Lily’s Painting: The Unity of the Novel

Levenson, Michael. "From the Epic To the Lighthouse." Modernism and the Fate of Individuality.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 202-216. Print.

In this section of his essay, Levenson argues the resemblance of Ulysses and To the Lighthouse. He shows that there is a common ground between the two novels in the way they were written even though Woolf did not like Joyce or his writing in Ulysses, she took up a few of his characteristics in her writing. Levenson express his thoughts that this novel, “raises doubts about novelistic form from the standpoint of the sonnet – what are we to make of this?” (204-205) In having this mindset of the novel, he is able to decipher the novel into a complex arrangement of artistic processes such as the thoughts of the major female characters showing the common theme of women and time. Explaining that in the era that To the Lighthouse was written, many philosophers felt that there was a direct relationship between time and women, and Levenson is able to show that he feels Woolf showed this in her novel as well. In this connect of time and women, there was also a sense of unity or disunity that the novel offered. Giving an example of when Mrs. Ramsay was sitting at the table and observing that there was not any unity present, that everyone was separate, he is able to show the concern for unity. In his arguments Levenson seems to be knowledgeable about the subject, and supports his view that Woolf took a few ideas from Joyce’s novel Ulysses, even if she used the ideas to counteract Joyce’s beliefs.

Levenson shows that, through the female characters in the novel, Woolf is able to display her rejection of the male led, patriarchal society. Specifically, the use of Lily stands out against the use of the other key female characters, such as Mrs. Ramsay and Mrs. McNab. Using Lily’s painting as a guiding tool to look at how Woolf represent her rejection of how she did not approve of the way that society looked at females, Levenson gave insight into why Lily seems to be exalted more so than the other female characters in the novel. He showed that throughout the novel Lily’s painting is referred to in many different ways that promote Woolf’s view of mankind such as when she is talking of how her painting will one day be destroyed. At the end of the novel, when Lily completes her painting and draws the final line, Levenson says that it “…when in the book’s final motion, the drawing of a line, To the Lighthouse transforms its linear progress into one perceptible shape, and a soliloquy in solitude becomes the collective voice of the novel.” (216) Clearly, Levenson feels that Lily brings the novel together and creates the unity that the narration needs to the work of art that Woolf made it to be, and that it is not necessarily that Woolf changed her style completely when narrating Lily’s consciousness, but that Lily’s thoughts are more complex and more similar to those of Woolf.