ABSTRACT
Artistic creation appears as a sort of double of madness, very close and yet distinct. Virginia Woolf's first crisis of madness and first suicide attempt followed closely on the death of her mother, and it is generally considered that they were provoked by the shock of losing an object too much loved. The writing of To the Lighthouse seems to have coincided with Virginia Woolf's becoming conscious of certain things which she previously refused. The evil side of maternal protection appears fairly clearly within To the Lighthouse. The world of To the Lighthouse is much less broken up, much more serene than that of Mrs Dalloway. For within painting two aspects oppose and complement each other. Art is not only a discharge of aggressivity, but simultaneously an attempt at reparation, a will to fill in an empty space, to close the wounds opened in the maternal body.
