To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Author: Virginia Woolf

Virginia Stephen was born in 1882 to the eminent scholar Leslie Stephen and his wife, Julia Duckworth
Stephen. With children from previous marriages, the family was an extended one of seven children,
growing to eight (the same size as the Ramsay family inTo the Lighthouse) with the subsequent birth of
another child, Adrian. Many elements in To the Lighthouse have their basis in Woolf's biography. The
Stephen family spent many summers at Talland House in Cornwall when Woolf was a child (Webb 12). At
Talland House there were extensive gardens and an excellent view of a lighthouse. Woolf's contemporaries
recognized in Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay accurate portraits of Woolf's parents, Julia and Leslie Stephen. When
Woolf's sister Vanessa read the manuscript of the novel, she called it "an amazing portrait of mother," and
she "found the rising of the dead almost painful" (Woolf, Diary 106). Like Mrs. Ramsay, Julia Stephen died
young, when Woolf was a teenager. Woolf's grief over her mother's death led to her first bout with the
mental illness that would return several times during her life and eventually lead to her suicide in 1941.

Most of Woolf's education came from private tutors rather than formal instruction. When her brother Thoby
attended Cambridge, Virginia began to interact with his circle of friends. It is this group of artists and
writers (and miscellaneous other professionals) that became known as the Bloomsbury Group, named for
the neighborhood in which the friends lived and met for conversation (Webb 24). Virginia's sister Vanessa,
a painter, married one of Thoby's friends, Clive Bell, in 1906; Virginia married Leonard Woolf, another
writer from the same circle, in 1912. She also maintained a series of close, romantic relationships with
women throughout her life, of which her bond with Vita Sackville-West is the most famous.

Woolf's first published works were articles and reviews. In 1915 she launched her literary career with the
publication ofThe Voyage Out, a novel that combines conventional elements with hints of the
experimentation which would later become her hallmark. She refined her writing style with Mrs. Dalloway,
published in 1925, and went on to perfect it in her most famous work, To the Lighthouse (Woolf, Diary
101). In 1917 the Woolfs started a small press from their home, The Hogarth Press, which they used to
publish their own writing as well as many interesting works of the period, including translations of Russian
literature and the work of Sigmund Freud.

Although Woolf was a well-known writer during her own time, it was only with the emergence of
feminism in the 1970s that she achieved the status she now enjoys as a major literary figure. In particular
Woolf is considered the patron saint of literary femininity by lay readers and scholars alike; her 1929 essay,
A Room of One's Own (which postulates that a woman must have a room of her own and five hundred
pounds a year in order to write), is considered an important feminist text. Woolf's life and works continue
to be scrutinized by scholars.

Bibliography

Novels:
The Voyage Out (1915)
Night and Day (1919)
Jacob's Room (1922)
Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
To the Lighthouse (1927)
Orlando (1928)
The Waves (1931)
Flush (1933)
The Years (1937)
Between the Acts (1941)
Short Fiction:
Kew Gardens (1919)
Monday or Tuesday (1921)
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories (1943)
Essays:
Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown (1923)
The Common Reader: The First Series (1925)
A Room of One's Own (1929)
Letter to a Young Poet (1932)
The Common Reader: Second Series (1932)
Three Guineas (1938)
The Death of the Moth (1942)
The Moment and Other Essays (1947)
The Captain's Deathbed and Other Essays (1950)
Granite and Rainbow (1958)
Other Writing:
Roger Fry: A Biography (1940)
A Writer's Diary (1953)
Freshwater: A Comedy (1976)

Characters

Mrs. Ramsay - a fifty-year-old woman of the upper class who has eight children and a talent for hostessing
Mr. Ramsay - a philosopher known for his books and lectures
James - "the Ruthless," the Ramsays' youngest son, age six at the start of the novel
Cam - "the Wicked," the Ramsays' youngest daughter
Rose - the Ramsays' daughter who has a talent for arranging flowers
Prue - "the Fair," the Ramsays' eldest daughter, who grows into a beauty and eventually dies in childbirth
Andrew - "the Just," the Ramsays' eldest son, who has a talent for math and is killed in World War I
Jasper - the Ramsays' son, who likes to shoot birds
Roger - the Ramsays' son
Nancy - the Ramsays' daughter
Lily Briscoe - artist friend of the Ramsays who never marries
Charles Tansley - "the atheist"; he is of a poor background and is a student of Mr. Ramsay's
Augustus Carmichael - a hoary old poet who smokes opium
William Bankes - Mr. Ramsay's friend from youth, a widower
Minta Doyle - a young woman friend who flirts with Mr. Ramsay and marries Paul Rayley
Paul Rayley - a young man who marries Minta Doyle
Badger - the toothless family dog
Kennedy - the gardener
Marthe (or Marie) - a Swiss girl who serves as a maid for the Ramsays; her father is dying of cancer at
home in Switzerland
Ellen - another maid
Mildred - the Ramsays' nanny and cook
Mrs. McNab - elderly caretaker of the house when the family is away
Mrs. Bast - Mrs. McNab's friend and helper
Macalister - a fisherman who takes Mr. Ramsay and his children to the Lighthouse
Macalister's boy - the son of the fisherman, who rows the boat and catches fish on the way to the
Lighthouse
Mrs. Beckwith - an older lady visitor who sketches
Plot

The work is broken into three parts. The first and longest section, "The Window," depicts a day in the life
of the Ramsays at a summer house on an island in the Hebrides, off the coast of Scotland. The Ramsays are
entertaining several guests. Mrs. Ramsay reads to her son, James, while one guest, an artist named Lily
Briscoe, paints an abstract portrait of Mrs. Ramsay from the lawn. William Bankes admires the painting.
Mr. Ramsay, meanwhile, disappoints his young son by telling him sternly that the weather will not be good
enough for a promised voyage out to the Lighthouse in the bay the next day. He then wanders about the
grounds, thinking about his philosophical work. Two guests, Minta Doyle and Paul Rayley, have taken two
of the Ramsay children, Andrew and Nancy, for a long walk along the shore. When they are late coming
back, Mrs. Ramsay worries about them and wonders whether Paul has proposed to Minta. Mrs. Ramsay
dresses for dinner, and the whole household assembles at the table to partake in a special dish. As it grows
dark outside, the dinner guests enter into hearty conversation by candlelight.

Part two, "Time Passes," follows the slow decline of the summer house after the family has stopped
spending time there. Mrs. McNab, a local woman, comes occasionally to clean, but the sand and sea
breezes conspire to take over the house. Meanwhile, we learn that Mrs. Ramsay has died suddenly. Prue,
the Ramsays' eldest daughter, dies too, in childbirth. World War I casts a tremor over the little house, and
soon Andrew Ramsay is killed in the fighting. Finally, after years have passed, Mrs. McNab gets word that
the family will be coming up to the house. She enlists the help of Mrs. Bast to prepare the house.

In the last section, "The Lighthouse," some of the old guests have assembled at the house. Mr. Ramsay is
forlorn and aged, but he decides to take his two rebellious teenagers (James and Cam) on a sail to the
Lighthouse. Lily sets up her easel on the lawn in order to finish the painting she had begun years ago. She
grieves for Mrs. Ramsay. At the same time, James silently rails against his father in the sailboat speeding
toward the Lighthouse. The boat lands at the Lighthouse, and James and Cam get a look at the tower they
have been admiring from afar for so many years. Meanwhile Lily solves the problem of balance in her
painting and completes it.

Style

To the Lighthouse undermines what were (and to some extent still are) the conventional expectations
attached to novels. Woolf speculated in her diary that she might be writing something other than a novel. "I
have an idea that I will invent a new name for my books to supplant 'novel,'" she wrote. "'A new - by
Virginia Woolf.' But what? Elegy?" (Woolf, Diary 78). Her contemporaries in fact wondered whether her
work was more poetry than fiction, since it seemed to occupy itself with abstract ideas and experimentation
more than with plot and character development (Reid 15).

Woolf was writing in the broad context of modernism, a general movement in art and literature which
called into question standard assumptions regarding the aims and methods of representation. Modernism
was born out of the upheavals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when established ideas
about society, class, gender, and economics were being blown apart both metaphorically and literally (with
the advent of World War I). Modernist writing kept abreast of these changes by seeking new modes of
expression and new subjects for art. In many ways, these new modes broke with expectations for a
"realistic" representation of the world. In other ways, modernism sought to develop a higher sort of realism,
as if more complex forms would allow for the depiction of a more complex and vivid understanding of
reality.

Woolf's original style (what she called her "method") centers on the pattern of thoughts in her characters'
minds, a style often referred to as "stream of consciousness." To the Lighthouse is a complex fabric made
up of different elements: there are mundane events, like dinner parties and ordinary conversations, and
there are sumptuous physical descriptions of ordinary objects and scenes. "Real-time" events, however, are
embedded in layers of emotions, memories, and questions in the characters' minds. Snatches of dialogue
coexist in characters' minds along with lines from books and scenes from the past. The novel explores the
process of human cognition, a complex experience underlying both events and speech, wherein an
existential crisis (for example, Lily's question "What is the meaning of life?" [240]) can happen in the
middle of an insignificant moment.

Yet behind all of the mental chatter in To the Lighthouse there is a guiding narrative hand at work.
Symbolic resonance accrues to images, thoughts, and statements as they are repeated. The novel's structure
also lends form to the chaos of multiple inner monologues. The two major portions of the text, "The
Window" and "The Lighthouse," are joined by the abstract stroke of the center section, "Time Passes," just
as the two masses of color in Lily's painting are finally joined and brought into balance by the addition of a
carefully placed line.

Themes and Motifs

Gender Politics: The novel explores the dynamics between men and women in family, society, marriage,
and even art. Woolf examines the politics of communication within the Ramsays' marriage as well as the
balance of power their well-defined gender roles create. She also looks at the choices available to women
and at the climate of hostility within which women who make atypical choices must work. Lily, for
instance, struggles to go on painting even in spite of admonitions that "women can't paint" (75). This
thematic strain is often labeled "feminist," since Woolf examines traditional gender politics with a critical
eye.
Male and Female Principles: On another level, Woolf engages with more abstract and not necessarily
political issues that address an idea of balance between traditionally male and female attributes in the
spiritual, mythological, and artistic realms. There is something ancient and pagan in Mr. Ramsay's (and
Tansley's and even Lily's) worship of Mrs. Ramsay as an archetypal Madonna or fertility goddess. On this
plane Woolf employs images from many different mythical sources, as well as from Freud (who turned
myths into metaphors for elements of the human psyche).
Class: Issues of class serve as a leitmotif in the novel and seem to run parallel with the politics of gender
that were beginning to emerge during the period Woolf describes. The Ramsays are clearly an upper-class
family, even though money is tight. At the same time both Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay worry about the plight of
poor people, while neither is sure what to do about the problem. Woolf makes clear that the whole fabric of
the Ramsays' family life is supported by a silent caste of lower-class nannies and charwomen (like Mrs.
McNab). Implicitly acceptable in past generations, this reliance had become somewhat more self-conscious
and therefore less stable by the twentieth century.
Art and Creativity: Art takes many forms in the novel, from the paintings made of the scenery by Mr.
Paunceforte's followers to Rose's centerpiece on the dinner table. In particular, Woolf explores different
embodiments of female creativity. Mrs. Ramsay's successful dinner party, for instance, is equivalent to
Lily's painting. Both are considered works of art that succeed in making connection out of disjunction. The
novel's constant attention to the genesis of art and the question of its usefulness (and its endurance) is self-
referential, too, drawing the author's own art into the debate.
Philosophy: Mr. Ramsay is the novel's true philosopher, professionally speaking. There are other kinds of
philosophy at work in the novel as well, however. When Lily asks, "What can it all mean?" she too
becomes a philosopher, engaging in a search for knowledge (217). Mr. Ramsay seeks to conquer the
knowledge by a slow and ruthless campaign (which Woolf describes by means of heroic masculine
metaphors), whereas Lily, and possibly the novel itself, approaches knowledge in a more open-ended way.
Time: Many of the novel's characters are preoccupied with time. Mr. Ramsay worries about how his
philosophical work will stand the test of time, just as Lily expects her painting to be rolled up and
forgotten. The very style of the novel brings time into question as Woolf infuses even a brief moment in an
everyday event, such as reading a story to a child, with an infinitude of thought and memory (Auerbach
529). Meanwhile days, tides, and seasons keep up their rhythms regardless of human events, while
historical time brings cataclysmic change in the form of war. In addition, time brings loss as well as
renewal. Mrs. Ramsay dies, while the children she has left behind (James and Cam) continue to grow.
The Lighthouse: The Lighthouse has a prominent but fluid symbolic place in the novel. It is not the key to
some hidden allegory since it does stand for just one thing. Since each character who contemplates the
Lighthouse gives it a special meaning, its significance in the novel evolves as the sum of different parts.
For the teenaged James, the Lighthouse is a stark symbol of masculinity (a phallic symbol). For Mrs.
Ramsay, the Lighthouse is a watching eye sweeping through her thoughts with a regular rhythm. For
Woolf, the Lighthouse serves as an anchor, a unifying image which ties together the layers of time and
thought she explores. Like the clock striking the hours in her earlier novel Mrs. Dalloway, images of the
Lighthouse act as the "bolts of iron" holding her delicate work of art together (255).

Take Home Point: draws attention to key images, word choices, and events in the text

Exploration Point: has the potential for an essay or paper, or for further research

Theme Alert: provides insight on the theme's emergence at a particular point in the narrative

Quotable: identifies passages that merit close stylistic or narrative analysis

Part One - The Window

Part One, Chapter 1

The novel opens with Mrs. Ramsay's answer to her son's question: he can go on an "expedition" the next
day if the weather is good enough (9).

The novel opens in medias res - in the middle of the action. The question Mrs. Ramsay answers is never
stated but is implied by the answer given. This opening gives the illusory sense of entering a casual family
moment of no consequence, but in fact James's question (which, it can be inferred from the scene that
follows, has to do with an excursion to the Lighthouse) is central to the novel.

James Ramsay, age six, is cutting out pictures from a catalog. His joy about the prospect of an "expedition,"
which he has been looking forward to, colors everything.

Mr. Ramsay, James's father, interrupts his reverie to say that the weather is unlikely to be good the next
day. James's joy turns to violent anger and hatred toward his father. James imagines that his father enjoys
spoiling James's happiness and showing James's mother to be wrong. What he says, however, is always
right.

Gender Politics: A small-scale Freudian drama is enacted in this scene. James's sudden desire to kill his
father in order to protect his mother might be read as an Oedipal struggle, wherein the male child is himself
in love with his mother and sees his father as a threat. Woolf may have had Freud's theory in mind in this
scene, or she may have been drawing on mythological sources. Like Freud, she is interested in the
concentrated emotions and tendencies children display, which are like embryonic versions of their later
adult personalities.

Mrs. Ramsay is knitting a stocking to take to the Lighthouse keeper's son. She plans to gather some
magazines to send, too, since she imagines that the Lighthouse keeper must get extremely bored trapped on
the tiny island.

The Lighthouse: The focus of the planned excursion is not named until this point. Notice that "Lighthouse"
always appears with a capital letter. It is conventional to capitalize words referring to abstractions,
particularly in philosophical writing. This feature has the effect of elevating the significance of the place, as
if "Lighthouse" were an abstract concept like "Truth" or "Death."

Tansley notes that the wind is blowing from the west, the wrong direction for a sail to the Lighthouse. Mrs.
Ramsay is annoyed that Tansley has made her son feel worse. She remembers that the children call him
"the atheist" and generally make fun of him.

Gender Politics: Here Mrs. Ramsay is introduced as a hostess and a protector "of the other sex" (13). She
mentally shelters Charles Tansley from her children's taunts since he is poor and an admirer of her
husband's work. In exchange for protecting men such as Tansley, she receives their chivalrous admiration.

Woolf's method weaves the actual events and dialogue taking place in the room with the character's internal
monologues. For example, Mrs. Ramsay says "Nonsense" out loud, but she is responding more to Nancy's
comment about Tansley (which she has just remembered) than to Tansley's remark (13).

Mrs. Ramsay is fifty now and does not regret her decisions in life. Even though her daughters may have
different ideas for their own lives, they can't help but respect their beautiful and gracious mother.

Gender Politics: The generation gap between Mrs. Ramsay and her daughters is of great historical
importance. The daughters are part of a generation of "infidel ideas" and "mute questioning" (14). They can
imagine broader options for their lives than their mother had been able to. Woolf notes the great rift
occurring at this time (pre-World War I) between established (nineteenth-century) and new (twentieth-
century) ideas about what roles and occupations are proper for a woman of the upper class.

The children do not like Charles Tansley because he likes talking about academic subjects more than
anything else and because he turns every conversation into a demonstration of his merits. Mrs. Ramsay
hates the fact that her children are already so critical and quick to differ with other people.

Class: Mrs. Ramsay is a stereotypical benevolent aristocrat. She wishes to smooth over the differences
between people and is troubled by the divide between rich and poor. She visits and aids the poor, and at the
same time she is immensely proud of her noble blood.
Mrs. Ramsay invites Charles Tansley to accompany her on an errand. She asks Mr. Carmichael if he wants
anything, but he has slipped into an after-lunch reverie. As they set off, Mrs. Ramsay tells Tansley Mr.
Carmichael's history. Tansley enjoys her attention and strives to earn her respect. Mrs. Ramsay spies a
poster for a coming circus, and when she suggests they should go, Mr. Tansley launches into a description
of his poverty-stricken youth and his academic ambitions.

Class: Charles Tansley's pride and insecurity have their root in his lower-middle-class background.

Charles's speech is interrupted when they suddenly come upon the view of the Lighthouse across the bay.
An artist is painting the view in the pastel shades that are currently in fashion, but Mrs. Ramsay remembers
the way it used to be painted by previous generations.

The Lighthouse: The Lighthouse makes its first appearance in the text in very lyrical terms. Notice the
domestic metaphors used to describe the scene (which are perhaps Mrs. Ramsay's associations); the island
is in a "plateful of blue water," and the dunes are arranged in "pleats" (23). The fact that the Lighthouse is a
frequent subject for artists adds to its symbolic import. Since the Lighthouse is depicted in different ways
by different artists, it has no single meaning as a symbol. Perhaps it is meant to be the actual object a
symbol represents (the "meaning" behind a work of art) or a philosophical "thing in itself." By raising these
possibilities for the Lighthouse, Woolf engages both the subject of art (Lily Briscoe's painting, for example)
and the aim of philosophy (Mr. Ramsay's work).

Charles Tansley feels some unusual emotions arising from his walk with Mrs. Ramsay. He realizes it is her
beauty and his pride in being connected to it that make him feel this way.

Male and Female Principles: Woolf examines some primal, mythological power attached to the feminine
here, which stems from Mrs. Ramsay's beauty.

Part One, Chapters 2 and 3

Mrs. Ramsay tries to soothe James's disappointment. While she is looking for a complicated picture for him
to cut out of the catalog, she hears the men outside talking and the children playing cricket. The men stop
talking, and in the rhythm of the waves outside she imagines she can hear some destructive force at work.
Suddenly Mr. Ramsay shouts out a line from the book he is reading, and Mrs. Ramsay turns to see if
anyone has heard. There is only Lily Briscoe there, painting on the lawn. Mrs. Ramsay remembers she is
supposed to be keeping still for Lily's picture.

Art and Creativity; Gender Politics: Here, Mrs. Ramsay is herself the subject of art. As Lily paints her, Mrs.
Ramsay becomes a symbol made to serve a representative function on Lily's canvas. This is a familiar role
for women, who have historically been valued for their symbolic presence in art and literature more than
they have been valued for their independent lives.

Part One, Chapter 4

Mr. Ramsay blusters past Lily shouting lines from his book. She is relieved that he is too absorbed to look
at her painting. She is painting Mrs. Ramsay sitting in the window with James. William Bankes creeps up
beside her, and she does not hide the canvas. They are "allies" (30).

Gender Politics: Lily Briscoe and William Bankes have a relationship based on mutual respect and
admiration and free of the sort of male-female exchange that defines the relations Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay
each have with members of the opposite sex. Bankes is a widower with fastidious habits (i.e., a self-
sufficient man who does not seek a woman's affirmation). Likewise, Lily has all the traits of a practical
spinster (sensible shoes and a plain face).

Lily examines her painting. Her vision of the shapes and colors she sees is clear; it is the act of transferring
that vision to canvas that is tremendously difficult.

Art and Creativity: For Lily, the act of creation is also an act of self-assertion. She must pass from what she
sees in her mind to the actual "work," in the face of incredible self-doubt. Her thoughts here echo the kinds
of anxiety Woolf herself recorded in her diary as she struggled to give shape to her own works.

Lily keeps herself from telling Mrs. Ramsay she is in love with her or in love with her whole milieu.

Art and Creativity: Lily is in love with Mrs. Ramsay's creation, that is, with her whole sphere. "The hedge,
the house [ . . . ] the children" (32) are the domestic work of art Mrs. Ramsay has drawn together from her
own vision. Lily gives the impression that she is comparing her own painting to Mrs. Ramsay's very
different artistry.

Lily puts her brushes away. She and Mr. Bankes walk down to the beach, admiring the scenery. They
watch a sailboat, which is merry, and look out over the dunes. Lily thinks the dunes are sad. Bankes
meanwhile is thinking of Mr. Ramsay. He remembers the early rift in their friendship, when Ramsay
decided to choose the path of "sympathy" (his admiration of a hen and her chicks) and marriage (35). He
marvels at how Ramsay can support eight children "on philosophy," while wishing the children would
show him some affection (36), the way they do Lily.

Lily thinks about Mr. Ramsay's work as a philosopher. Andrew had explained it to her in terms of a kitchen
table, and now she sees the image of that kitchen table in her mind's eye whenever she contemplates his
work.

Mr. Ramsay's philosophical work has to do with "the nature of reality," that is, what actually exists, how
we know it exists, and how we name things that exist. (38). The kitchen table represents a "thing-in-itself"
(as, perhaps, the Lighthouse does). A "thing-in-itself" (a philosophical term) is the embodiment of reality as
it exists on the other side of the seeing eye, the word, the symbol, or the sign. For Mr. Ramsay, the kitchen
table is not an invention of the human mind or of human language; it's a clean-scrubbed entity that has a
solid existence in the universe. Lily's painterly summation of Mr. Ramsay's preoccupation is comic; she
imagines it must take a great amount of effort to block out the luxurious colors and scenery, on such an
evening, in favor of a bare kitchen table. It would be interesting to explore the pedigree of Mr. Ramsay's
ideas, to locate their origins in contemporary schools of thought and philosophers, and to discover the
degree to which his thinking is conservative or radical for the time.
Mr. Bankes tells Lily what he thinks about Ramsay's work. As Bankes is speaking Lily feels a surge of
admiration and respect for him, and at the same time she remembers some of his eccentricities. She
wonders how it is possible to judge someone. She holds him up to Mr. Ramsay: while Mr. Ramsay is
tyrannical and self-absorbed, Mr. Bankes is humble.

Gender Politics: Lily has something of a feminist eye. She notices that Mr. Ramsay "wears Mrs. Ramsay to
death" (40). She recognizes the toll that male "greatness" takes on women and generally refuses to pay such
homage to men herself.

Part One, Chapter 5

Mrs. Ramsay watches Lily and Mr. Bankes go by and has the idea that they might marry. She tries to
measure the stocking she is knitting against James's leg, but he won't remain still. She looks around the
room and notices the shabby things and the unread books she never has time to read. The house is
constantly under siege from the damp and debris of the shore. Mrs. Ramsay tries to keep order by closing
the doors to the rooms and opening the windows to fresh air.

Male and Female Principles: One of the books is inscribed to "the happier Helen of our days," which
connects Mrs. Ramsay to Helen of Troy (43). Mrs. Ramsay's power is bound up in her beauty, embodying
(like Helen) an old, mystical strain of the feminine. She inspires devotion and ardor.

Part One, Chapter 6

Mrs. Ramsay finds the phrase "some one had blundered" in her head (48). Mr. Ramsay approaches, all
vanity and fierceness. She can see he is upset about something and gives him a moment to collect himself.
He recovers himself and teases his son, who resents it. He declares that going to the Lighthouse the next
day is out of the question. He gets angry when Mrs. Ramsay suggests that the wind might change.

Gender Politics: Mr. Ramsay favors rationality above all and thinks Mrs. Ramsay's comment stems from
the "folly of women's minds" (50). Mrs. Ramsay, meanwhile, puts "people's feelings" above all and thinks
Mr. Ramsay's harsh comment is a threat to civilization (51). This is a profound moment of disunity between
the sexes, and both husband and wife scurry to make amends.

Mr. Ramsay goes on strolling and thinking. His orderly mind has ranged through the problems of thought
as if they were letters in the alphabet in order. By this metaphor Mr. Ramsey has confidently gotten as far
as Q. He wonders what comes after Q. The scenery around him, the flowers and the garden, is just a
backdrop to his search for R, which he wishes he could get to; Q is an achievement, but to reach R would
be a great thing. Mr. Ramsey tries but thinks that he will never reach R. He then wonders about his place in
posterity and senses himself in his surroundings and in his life.

Philosophy: Mr. Ramsay's search for philosophical truth is depicted in terms of discovery. He is like an
explorer, leading perilous expeditions into the new territory of R, hoping to conquer R and so achieve
glory. The letter Mr. Ramsey wants to reach, but perhaps cannot, is also the first letter of his (last) name.
This coincidence is suggestive, expanding the metaphor of the pursuit of philosophical knowledge to the
idea of different types of knowledge, for example, self-knowledge versus knowledge of the world. That Mr.
Ramsey feels he cannot get to R could be seen as suggesting a lack self-knowledge.

Part One, Chapter 7

James resents his father's presence and feels his father is coming between him and his mother. Mr. Ramsay
wants reassurance.

Male and Female Principles: The passage that describes the confrontation between Mr. Ramsay's demand
for sympathy and Mrs. Ramsay's comfort is at once sexual and mythical. Mrs. Ramsay's "delicious
fecundity" comforts the "fatal sterility of the male" (58). Woolf evokes a primal mythology here, the Ur-
mythology which underlies later Classical and Christian myth-making and which takes as its focus the
fertile, regenerative power of the female.

Mrs. Ramsay reminds her husband that Charles Tansley thinks he is a genius, comforting her husband as
she has throughout their marriage by making a home for him and filling it with children, proof that he is
fertile and vital.

Gender Politics: Woolf reads the devastation that Mr. Ramsay's demands for sympathy has wrought on his
wife in feminist terms, "So boasting of her capacity to surround and protect, there was scarcely a shell of
herself left for her to know herself by; all was so lavished and spent" (60). This view can be read on several
levels. In personal terms, Mrs. Ramsay has no time for self-knowledge and independent pursuits because
she is so busy being a caretaker. In philosophical terms, she cannot be a subject (an explorer, like Mr.
Ramsay) because her role is to be a symbol or an object for others' use.

Mrs. Ramsay is spent after her encounter with her husband. She goes on reading James a story. She does
not like having to hide things from her husband or to protect him. Mr. Carmichael goes by, and she makes
herself call to him.

Part One, Chapter 8

Mr. Carmichael takes opium, and Mrs. Ramsay thinks he distrusts her. She wonders if her desire to be
admired is vanity.

Mr. Ramsay wonders whether "great men" have much impact on civilization or are superfluous (67). He
imagines himself standing on a shore that the sea is slowly devouring.

Lily wonders whether it is jarring for Mr. Ramsay to leave his lofty thoughts and enter into parlor
conversation.

Part One, Chapter 9

Bankes and Lily continue summing up Mr. Ramsay. Bankes suggests he is hypocritical. Lily privately
thinks he is tyrannical, although she is still "in love" with the whole Ramsay circle (72). She sees Bankes
looking worshipfully at Mrs. Ramsay.
Male and Female Principles: Lily sees the love Bankes has for Mrs. Ramsay as the "love that never
attempted to clutch its object; but, like the love which mathematicians bear their symbols, or poets their
phrases, was meant to be spread over the world and become part of the human gain" (74). Again Mrs.
Ramsay serves as a cipher, a symbol and object of worship and not as an individual in her own right.

Lily looks at her picture and is dismayed. She remembers Tansley telling her that women cannot paint.

Gender Politics: The prejudiced idea that "women can't paint, women can't write [ . . . ]" was a real political
issue for Woolf (75). She treats this issue directly in her essay A Room of One's Own.

Lily reflects on Mrs. Ramsay's power and her belief that women should marry. Lily herself prefers to be
alone, even though her life and her painting seem to her small and insignificant beside Mrs. Ramsay's
domain. She thinks of her love for Mrs. Ramsay and how she had stood hugging her legs and longing to be
united with her and the wisdom she contains in her "secret chambers" (79).

The erotic vocabulary suggests Lily's longing for Mrs. Ramsay is at least partially sexual. Lily has rejected
conventional gender roles in favor of her own freedom, and Woolf suggests here that her sexuality is
equally fluid. Contemporary criticism makes much of Woolf's own romantic and sexual relationships with
women, using biographical material to inform readings of such passages in her novels. The lesbian aspect
of Woolf's art and life is particularly interesting to explore in the context of the other gender issues she
raises in the novel.

Mr. Bankes looks at Lily's picture and asks her what she is trying to represent. She explains it is Mrs.
Ramsay and James in the painting. Bankes is interested and amazed to see mother and child made into an
abstract blur of color. Lily explains her vision of the painting. She knows she must find a way to connect
the two parts of the picture.

Art and Creativity: In the history of painting, and especially in the history of Christian art, the image of
mother and child has the sacred significance of an icon. Lily, a modernist, distills this image into something
nonrepresentational. She aims to preserve the reverence attached to the image but to reduce it to abstract
components of light and color.

Part One, Chapters 10-12

Mrs. Ramsay asks Cam whether Minta, Paul, and Andrew are back from their excursion. They are not.
Cam tells her mother about a woman drinking soup in the kitchen.

This woman in the kitchen is probably Mrs. McNab.

Mrs. Ramsay wonders if Minta and Paul have gotten engaged. It would be improper for Minta to spend
such long afternoons with him if not. She goes on reading to her son and has a fleeting thought about the
work she might like to do - with hospitals, with sanitation - once the children have grown. But she does not
want them to grow up. They are at the happiest point of their lives.

The Lighthouse is lit, and she must tell James he cannot go. She knows he will always remember this.

After James is put to bed Mrs. Ramsay looks forward to some time alone. She spends it knitting and
thinking about life and the dark streak of suffering and death at its core.

The Lighthouse: Mrs. Ramsay incorporates the Lighthouse's regularly appearing light into the pattern of her
thoughts. She recognizes that she is doing this, that she is making the things she sees part of herself, as if
the Lighthouse was an eye looking at her. The lightstrokes also serve to highlight certain cadences in her
thought, heightening their meaning by repetition.

Mr. Ramsay resists interrupting his wife's thoughts (which make her look vulnerable and sad), but she sees
him and goes out to him. The couple strolls in the garden and discusses the greenhouse, Charles Tansley,
and the children. Mrs. Ramsay worries about Andrew being out after dark. Mr. Ramsay waxes nostalgic
about his youth when he would wander the countryside all day, thinking and working. He realizes this is a
thing of the past.

Mrs. Ramsay notices how her husband does not see "ordinary things," such as the flowers she has planted,
or the view, or his children (107). These are a backdrop for his thoughts.

Philosophy: Mrs. Ramsay's thoughts when she is alone comprise the basis of her philosophical perspective,
which has a deep moral component. She rejects the facile comfort of religion (expressed by the phrase that
slips into her thought, "We are in the hands of the Lord" [97]). When she has time to think deeply about
life, she is distressed by the meaningless suffering at the core of it. Her thoughts inspire her actions, giving
her a moral basis for her hostessing (making people comfortable, protecting and nurturing them) as well as
for her volunteer work in the community. Mr. Ramsay, by contrast, thinks of philosophy as a game. While
Mrs. Ramsay is feeling the agony of the universe, he is thinking about the philosopher David Hume being
stuck in a bog. Mrs. Ramsay notes that his "phrase-making was a game," an intellectual exercise rather than
a moral imperative (106).

Part One, Chapters 13 and 15

Lily and Bankes compare notes on their travels. Lily observes the Ramsays as they watch their children
play and sees them as the embodiment of marriage.

Male and Female Principles: Lily observes, with her artist's eye, the easy way she can turn the real Mr. and
Mrs. Ramsay into symbols and then just as easily see them as individuals again.

Mrs. Ramsay learns from Prue that Nancy did go on the expedition.

Part One, Chapter 14

Nancy was made to go on the expedition. When Minta takes her hand, she can imagine great things rising
out of the mist before her. Andrew notices that Minta is more sensible and athletic than other women.
Nancy plays in the tide pools, pretending she is God and blocking the sun from the tiny creatures there.
When the tide comes in she runs up the beach and stumbles upon Paul and Minta kissing. She and Andrew
are annoyed and embarrassed.

Minta discovers that she has lost her grandmother's brooch, and Paul Rayley searches valiantly for it. He
promises to return and look for it in the morning when the tide is out.

Part One, Chapter 15 (See Chapter 13)

Part One, Chapter 16

Mrs. Ramsay dresses for dinner. She lets her children Jasper and Rose choose a necklace for her to wear.
She is still anxious about the missing group and annoyed with them for being late. Boeuf en Daube is on
the menu. While the children try out different necklaces, Mrs. Ramsay looks out the window at two crows
whom she has named Joseph and Mary. They are fighting. As Rose puts her necklace on, she thinks of how
her daughter will suffer as a lady. The missing party returns. The gong is sounded to bring everyone from
all over the house to dinner.

Part One, Chapter 17

Mrs. Ramsay sits at the head of the table and arranges the guests. Meanwhile she is wondering what she has
done with her life and whether she loves her husband. She ladles out the soup and feels disenchanted. The
guests sit separately. The room seems shabby. Mrs. Ramsay engages Mr. Bankes in conversation.

Lily sees Mrs. Ramsay's discouragement.

Note the voyage metaphor is used here:

"Lily Briscoe watched her drifting into that strange no-man's land where to follow people is impossible and
yet their going inflicts such a chill on those who watch them that they always try at least to follow them
with their eyes as one follows a fading ship until the sails have sunk beneath the horizon.

"How old she looks, how worn she looks, Lily thought, and how remote. Then when she turned to William
Bankes, smiling, it was as if the ship had turned and the sun had struck its sails again [ . . . ]" (127).

Mrs. Ramsay then gets wind in her sails as she overcomes her depressing thoughts and makes an effort at
getting the party started. The language of Lily's observation here foreshadows her later view of Mr.
Ramsay's sail to the Lighthouse.

Lily thinks about her picture. She has an idea about how to join the two parts. Meanwhile Charles Tansley
is thinking disparaging thoughts about dressing for dinner and society chit-chat. He blames women for all
this "silliness" (129) and is almost rude to Lily.

Class: Woolf suggests that Tansley's misogyny arises from his feelings of social inferiority. He hasn't
dressed for dinner because he has no nice clothes. He is missing out on the social codes at work here, not
knowing the language behind the polite chatter nor understanding its aim.
Lily can see that Tansley is dying to call attention to himself. She knows she ought to help him out. She
finally gives in and draws Tansley into conversation, spurred on by Mrs. Ramsay's unspoken plea that she
be nice. Tansley tells her about the time he weathered a storm in a lighthouse.

Gender Roles: Lily is very self-aware in her decision not to play along with gender roles.

The Lighthouse: The lighthouse in Tansley's story (note the lowercased l) underscores the isolation a
lighthouse can represent. Tansley's story resonates with Mrs. Ramsay's thoughts of isolation.

The guests talk about the poor fishing season and criticize the government. Lily and Mrs. Ramsay both feel
bored by the conversation. Augustus Carmichael asks for another plate of soup, which upsets Mr. Ramsay.
He drinks his soup calmly and indifferently, however.

The children light the candles. The centerpiece Rose has made of fruit and shells comes to life.

Art and Creativity: Mrs. Ramsay sees Rose's arrangement as a work of art with mythical significance, a
pagan "trophy fetched from the bottom of the sea" (146). Only she and Mr. Carmichael, the "true poet,"
know how to read and appreciate this piece (145). This work of art is the catalyst for a change in tone in the
dinner party. The lit candles make the table look like an altar, and the events that follow assume a ritual
significance.

The party feels changed suddenly, like a small cozy group banded together against the darkness outside.
Minta and Paul enter, along with the cook bearing the main dish. Minta is glowing and flirts with Mr.
Rayley. Mrs. Ramsay can see they must be engaged. The Boeuf en Daube arrives, and Mrs. Ramsay feels
she is celebrating some festival as she ladles out the savory stew.

Class: While the Boeuf en Daube is Mrs. Ramsay's triumph, her family's heirloom recipe, it is the cook
who has spent three days laboring over it.

Minta tells about her lost brooch. Lily offers to help Paul look for it. The young couple's new love scorches
her. Lily rejects love for herself. Mrs. Ramsay can see that Lily and Tansley look awkward next to Paul and
Minta.

Male and Female Principles: Paul and Minta are like the archetypal bridal couple in some basic rite. Their
presence adds to the fecundity of Mrs. Ramsay's dinner party and promotes the kind of connectedness Mrs.
Ramsay has been striving to create between her disparate guests. Lily sees Mrs. Ramsay as the arbiter of
this match (literally and figuratively), a goddess figure who has "put a spell on them all" (152). The stoic
Mr. Carmichael is her male counterpart.
Mrs. Ramsay relishes the happy moment, which she knows is fleeting. Mr. Ramsay and the others go on to
discuss literature. They speculate about which great works will last. Paul offers Mrs. Ramsay a pear from
Rose's centerpiece, and she is annoyed. He ruins the artistry of it.

Art and Creativity: The dinner party is Mrs. Ramsay's work of art. She recognizes that it is ephemeral but
avows that "of such moments [ . . . ] the thing is made that endures" (158). Even Rose's work of art is
exceedingly fragile, as - in light of the conversation - are "lasting" works, like those of Shakespeare. Still,
even fragile works of art are vehicles for transcendence, since they draw people out of their individual cares
and egos into something larger and more beautiful.

Mrs. Ramsay thinks the voices at the table sound like voices at a Catholic mass. Mr. Ramsay recites poetry.
Mr. Carmichael joins in, and he bows to Mrs. Ramsay. The group then leaves the dining room.

Part One, Chapters 18 and 19

Mrs. Ramsay goes upstairs alone. She finds Cam and James still awake. Cam is afraid of a skull nailed to
the wall, and James won't let her take it down. Mrs. Ramsay soothes them. She wraps her shawl around the
skull and tells Cam it looks like a nest for fairies. James asks again about the Lighthouse. Mrs. Ramsey
hopes Charles Tansley will not drop his books on the floor above and wake the children.

Prue sees her mother on the stairs and admires her. Prue tells her they are going out to the beach, and Mrs.
Ramsay gaily sends them off, asking them if they have a watch, which Paul does. As Paul shows her the
watch he communicates to her that he has proposed to Minta. Mrs. Ramsay does not go with them but joins
Mr. Ramsay, who is reading. She knows he is thinking about literary fame and his own books.

The poetry spoken at dinner still resonates in her mind, and Mrs. Ramsay takes up a book of poetry and
reads. Mr. Ramsay enjoys being alone with his wife and resists interrupting her. Mrs. Ramsay feels him
watching, however, and puts her book down. Soon Mrs. Ramsay can see that her husband wants something.
He wants her to tell him she loves him. She smiles at him and sees that he knows she loves him. She has
told him without speaking.

Part Two - Time Passes

Part Two, Chapters 1 and 2

Mr. Bankes, Lily, Andrew, and Prue return from the beach and turn the light out. Mr. Carmichael stays
awake reading Virgil.

Finally, with the lights all out, darkness takes over and envelops the house and the sleepers within it. Puffs
of air "detached from the body of the wind" pull at the loose wallpaper and the things in the house (190),
the light from the Lighthouse guiding them through the house.

Time; The Lighthouse: The "airs" in this section of the novel are time's fingers. The constant, regular beam
of the Lighthouse is closely allied with time, too, like an all-seeing and immortal eye.

Part Two, Chapter 3

Night follows night, and nature obscures everything in a hailstorm. The sea is stormy and offers no solace
to any nighttime stroller on the beach. Mrs. Ramsay has died.

Throughout this section Woolf uses parenthetical asides to impart important news. The scale of events in
"Time Passes" is much grander than the scale in "The Window," and so Woolf must employ a different
method. Instead of focusing on the thoughts of her characters, she keeps a tight focus on the house itself.
Indeed, it is hard to imagine how such dramatic events as Mrs. Ramsay's death could have been confronted
in the style of "The Window." The subtle, everyday quality of the interactions between events and thoughts
would have been shattered by the introduction of the tumultuous news imparted here.

Part Two, Chapters 4 and 5

The house stands empty and the "airs" play around the rooms, where everything is still and silent. A fold of
Mrs. Ramsay's shawl comes loose from the pig's skull hanging in the children's room.

Mrs. McNab breaks through the silence when she comes to clean. She lurches around the house as if at sea,
singing an old song that is dreary but has some hope in it.

Male and Female Principles: Mrs. McNab is an enigmatic figure here, "toothless" and "witless" but also
timeless (196). The language Woolf uses to describe her gives her a mythical status beyond that of a
middle-aged cleaning lady, as if she were kin to one of the "weird sisters" in Shakespeare, an oracle, or one
of the Fates.

Part Two, Chapters 6 and 7

Spring comes. Prue Ramsay is married. Summer draws near, full of optimism and happiness, but spring
remembers "the sorrows of mankind" (199). Prue dies in childbirth.

The personification of spring here has elements of Mrs. Ramsay in it. Spring is described as beautiful,
wrapped in a cloak (like the one Mrs. McNab finds in Mrs. Ramsay's wardrobe). Spring, like Mrs. Ramsay,
knows the "shadows" of sorrow even in its beauty and exuberance (199).

The slumbering house is jolted later in the summer by strange sounds which crack the tea cups and tinkle
the glasses. A shell explodes in France and kills Andrew Ramsay. Strollers looking to the waves and the
sky for answers find no comfort in nature's beauty. Mr. Carmichael publishes a book of poetry that does
well.

Time: The passage of time in this section of the novel is more than just cyclical and lyrical; it is historical.
Historical time intervenes in the regular rhythms of the island, in the form of World War I. Strange ships
pass, and there is something under the water.
Philosophy: The war brings a rift even to the level of philosophy. The mystics and searchers Woolf
repeatedly refers to who look at the scenery in the hopes of finding answers to great questions (as Mr. and
Mrs. Ramsay do in "The Window") can no longer see their own minds reflected there. Something has
changed.

Art and Creativity: Augustus Carmichael's poetry serves as an alternative to Mr. Ramsay's philosophy and
makes better sense to the public at this time of upheaval. The lyrical mode of this section of the novel
operates in the same vein. Woolf uses a more poetic narrative mode to approach the difficult subject of the
war.

Storms assail the house, and time runs together. The garden is full of "wind-blown plants" in the spring
(203).

Part Two, Chapter 8

Mrs. McNab picks some flowers from the garden for herself, thinking that the house will be sold soon. No
one has used it for years. Everything is so moldy and moth-eaten that it is beyond rescue. Mrs. McNab
handles Mrs. Ramsay's old cloak and remembers her.

Part Two, Chapter 9

The airs are winning, as the house is finally decaying. Weeds spring up and toads inhabit the house. Nature
is taking over. Mrs. McNab is ready to give up, although she hates to let everything go. The Lighthouse
observes the chaos. This is the critical moment. A feather would tip the scale in the direction of complete
decay, and soon the house would be just a ruin. But another force is at work. Mrs. McNab brings Mrs. Bast
to help her clean up the mess. Someone in the family has written to say they might come for the summer.

The women work at salvaging the house, cleaning, repairing, and airing things out. They drink tea and
remember Mr. Ramsay while George McNab cuts the grass.

Time: At the dinner party in "The Window" the guests had argued over whether Walter Scott's novels
would endure. Now, ironically, it is Mrs. McNab who salvages the very books Mr. Ramsey had so worried
about, spreading them on the grass to dry them out.

Lily Briscoe arrives for a visit in September.

Part Two, Chapter 10

Peace comes, and the sound of the sea in Lily's bedroom is comforting again. Mrs. Beckwith and Mr.
Carmichael are also there. They fall asleep and wake with the noises of dawn.

Despite the passage of many years in the middle section of the novel, a tight structure is maintained. The
section begins with the guests' turning in for the night and ends with their waking up.

Part Three - The Lighthouse

Part Three, Chapters 1-3

Lily sits alone at breakfast thinking, "What does it mean?" (217). She thinks about Mrs. Ramsay's death
(and Prue's and Andrew's) but cannot feel anything. Mr. Ramsay plans to take Cam and James to the
Lighthouse, but they aren't ready yet and he is angry. Nancy wonders what to send to the Lighthouse
keeper.

Gender Roles: Nancy tries but is unable to make a social gesture Mrs. Ramsay would have made with
confidence (assembling appropriate things to send to the Lighthouse). As Mrs. Ramsay feared, her
daughters have taken different paths from hers.

At the table, Lily remembers how she had mapped out her painting on the tablecloth. She decides to finish
that painting and sets up her easel on the lawn. Mr. Ramsay stalks about, and Lily can't concentrate on her
picture. His grief and need for sympathy seem to her like "chaos" and "ruin" (221).

Lily reflects on the way Mr. Ramsay takes from those around him. Mrs. Ramsay, on the other hand, died
giving. Mr. Ramsay approaches, and Lily can't bring herself to say the needed soothing words, even when
Mr. Ramsay groans out loud. Finally, she comments on his boots, and he cheers up.

Gender Roles: Lily can't bring herself to fill the role expected of her, even though she knows what it is. Her
thoughts at this moment parallel the rebellious thoughts she had at Mrs. Ramsay's dinner party when she
preferred not to be kind to Charles Tansley. The only sincere comment she can muster here, about the
boots, seems more like the kind of sincere (and impersonal) compliment a man might give another man.
This prompts Mr. Ramsay to assume a less needy stance, the jocular, confident demeanor he assumes in the
company of men.

Lily feels a rush of sympathy and grief, but it is too late now. Mr. Ramsay sets off. Lily feels as though part
of herself is with the Lighthouse while another part is painting on the lawn. She prepares to paint and faces
the risks involved in taking the first stroke. She imagines herself a swimmer in the midst of waves that only
look regular and even from the shore.

The parallel between Mr. Ramsay's voyage and Lily's painting is made explicit here. Note how the structure
of this section evolves as the chapters alternate between sea and land as if tracking a debate or dialogue
taking place between them.

Here Woolf examines the fundamental basis for art, which requires the artist to stand apart from society in
order to find "concentration" and "truth":

"Here she was again, she thought, stepping back to look at it [her canvas], drawn out of gossip, out of
living, out of community with people into the presence of this formidable ancient enemy of hers - this other
thing, this truth, this reality, which suddenly laid hands on her, emerged stark at the back of appearances
and commanded her attention" (236).

A parallel could be made here between Lily's ruminations as she paints and the long, solitary walks Mr.
Ramsay takes while working out his philosophical ideas.

Lily imagines her painting will end up rolled and forgotten in a dusty attic.

Time: Lily's fears echo Mr. Ramsay's fears about the lifespan of his books.

Lily loses herself in her painting and finds her mind full of images and memories. She remembers Charles
Tansley's telling her "women can't paint" (238). She also remembers a happy moment with Charles on the
beach, with Mrs. Ramsay watching over them. She attributes to Mrs. Ramsay the skill of uniting people
over and above their small disagreements. In this way, Mrs. Ramsay created something like "a work of art"
(240).

Art and Creativity; Male and Female Principles: Now Woolf draws a parallel between Lily's art and Mrs.
Ramsay's. Lily transcends gender boundaries since her work identifies her with both genders.

Resting, Lily asks herself, "What is the meaning of life?" (240). The moment she has just remembered
offers her some insight.

Philosophy: Lily's own philosophical questioning - here, wondering about the meaning of life - arises from
the act of creation.

The Lighthouse: The parallels developing in this section between Lily's actions and reflections and the
impending trip to the Lighthouse suggest that Lily's revelation, her moment of clarity and "stability," is her
own version of the Lighthouse, the thing toward which she has been striving (240).

Part Three, Chapters 4 and 6

The boat sits with flagging sails, and Mr. Ramsay is impatient to start. James and Cam are aware of his
impatience. They are silently in protest at being forced to come on this trip. When the sail catches the wind,
Mr. Ramsay relaxes and asks Macalister, the local fisherman who owns the boat, about a storm that had
wrecked three ships nearby that winter. Cam imagines her father trying to rescue the shipwrecked men and
begins to feel proud of him, until she remembers she is supposed to be resisting his "tyranny" (246).

Mr. Ramsay points out the house on the hillside, but Cam can't find it. He quotes a poem about a
shipwreck, and it reminds him of his own sorrow. Mr. Ramsay is outraged that Cam can't point out the
cardinal directions. Still he doesn't want to scare her. He resolves to try and make her smile. James fears
she will give in to him and smile. He remembers his father standing over him and his mother knitting. Cam
wants to answer her father but doesn't. Mr. Ramsay takes out a book.
Male and Female Principles: The Oedipal strain in James's relationship with his father as a child is played
out here. He is still hostile and resistant. Cam's sentiments are more complicated and don't seem to fit
within the parameters of this Freudian view.

Cam imagines the people on the shore are free from suffering. Macalister's boy baits his hook with a chunk
from a live fish.

The book Mr. Ramsay reads in the boat is one of many outside texts read in and absorbed into the fabric of
To the Lighthouse. The fact that the characters spend time reading and use quotations from their reading to
frame and define their experiences is in itself important. A good avenue for a research project is the
identification and exploration of those outside texts (Cowper's "The Castaway" here, or the Grimm fairy
tale in "The Window"). Consider exploring these works (of which we get only scraps in the novel) in the
context of the novel and suggesting their possible significance.

Part Three, Chapters 5, 7, and 9

Lily watches the Ramsays' boat and dwells on her memories. She turns back to her painting and tries to
solve the "problem of space" she has posed on the canvas (255). She wants the painting to seem beautiful
and delicate on the surface but to have a strong foundation beneath.

Beginning with Chapter Five and continuing until the end of Part Three, the description of the group's boat
trip to the Lighthouse is regularly interrupted by an account of Lily's meditations in the alternating chapters.
The chapters appear here in the Highlighter Section not in chronological order but according to common
events.

It is tempting to use Lily's words to describe Woolf's own method here; she underpins her lyrical prose with
a strong structure and deep ideological aims.

Lily remembers Minta Doyle and her later married life as Paul Rayley's wife. The Rayleys' marriage was
not a success. In the end Paul took a lover, and he and Minta lived as friends. Lily imagines telling Mrs.
Ramsay about the failed marriage and feeling triumphant about it, since Mrs. Ramsay had urged Paul and
Minta to marry in the first place. Lily never married either, despite Mrs. Ramsay's encouragement and
despite the fact that she did love William Bankes.

Gender Roles: Lily's relationship with Mrs. Ramsay is the source of much feminist debate. There is a deep
ambivalence here. On the one hand, Lily expresses great reverence and affection for Mrs. Ramsay. On the
other hand, she resents Mrs. Ramsay's expectations and the pressure to conform to traditional gender roles
(to marry, to be kind to needy men).

Lily wants to talk to Mr. Carmichael about her memories. She finds herself crying for Mrs. Ramsay and for
the sorrow and the "unknown" in life (268). She turns from her memories to look at the bay, where Mr.
Ramsay's boat is halfway to the Lighthouse.

Part Three, Chapters 8 and 10

Cam looks at the shore and dangles her hand in the water. She listens to the sounds of the sail and the
waves. Mr. Ramsay reads. James watches him and waits for him to look up and scold him because he's lost
the breeze. James imagines stabbing him. It is not the old man reading he wants to kill, but the tyranny he
represents. He feels that he and his father understand each other. He imagines a wheel crushing an innocent
foot and tries to remember where he had seen such a thing. He remembers the time his father had crushed
his hope of sailing to the Lighthouse.

"The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and
softly in the evening. Now -

"James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks; the tower, stark and straight; he
could see that it was barred with black and white; he could see windows in it; he could even see washing
spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it?

"No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one thing. The other Lighthouse was true
too" (276-277).

James compares the real and the ideal and decides that the Lighthouse can be both. He provides a useful
key for deciphering the symbol of the Lighthouse, "for nothing was simply one thing" (277). Here, the
Lighthouse is the object of striving, some mystical, distant entity with an all-seeing eye. At the same time it
is the embodiment of isolation and sadness, linked with James's desolate image of himself and his father as
lonely and apart from other people.

James waits for his father to scold him as the fish in the bottom of the boat flop around. He remembers his
mother. When the sails fill with wind again, he feels relief.

Cam examines the island where the house is. She feels freed from her emotions and looks forward to what
is to come. The cold of the sea water against her hand brings her joy. She remembers visiting her father's
friends and asking them questions or looking at their books. She connects this memory to the sight of her
father reading in the boat. The land recedes in the distance, and Cam remembers the shipwreck that
happened nearby.

It is interesting to note that Cam is the character most closely tied to Woolf herself, at least in the
autobiographical events connected to the novel. She is inquisitive about the world of books and ideas that
her father inhabits (a man's world) and tests her own ideas there. A close look at the events of Woolf's own
family life, along with her writings on how she used childhood events in the novel, may prove useful for
enhancing a reading of the novel. At the same time, it is worthwhile to consider the usefulness (or
limitations) of biography in literary criticism.

Part Three, Chapter 11

Lily looks at the sea and thinks about how distance changes her feeling for Mr. Ramsay. She likens the
sensation to returning to everyday life after a trip or a sickness. She feels as if she's standing in water, and
everything about her is submerged in it.

Lily turns back to the problem with her painting. She looks at Mr. Carmichael, who has become a famous
poet. She remembers his depression after Andrew's death. She imagines his poetry must be impersonal, as
he is. She wonders whether other people had disliked Mrs. Ramsay (as Mr. Carmichael did). She watches
ants in the grass and remembers Charles Tansley, whom she herself disliked. Her thoughts return to Mrs.
Ramsay, and she tries to imagine the scene of her betrothal to Mr. Ramsay. Someone sits at the window
and throws an animated shadow.

Part Three, Chapter 12

Mr. Ramsay is finishing his book as the boat approaches the Lighthouse. James is satisfied to see that the
Lighthouse they have been looking at all these years is just "a stark tower on a bare rock" (302). Cam is
awakened from a doze when Mr. Ramsay announces that it is time for lunch. Cam and James know their
father is enjoying his camaraderie with the fishermen.

Macalister points out the spot where a ship had sunk. Mr. Ramsay praises James for his sailing, and Cam
knows that James will be pleased by the praise. The children both look at their father and want to please
him, now. They get out of the boat.

Part Three, Chapter 13

Lily can hardly see the Lighthouse any more. She feels both relieved and exhausted to think that Mr.
Ramsay has completed his voyage. Mr. Carmichael rises from his chair looking like a hoary "old pagan
god, shaggy, with weeds in his hair and the trident (it was only a French novel) in his hand" (309). Lily
makes a last stroke and finishes her painting.

Male and Female Principles: The image of Carmichael as a pagan god echoes the image of the "trophy
fetched from the bottom of the sea" (Rose's centerpiece) at Mrs. Ramsay's dinner party (146). The
references to "weeds in his hair" and to a trident link Carmichael with a god of the sea such as Neptune.
This god's first appearance marked a moment of transcendence, a mystical occurrence on the level of Mrs.
Ramsay's "triumph" at the dinner party (151). Here he reappears to mark another occasion: the completion
of the Ramsays' journey to the mythical Lighthouse, the completion of Lily's painting, and the completion
of the novel itself (309).

It is an interesting task to explore the balance between the first and last parts of the novel and to ask
whether the last section provides resolution and closure to issues raised in the first or whether it merely
elaborates on the same themes. While "The Window" easily yields to feminist readings and has been the
subject of extensive critical analysis, "The Lighthouse" is a more enigmatic section. Some of the feminist
currents at work in "The Window" are echoed in this last section, but they seem (in the absence of Mrs.
Ramsay, perhaps) less of a priority than in the earlier section. Does the novel simply shift in focus to
concentrate on more abstract ideas about art and philosophy, or is the author aiming to show how the
passage of time (in part two) has changed the terms of the relations between the sexes as depicted in "The
Window"? Another possibility is that Woolf is playing out Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay's dynamic (and the
abstractions they each represent, as male and female principles or as men and women playing specific
roles) in the next generation of the family. A further example for consideration is that, whereas "The
Window" focused on husband and wife as point and counterpoint, "The Lighthouse" shifts to focus on a
male and a female artist (Mr. Carmichael and Lily) and on a male and a female child (James and Cam).

Works Consulted
Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Trans. William R. Trask.
Princeton: Princeton UP, 1953.

Banfield, Ann. The Phantom Table: Woolf, Fry, Russell, and the Epistemology of Modernism. New York:
Cambridge UP, 2000.

Barrett, Eileen, and Patricia Cramer, eds. Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings. New York: New York UP,
1997.

Booth, Alison. Greatness Engendered: George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1992.

Chapman, Wayne K., and Janet M. Manson, eds. Women in the Milieu of Leonard and Virginia Woolf:
Peace, Politics, and Education. New York: Pace UP, 1998.

Goldman, Jane. The Feminist Aesthetics of Virginia Woolf: Modernism, Post-impressionism, and the
Politics of the Visual. New York: Cambridge UP, 1998.

Reid, Su. To the Lighthouse. Houndmills, England: Twayne, 1987.

Roe, Sue, and Susan Sellers, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf. New York: Cambridge
UP, 2000.

Rosenbaum, S. P., ed. Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs and Commentary. Toronto: U of
Toronto P, 1995.

Silver, Brenda R. Virginia Woolf Icon. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999.

Webb, Ruth. Virginia Woolf. New York: Oxford UP, 2000.

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. San Diego: Harcourt, 1929.

---. To the Lighthouse. San Diego: Harcourt, 1955.

---. A Writer's Diary. Ed. and intro. Leonard Woolf. San Diego: Harcourt, 1953.

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