a spe ifi goal in mind; perhaps most significantly

it is a #ourney that e1ists for most of the no$el entirely in the future! "his suggests the inherent

unachie$ability of 6oolf+s Apollonian generation of meaning22 its $ery e1istent depends on the

conflict between human reason and natural chaos! 5roust in contrast embraces natural chaos and

the transcience of sub#ecti$e thought! 5roust+s #ourney is circular; the starting point and the

ending point are the same22 arcel+s home at Combray! In other words it is a #ourney without a


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goal %or a #ourney with a goal that is being constantly achie$ed* a #ourney for the pure sa.e of

en#oyment the significance of which is located not in a specific future destination to be reached

but rather in the continually recurring present moment of the #ourney and in the details and

pleasures to be found inhabiting that moment:

!!!a sound of echoless footsteps on a gra$el path a bubble formed against

the side of a water2plant by the current of the stream and instantaneously

bursting22 all these my e1altation of mind has borne along with it and .ept ali$e

through the succession of the years while all around them the paths ha$e

$anished and those who trod them and e$en the memory of those who trod themare dead! %Swann's Way$ p!=3)*

"hus it is apparent that 5roust in Swann's Way and 6oolf in To the Lighthouse though they are

both concerned with meaning and the relationship of the human sub#ect to the world e1plore the

problems in mar.edly different ways!


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6or.s Cited

Nietzsche 0riedrich! The Will to Power New For.: Random >ouse &)G !

5roust arcel! (n Sear h of Lost Ti"e$ )olu"e *: Swann's Way New For.: Random

>ouse =''9!

6oolf arcourt 8race H Company &)33!


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