Viewing Lily Grammatically

Saunders, Rebecca. "Language, Subject, Self:Reading the Style of To the Lighthouse." Novel: A Forum on Fiction (1993): 192-213. Print.

Saunders looks at the narration in a grammatical viewpoint. Throughout her essay she argues that there are places in the novel where there is not a distinct narrator or character thinking, and she calls this unclaimed consciousness. She goes on to discuss Woolf’s use of objects of prepositions as well as constructions and how Woolf uses the pronoun “one”. To display support her argument in favor of her point of view, Saunders references multiple passages in the novel, such as when Lily refers to herself as “one” as she is fighting with herself over letting anyone see her painting. Saunders feels that many critics judge Woolf in to fast of a manner, that Woolf has a style that should be taken seriously because the ideas that are present within her style are challenging and different in To the Lighthouse versus her other novels, and that she was not simply trying to disguise her bourgeois aestheticism. She acknowledges that her point of view is different than many other critics of Woolf; however, she argues her points with professionalism and optimism not caring what others feel is the style that Woolf tried to write To the Lighthouse in.

Using many different examples of Lily in her arguments, Saunders displays that she feels that Woolf does not alter her form of narration with only Lily, but also with the other characters. She goes on to show that Lily is a significant character in that Lily is able to illustrate Woolf’s style in a way different than many of the other characters because of her artistic sense of the world. By bringing up multiple instances of when Lily’s artistic reasoning is displayed in the novel, such as when she talks of how a chair and a table are themselves and it is a miracle, Saunders is able to show how Woolf used Lily as an instrument in her writing style. The examples that she presents of Lily show how important of a character she is and the different styles that Woolf uses in the narration when Lily is the focal point. A particular instance that Saunders uses to show the use of the pronoun “one” is important in how she shows that Lily is a critical character in Woolf’s style by quoting the novel when Lily is referring to what Mrs. Ramsay would send to the lighthouse in the final section of the novel. Saunders, without straightforwardly saying the Lily is one of the more significant characters in the book, is able to show it through her arguments.