To the Lighthouse

Symbolic Setting of ‘To the Lighthouse’

Written from multiple perspectives and shifting between times and characters with poetic grace, ‘To The Lighthouse’ is not concerned with ordinary story telling. Rather through integrate symbolic web it reads the mind and recounts the passage of multiple experiences of different characters in the novel.

The sea with its waves is to be heard throughout the novel. It symbolizes the eternal flux of time and life, in the midst of which we all exist; it constantly changes its character. To Mrs. Ramsay at one moment it sounds soothing and consoling like a cradlesong, at others, “like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beating a warning of death it brings terror. Sometimes its power “sweeping savagely in”, seems to reduce the individual to nothingness, at others it sends up “a fountain of bright water” – which seems to match the sudden springs of vitality in the human spirit.

The lighthouse holds a whole cluster of suggestions. It is a mystery, yet a concern for day-to-day living. It is at once distant and close at the mercy of its destructive forces. The lighthouse surrounded by sea always illumines and clarifies the human condition in some way. Moreover, it is the quest for the values which lighthouse suggests. The tower is frequently shadowed in mist, its beams are intermittent in the darkness, the moments of assurance they bring the momentary, but upon these assurances reality rests, by landing on the general doubts, something which seems to triumph over the eternal cycle of change. To reach the lighthouse is to establish a creative relationship.

            Indeed, the lighthouse is the most important symbol and different critics have explained it differently. For example, Russel declares that the lighthouse is the feminine creative principle. Jon Bennett calls the alternate light and shadows of the lighthouse the rhythm of joy and sorrow, understanding and misunderstanding. The lighthouse as symbol has not one meaning, that it is a vital synthesis of time and eternity: an objective correlative for Mrs. Ramsay’s vision, after whose death it is her meaning.

 The window is not a transparent but a separating sheet of glass between reality and Mrs. Ramsay’s mind. Mrs. Ramsay experiences such moments of revelation and integration at watching the window. It is the very symbol of the imperfection of our knowledge and riddle of human mind. It is debates about philosophy, particularly theories about visual reality on the three main philosophers of British empiricism, John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume. The basic argument of empiricism is whether or not a person can be empirically certain that objects have a distinct and continued existence apart from our perceptions of them.

The characters are carefully arranged in the novel in their relation to each other, so that a definite symbolic pattern emerges. Mrs. Ramsay pervades the whole book. Mrs. Ramsay is the mother of the Ramsay family who dies during the middle section of the novel. A beautiful, caring woman, she means all things to all people, and each character of To the Lighthouse has a different perception of her personality. Lily sees her as a mother, and doesn’t think she has ever inspired romantic passion. William Bankes and Charles Tansley adore her, and think she doesn’t realize how beautiful she is. The children see her as the “Lighthouse” of their lives—the stable, warm force that protects and guides them. She is above all the creator of fertile human relationships symbolized by her love of match making and her knitting; and of warm comfort symbolized by her green shawl. Just as Mrs. Ramsay stands for creative vitality, so Mr. Ramsay stands as the symbol of the sterile, destructive barriers to relationship. Just as Mrs. Ramsay is described in images of fertility and the warmth and comfort of love and harmony with others, Mr. Ramsay is evoked in images of sterility, hardness and cruelty and of deliberate isolation.

Lily Briscoe’s accomplishment of her painting is also symbolic to a great extent. Lily sees that Mrs. Ramsay’s gift of harmonizing human relationship into memorable moments is “almost like a work of art” and in the book art is the ultimate symbol for the enduring ‘reality’. She neither in first nor in second part of the work of fiction can be able to complete her picture. In the whole period that contains more than a decade, she is perplexed about to fill the gap of her picture, but at the lighthouse, she executes her production. This symbolizes that an artist can be impeccable in his art when he reaches and finds the final limitations of reality or truth.

The uses of symbols serve the purpose of introspection, self-awareness, and openness to the unconscious in the novel.  To The Lighthouse is a masterpiece of construction through symbolism.

‘To the Lighthouse’: Emblematic of Social Change/A Feminist Novel

‘To the Lighthouse’ scrutinizes the role of women or more specifically, the evolution of the modern woman. The two main female characters in the novel, Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe, both represent different views on life and follow different paths on their search for meaning. Lily Briscoe transcends the traditional female gender roles embodied by Mrs. Ramsay; by coming into her own as an independent and modern woman, she symbolises the advent of modernism and rejection of traditional Victorian values.

The traditional female gender roles of passivity and submission are first reinforced by Mrs. Ramsay's attitude and behaviour towards her husband and the guests at her house. Mrs. Ramsay is not a helpless woman but she is not independent in the way that Lily Briscoe is. While she is perfectly capable of being the boss of trivial and "womanly" things such as dinner, the higher level decisions are always made by her husband.

Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse illustrates a bridge between the worlds of the Victorian mother and the modern, potentially independent woman. The Victorian woman was to be absorbed, as Mrs. Ramsay is, by the task of being mother and wife. Her reason for existing was to complete the man, rather than to exist in her own right. Mrs. Ramsay certainly sees this role for herself and is disturbed when she feels, momentarily, that she is better than her husband because he needs her support to feel good about himself and the life choices he has made. Yet the end of the Victorian era saw the rise of women's rights and greater freedom for women to excel without men or children.

Adrienne Rich, in ‘Of Woman Born’, says that ‘To the Lighthouse’ is about Virginia Woolf's need to understand her own mother and to prove, through the character of Lily Briscoe, that a woman can be "independent of men, as Mrs. Ramsay is not".

The trauma of this transition from Victorian to modern woman is portended by Mrs. Ramsay herself, at the beginning of the story. In the first chapter, as Mrs. Ramsay defends Charles Tansley against the criticisms of her children, she muses on her desire to protect men and the "trustful, childlike, reverential" attitude that her protection inspires in men. "Woe betides the girl . . . who did not feel the worth of it, and all that it implied, to the marrow of her bones!" she exclaims to herself, thinking of the way men respect and admire her. But Woolf shows us that as Mrs. Ramsay admonishes her children for ridiculing Charles Tansley, her daughters "could sport with infidel ideas which they had brewed for themselves of a life different from hers . . . not always taking care of some man or other."

The issue of the change from one concept of womanhood to another is not as simple as the newer generation revolting against the older; at the same time that Mrs. Ramsay's daughters hope to be different, they admire and worship their mother for her beauty and power. Prue, the eldest daughter, proudly watches Mrs. Ramsay as she descends the staircase and feels "what an extraordinary stroke of fortune it was for her (Prue), to have her [Mrs. Ramsay]." Although this is the closest we come to knowing the thoughts and feelings of Prue, from others' perspectives, we gather that she follows in her mother's footsteps and dies in childbirth. Does this signify the death of the old vision of womanhood? Or does it have more to do with the particular strength of Mrs. Ramsay? Perhaps it signifies the futility of the daughter trying to imitate exactly the path of the mother.

Mrs. Ramsey is triumphant over Mr. Ramsey, by her awareness and intuitive feeling of the more important things in life: the value of human relationships. Though she is submissive, with no mention of extensive educational background, she innately possesses the crucial social skills that gain: the cohesion of the family as a whole; the respect and love of her children, and the continued survival of her marriage.

“The relation of art and life in ‘To the Lighthouse’

In ‘To The Lighthouse ‘, Mrs. Ramsay opens the novel and Lily Briscoe closes it, as the stuff of life may be converted, through a particular medium, to a work of art. So, if life and art are viewed as polar opposites in the novel. Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe may be regarded as their respective exponents. Norman Friedman opines that ’To the Lighthouse’ centres on questions of order and chaos, male and female, permanence and change, and intellect and intuition.

It cannot be disputed that art can be nourished only in life. But whereas art needs life to nourish it, life is often unaware of the power of art to give it permanence. Although Lily is in love with Mrs. Ramsay and, with all her family, she cannot take Lily’s painting seriously. Thus, too, Mrs. Ramsay’s quite literal short-sightedness is played against Lily’s ‘vision’. To Lily it seems ironic that Mrs. Ramsay presided with immutable calm over destinies which she completely failed to understand; Mrs. Woolf wants to suggest that life may be its own worst enemy, even as the artist may rebel against art’s strict exigencies. Although it is only momentary, Mrs. Ramsay ‘felt alone in the presence of her old antagonist, life’. And Lily is ‘drawn out of gossip, out of living, out of community with people into the presence of the formidable ancient enemy of her....this form....roused one to perpetual combat.’

In Part I, Mrs. Ramsay is so busy with her family and too numerous summer guests. With her masterfulness, she manages superbly other people’s lives, from trivial to important aspect. On the other hand, Lily can barely manage to manipulate her paint brushes, and shrinks from anything strange on her canvas. Later on, she realizes a fundamental difference between herself and Mrs. Ramsay. Mrs. Ramsay might fall occasionally into meditation but she ‘disliked anything that reminded her that she had been seen sitting thinking.’ But both in Lily the painter and Mr. Carmichael, the poet, there was some notion about the ineffectiveness of action, the supremacy of thought.

Mrs. Ramsay is a very ardent match-maker and she also feels protective towards the whole male sex. She is also eager to help the poor and the sick. And then she is found striving earnestly for the unity and integrity of social scenes such as her dinner party. Lily Briscoe also acknowledges Mrs. Ramsay’s manipulation of life. But, ironically, Mrs. Ramsay is seen ‘making’ while Lily merely ‘tried’. But unfortunately Mrs. Ramsay’s efforts are doomed from the start; life cannot stand still; time must pass. It is only in another sphere can moments be given permanence. And the notable difference between the two is that Mrs. Ramsay has the rare beauty of ordering a scene so that it is, ‘like a work of art’, but it is Lily who creates a concrete work of art.

From the very beginning, in spite of all her doubts and diffidence, Lily is found of painting with stubborn integrity to her vision. It is the resolution to move her tree to the centre of the canvas that sustains her through the dinner party, protects her against Charles Tansley’s pronouncement that women cannot paint or write. Lily’s paint brush has become for her ‘the one dependable thing in a world of strife, ruin, chaos’ and she seems more sure of her technique: the lines are nervous, but her brush-strokes are decisive. It is she who imagines the artistic creeds of Carmichael “how ‘you’ and ‘I’ and ‘she’ pass, and vanish; nothing stays all changes; but not words not paint”. Yet even then, even to the final brush-stroke that brings the novel to a close, she continues to be haunted by the problematical and shifting relationship of art and life.

This relation of art to life has been most beautifully treated in Part III of the novel. Lily is on the island accompanied by the corresponding movement of those in the boat getting closer to the Lighthouse and Lily, getting closer to the solution of her aesthetic problem. And the determining factor of each is love (the art of life), which might perhaps be defined as order. Lily finishes her painting as she feels that sympathy for Mr. Ramsay which she had previously refused to give. James and Cam give up their long standing antagonism towards their father. Mr. Ramsay himself, at the same time, attains a resolution of his own tensions and worries. Hence ‘the two actions, the arrival at the lighthouse and the last stroke of the push are also united; both are acts of completion and it is obvious that they are meant to happen together.’ Therefore, reality always has a doubleness which can be understood only through a double vision or synthesis.

‘Stream of Consciousness’ Technique in ‘To The Lighthouse

In ‘To The Lighthouse’ Virginia Wolf has not told a story in the sense of a series of events and has concentrated on a small number of characters. Their nature and feelings are represented to us largely through their interior monologue. In order to capture the inner reality, the truth about life, she tried to represent the moving current of life and the individual’s consciousness of the fleeting moments and secondly, also to select from this current and organize it so that novel may penetrate between the surface reality and may give to the readers a sense of understanding and completeness.  In other words, she has used ‘stream of consciousness’ technique.

The novel as a whole is reflective rather than spontaneous, and the obvious selection by the author focuses our attention on the idea of the working of the mind, which is more interesting than a more naturalistic limitation of its confused process. First the reader is introduced to the characters and the world they occupy. Since are put before us through the thoughts of on the characters they come to us with associations of the characters’ personality and so we begin to be involved in the tensions between; we being with the opposition of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay, brought to us through the reactions of the sensitive child and with reference to the lighthouse, then move to the antagonism around by Tansley, the quarrelsomeness of the children the impassive Carmichael; and so the grow to number and the texture of the books becomes complex as the novelist being to weave them together.

Thus, too, the pattern beings to establish itself; the pattern that is of conversation and reaction, of the actual words in the first person and the present tense, and the reflections of the characters in the third person and the past tense. The opening conversation consists of only eight short remarks of a normal, even trivial kind, but from the beginning we are made aware that the surface of normal human relationships conceals a mass of tangled feelings and associations and that these feelings can be strong and passionate, though they are concealed. This violence of feelings is seen first in the child, James, and seems natural to the exaggeration of childhood, we are thus prepared in an acceptable way for the emotions of the adult characters, tempered by age and experience, but made more complex too.

It is by means of this combination of the conversation that is actually happening and the connected thoughts that may range over any event, that a time – scheme is also established in a sense of the present movement seen in relationship to the past which is continually woven in with the present in the minds of most people.

The third person narration is very common a device in novel. Virginia Woolf is however, very careful to make her direction of speech for the interior monologues of her characters which makes it easy for her to work into these mental soliloquies a number of statements and ideas which are outside the range of knowledge of the characters she is dealing with. When, for example, at the beginning, she describes the feelings of James about his father, she moves from the child’s thinking to what Mr. Ramsay habitually did and said, through impersonal sentences.  The statements in the middle here clearly develop from what James is thinking, but we seem to move away from the child himself into a general comment, which in turn, merges into the description of Mr. Ramsay’s attitude towards life. Yet we hardly notice this shift because of the uniformity of style; the two currents of thought seem to flow together. Just as this third-person narration makes it possible for Virginia Woolf to move smoothly from one character to another so in the novel as a whole it is a unifying principle.

Mrs. Woolf has cleverly avoided the drawbacks of the stream of consciousness novel as she has given from and coherence to her material. She is not haphazard and incoherent like the other stream of consciousness novelist.

To The Lighthouse is a Study of Human Relationships

The main subject of the novel may justly be called a study of the ways and means by which satisfactory human relationship might be established with the people around them. Human beings seemed to Mrs. Woolf isolated and a cluster of individuals having unsatisfactory communication that too was sometimes mistaken.

Since in a human society words are the main sources of establishing an agreeable relationship but words are very often inadequate for the purpose. Sometimes words cannot express the full complexity of a character’s thoughts and feelings. Moreover, what words express is only a fraction of what a character thinks and feels. Therefore, a speaker is misconstrued instead. To Carmichael, Lily tries to describe Mrs. Ramsay but her words are unable to transport her feelings. “Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches to low. Then one gave it up; For how could one express in words these emotions of the body?”

Quite often it seems that silence is more expressive and eloquent than words. Lily realizes it fully and feels full communication with Carmichael without uttering words. While sitting on the lawn in perfect silence they seem to understand each other perfectly well without exchanging even a single word. Finally, Lily realises: ‘They had not needed to speak. They had been thinking the same thing and he had answered her without, her asking him anything’.

It can be observed that things of very little importance can be greatly helpful in establishing congenial human relationships. As we find Mr. Ramsay coming to Lily to seeking sympathy but Lily finds it hard to utter a single word. Suddenly, she praises his boots. And this brings great relief to Mr. Ramsay and he feels satisfied. Apparently Lily’s remarks may seem silly but it helped to establish perfect sympathy and Lily ‘felt her eyes swell and tingle with tears’.

Congenial and satisfactory human relationships are essential for happiness in life. It cannot be achieved through logic, reason and intellect, but through emotions. Emotional understanding and a pure considerate attitude are needed for pleasant relationships among family members.  Mr. Ramsay becomes a ‘sarcastic brute’ in the eyes of his children owing to his cold intellectual approach whereas Mrs. Ramsay with her loving soul and sympathetic understanding wins the heart of the children and is tremendously loved and admired by her children. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay signify intellect and compassion respectively.

In ‘To the Lighthouse’ it is conspicuous that Mrs. Ramsay plays a very significant to establish communication between people. She sincerely attempts to get Paul and Minta as well as Lily and Mr. Bankes married.  At the dinner party, seeing the unease of her guests, she makes efforts to get people talking in order to get them closer. In the novel we observe the feelings and reactions of the characters towards each other being in the state of isolation. No one is free from his private worries and is living in his own isolated shell. For instance, Tansley is sensitive, feeling socially inferior, unattractive and poor. So he tries to assert himself rudely. He repels and displeases almost all except Mr. Ramsay. Since Mrs. Ramsay is pictured as the rare person who can make others show their best side, and she draws from him simple and selfless behaviour and feeling, which are just as much part of her personality as rudeness, in the tender moments of their walk together.

At the dinner party Tansely desperately tries to assert himself but ends up without making any impression on the conversation. To Lily he is already repulsive and she pretentiously asks him to accompany her to the lighthouse which flares up Tansely. Mrs. Ramsay implores Lily’s help in making the party comfortable so Lily in almost in the same words, but with a change of feeling asks Tansely to take her to the lighthouse, now his egoism is satisfied and he is able to shine, for he is intelligent and well-informed.  Affable relationship between Tansley and the others at the table is established and the party thus becomes a success.

There is a note of pretence and falsehood even in the husband-wife relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay. Mrs. Ramsay is compelled to praise Mr. Ramsay to his face just to boost up his confidence. He constantly needs ‘intellectual sympathy’ and reassurance. His fear of failure and resentment prevents his judgment. There is some sort of reserve between them, in her moods of sadness, he is unable to communicate with her. But his dependence on her and her respect and reverence for him balance these areas of difference.

we find them pools apart when their disagreement about going to the Lighthouse brings out their difference in their attitudes to life. Mr. Ramsay is upset, is rather infuriated.  “The extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the folly of women’s minds enraged him…..and now she flew in the face of facts, made her children hope what was utterly out of the question, in effect, told lies.” He thinks that children must learn to face facts and know life is hard. Mrs. Ramsay, who believes in protecting children from losing the innocence of childhood, finds her husband’s attitude quite repugnant. “To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other people’s feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilization so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency’.  But very soon after this incident they begin to come together again. It starts with Mrs. Ramsay’s apology. “And as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she has not said a word, he knew, of course that she loved him”.

It may be rightly assert that ‘To The Lighthouse’ is a close study of the ways and means by which satisfactory and congenial human relationships might be established.

Character Portrayal of Mrs. Ramsay in ‘To the Lighthouse’

Mrs. Ramsay, one of the finest creations of Virginia Woolf, is without the least shade of doubt the central figure around which action and movement in ‘To The Lighthouse’ is built. She is definitely radiating through the entire novel and impregnating all the other characters. From the very beginning of the novel, structurally or psychologically, she is the cohesive force and the source of unity.

Mrs. Ramsay’s great role as a unifying and cohesive force is superbly revealed to us at the dinner party. She performs creditably her duty of connecting the different individuals. And for this she has also to engage herself with some of them. Lily and Charles Tansley are at opposite poles. Mrs. Ramsay asks Lily to be considerate to Tansley, thus Tansley is brought out of his isolation and he feels at ease. Likewse, with the little acts of cooperation she pacifies Mr. Ramsay and draws both Mr. Carmichael and old Mr. Bankes are also brought out of their respective shells. Therefore, it is clearly revealed ‘the whole effort of the merging and flowing and creating rested on her’.

Mr. Ramsay is completely dependent on Mrs. Ramsay. He leans upon her for sympathy and encouragement and repeatedly comes to her to be reassured. She always encourages him and revives his self-confidence which he so badly needs. Mrs. Ramsay was, no doubt, advanced in age and the mother of the eight children, still she possessed great physical charm and attractiveness. Her personal appeal unmistakably lies in her physical charm. Mrs Woolf tells us how her husband feels about her: “Indeed, she had the whole of the other sex under her protection.”

Beauty without grace and dignity cannot have so much influence on others. She has abundant feminine graces. She is polite and cultured in her manners and kind and considerate in her temperament. She is absolutely free from all egotism and is never in a mood to assert herself. Hence her graceful manners and kind disposition combined with her extraordinary physical charm cast a healthy spell on all who came in contact with her.

Mrs. Ramsay often feels the need ‘to be silent, to be alone.’ In a mood of detachment, she muses upon the alternating flashes of light. This musing gives her a sense of victory over live. This is a one aspect of her vision. The second is evoked as her mood soon changes into one of grim recognition of the inevitable facts of ‘suffering, death, the poor’. She gradually descends from her state of triumphant freedom to the fret.

Mrs. Ramsay may also be taken as a symbol of the female principle in life. She is essentialy feminine and the novelist emphasized her famine weaknesses. As she has a habit of exaggerating which irks her husband and she muddle-headed and cannot remember the facts, or distinguish between them.  Some critics hold the view that Mrs. Ramsay has been treated as a symbol and has not been individualized by the novelist. In spite of this indefiniteness and symbolic traits Mrs. Ramsay is quite an individualized figure and is undoubtedly one of the great immortals of English literature.

The most outstanding trait of Mrs. Ramsay’s character is her compassion for the poor and the unfortunate, Her heart overflows with the milk of human sympathy and kindness. She knits stockings for the sick son of the Lighthouse-keeper. She feels for them all as they are to live a dull and unhappy life in a lonely island. She goes to the town to help the poor and the needy. She extends extra care to Tansely for the same reason.

Then we find her having great affection and sympathetic consideration for the children. She is a kind mother who can tactfully soothe and comfort her children. She knows the truth, yet not to dishearten her seven-year-old son she deviates from truth. But Mr. Ramsay shatters the hope of a young soul by bluntly telling him that they won’t be able to go to the Lighthouse the next day due to inclement weather. And this difference of attitude reveals the sharp contrast between the husband and the wife. Above all, in spite of great difference in temperament and in their attitude Mrs. Ramsay is a constant source of inspiration to Mr. Ramsay. She knows that he is absolutely dependent on her for sympathy and understanding.

Mrs. Ramsay’s mania for matchmaking reveals is yet another significant aspect of establishing peace and harmony among people. She sincerely attempts to get Paul and Minta as well as Lily and Mr. Bankes married.  It is a matter of pride for her for bringing them together. Of course she cannot be blamed if their marriage is a failure.

Mrs. Ramsay dominates the novel not only during her life time but even after her death with no less importance. The imposing physical presence of Mrs. Ramsay pervades the whole book. Her influence on other important characters—specially on Lily Briscoe —is really very great. It is only to fulfil one of Mrs. Ramsay’s cherished wishes that Mr. Ramsay undertakes the journey to the Lighthouse. Mrs. Ramsay is constantly presented through Lily Briscoe’s consciousness, and her full significance as a uniting force is clearly revealed.  And it is the vision of this departed soul that inspires Lily Briscoe to take up her brush again to complete her great picture. James Hafley is quite correct when he remarks that Mrs. Ramsay dead is more powerful than Mr. Ramsay living. According to James Hafley, Mrs. Ramsay rises from death and lives again and becomes an immortal.

Mrs. Ramsay might have some little flaws in her character such as her susceptibility to flattery. It might be that she wanted to be praised or appreciated while helping others or doing some good deed. But with her extreme civility and goodness, with her irresistible charms and dominating personality hers is a unique character from the pen of a great artist.