The Eye, the Mind & the Spirit: Why "the look of things" Held a "great power" Over Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf was fixated on vision, the actual act of seeing and the concentrated observation of objects and surroundings, so much so that she professed, "The look of things has a great power over me." Utilizing a psychoanalytic framework put forth by Charles Mauron—adapted from Freud for Mauron's study Introduction to the Psychoanalysis of Mallarmé—and examining predominantly but not solely moments of observation in To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway, and the diaries, I analyze moments in which Woolf's preoccupation with seeing makes itself visible, and explore why, precisely, the look of things held a great power over her.