the reader as to whether an external conversation has actually taken place, or simply an internal passage of thought. Characters habitually dispute issues with others, in rehearsal. Thought fades into speech as though the two were not perceived as distinct. To blur the honourable distinctions between "*she*-"* *+"*thought, she said*-"* and *+"*she did*-"* is to place a giant question mark over the whole field of novelistic perception. Arguing through in Part One, Section 6 the same old issue of visiting the lighthouse, Mr and Mrs Ramsay's speech is not mapped by the conventional signals of punctuation:'There wasn't the slightest possible chance that they could go to the Lighthouse to-morrow, Mr Ramsay snapped out irascibly.How did he know? she asked. The wind often changed.'The status of the utterances here is indeterminate between direct speech and reported speech, and indeed implies a blurring of modes. Absence of quotation marks and use of the past tense indicate reported speech; but the form in which the conversation is laid out on the page suggests the immediacy of direct speech. It is only in the next paragraph when Mr Ramsay comes out with the oath 'Damn you' that the prose registers the shock of impact by breaking out of this pattern to punctuate with quotation marks. A number of subtle effects are generated by this finely nuanced grammar. One is to emphasise that what is important in the conversation is not what is said but how it is heard. How Mrs Ramsay and the eavesdropping James perceive Mr Ramsay's utterance is more important than what he is saying for its own sake.wersdf ...
