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Only Relations: Vision and Achievement in To the Lighthouse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Thomas G. Matro
Thomas G. Matro*
Affiliation:
Rutgers University New Brunswick, New Jersey
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Abstract

Roger Fry's notions of the artist's unique vision and of the aesthetic design that captures that vision have long been acknowledged as primary influences on To the Lighthouse. Consequently, for most commentators, the novel's closing events signify the achievement of a transcendent “oneness” or a perceptual balance captured in art but rarely experienced in life. Examination of repeated patterns of style and narrative progression shows that the design of the artist Lily's vision—one of unresolved ambivalence and estrangement rather than unity—is no different from that of the other characters, and this vision is the one caught in Lily's painting and reflected in all aspects of the novel. Woolf exploits Fry's theories to probe the desire for unity or “oneness” in personal and aesthetic relations, but she finds refuge, finally, in the act, not the result, of invention, in perception itself “before anything is made of it.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 99 , Issue 2 , March 1984 , pp. 212 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1984

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