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.

Lily Versus Mrs. Ramsay on a Hierarchical Level

Doyle, Laura. "These Emotions of the Body: Intercorporeal Narrative in To the Lighthouse." Twentieth Centure Literature Spring (1994): 42-71. Print.

Doyle expresses her view that the narration in the novel shows many different perspectives of time and of reality. By discussing the three-dimensionality of the world in which the readers live, she shows how this view can make the aspect of time in the novel more understandable. Using many different examples from the novel where the narration illustrates a gap of time, such as how Doyle uses when Lily is reflecting on her picture in the final part of book to show that Lily’s thoughts are complex and appeal to both the temporal and spatial dimensions of the present. To support her view that the narration displays reasoning’s of reality, she uses an example of how Mrs. Ramsay seems to be a mirror for the other characters. “The vision of the world as absolute other, rather than as our connection to each other, makes it a mirror that can only throw us back on ourselves.” (62) Doyle fully expresses that she feels that the narration in To the Lighthouse is complex and has many different insights into the world and the views of the time, such as how Lily is not the female that Mrs. Ramsay is within the patriarchal society. She offers a lot of support in her view and proves her argument to be plausible.

Throughout her article, Doyle shows Lily’s significance in the narrative of the novel; however she does not directly explain how Woolf’s writing style changes while Lily’s consciousness is being written. Doyle tells of how Lily’s epiphanym when she is completing her painting in the final part of the novel, is representative of what Woolf practiced throughout the novel. “The narrator/painter must discover herself as both inhabiter of objects and inhabitant – beside those objects – of an intercorporeal world.” (64) This specific example shows how Lily’s painting is a significant object in the novel because it is key in understand the narration style of Woolf. Doyle shows that it is not necessarily that Lily’s consciousness is narrated differently than the other characters in the novel, but that, in her thoughts, Lily is able to show the artistic aspect of the novel. According to Doyle, having Lily painting creates a connection between Woolf and Lily that shows how Woolf feels about the artistic realm. In her painting, Lily is able to broaden the spectrum of making art a physical sensation, which is seemingly what Woolf is trying to do in her novel.