“One of us will have to go”

“One of us will have to go” is an Oscar Wilde allusion that the narrator attaches to a bedside lamp and later recalls while thinking about Clare Cavendish. Its return links an ordinary, unwanted object to his unsettled feelings and his repeated effort to persuade himself that certain attachments should be left behind.

The Lamp and the Allusion

The phrase arises as the narrator considers a lamp with amateurishly painted roses, one of the many knickknacks accumulated by Mrs. Paloosa. He says the lamp is not precious to him, yet it is the last thing he sees at night, and its image lingers after he switches it off. Thinking of Wilde’s wallpaper in the room where he was dying, he recalls the line “One of us will have to go.” The allusion makes the prospect of removing the lamp sound like a small, domestic version of a more serious parting.

Recurrence Alongside Clare

After reflecting on whether to abandon the investigation into Nico Peterson, his sister, and the Cahuilla Club, the narrator singles out Clare as the one connection he cannot easily put aside. He thinks again of the painted roses and concludes that the shade will have to go. The lamp thus returns at a moment when he recognizes that his attachment to Clare complicates his attempt to disengage from the case.

Later, after Clare has left, the narrator lies awake beside the lamp, watching its shadows on the walls while thinking about her. He tells himself that letting her go was right, citing the difference in their wealth and circumstances; he also compares his reluctance to marry Linda Loring with the same distance he feels from women of Clare’s social position. The recurring object accompanies these rationalizations without resolving them: the narrator keeps returning to thoughts of Clare even as he insists that the connection should end.

Meaning and Narrative Function

The expression gains force through repetition rather than through a dramatic decision. At first it is attached to a piece of unwanted household clutter; later, the lamp and its roses reappear when the narrator confronts feelings he cannot simply dismiss. The parallel does not make the lamp and Clare equivalent, but it gives the phrase an understated double edge: something may need to go, while the narrator’s attention keeps bringing it back into view. The allusion therefore binds a mundane detail to the novel’s pattern of attempted separation and lingering attachment.