T. Enas Fawzy
To the Lighthouse
Published in 1927, To the Lighthouse is sandwiched between Virginia Woolf’s other
two most famous novels, Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and Orlando (1928). In our opinion,
Woolf is totally at her best here, as she engages with her ongoing themes of
memory,
family,
and
fiction.
To the Lightbouse takes on some elements of Woolf’s own life: she felt stifled by her
father in much the same way that Mr. Ramsay squeezes the life out of his children.
And the sudden deaths of her mother and her sister Stella left her in deep
mourning (echoes of Mrs. Ramsay and Prue’s deaths inTo the Lighthouse).
But, Woolf herself got fed up with critics who insisted on reading the Ramsays as
direct representations of the Stephens (Stephen was Woolf’s maiden name). To the
Lighthouse is also an extended meditation on the relationship between art and life,
and on late Victorian family structures. (Source: Mark Massey, “Introduction,” To
the
Lighthouse.
Orlando,
Florida:
Harcourt
Books,
2005,
xlviii.)
What makes To the Lighthouse important in literary terms is Woolf’s ambitious
formal experimentation. She’s really working her signature style in this novel, as she
takes two days, separated by ten years, to evoke a whole picture of the Ramsay
family life. Her run-on sentences and meandering paragraphs work to replicate
what her characters are thinking in addition to what they’re doing. Woolf is a great
example of the Show Don’t Tell School of Narration. Instead of sketching us a stiffly
realistic portrait of her characters, Woolf goes for the emotional impact of their
internal landscapes.
To the Lighthouse Summary
How It All Goes Down
Part One spans approximately seven hours and takes up more than half the book.
It’s set at the Ramsay’s summer home, where the Ramsays and their eight children
are entertaining a number of friends and colleagues. The novel begins with James
Ramsay, age six, wanting to go to the Lighthouse that’s across the bay from the
Ramsays’ summer home. His mother, Mrs. Ramsay, holds out hope that the
weather will be good tomorrow so they can go to the Lighthouse, but Mr. Ramsay
is adamant that the weather will be awful. Charles Tansley, one of Mr. Ramsay’s
visiting students, chimes in and supports Mr. Ramsay’s view that the weather will be
rotten. He’s a very socially awkward young man who is obsessed with his
dissertation.
Numerous small bits of action occur. For example, after lunch, Mrs. Ramsay takes
pity on Mr. Tansley and asks him to accompany her into town. By the end of the
trip, Mr. Tansley is in love with the much older, but still beautiful, Mrs. Ramsay (by
the way, she is 50). Later, as she sits in a window and reads a fairy tale to James,
Mrs. Ramsay remembers that she must keep her head down for Lily Briscoe’s
painting. (If you’re wondering who Lily is, we are in the same boat. Although, we
gather she’s a family friend.) Mrs. Ramsay has the fleeting thought that Lily will
1
T. Enas Fawzy
have a hard time getting married, but she likes Lily anyway and decides that Lily
should
marry
William
Bankes,
an
old
friend
of
Mr.
Ramsay’s.
William Bankes, who is also visiting the Ramsays, comes up to Lily and the two of
them go for a walk. They talk about Mr. Ramsay. Meanwhile, Mr. Ramsay walks
along the lawn and worries about mortality and his legacy to humankind, and
then pesters Mrs. Ramsay to soothe his ego. Mrs. Ramsay does calm her husband,
and then starts worrying about Paul (the Ramsays’ guest), Minta (another guest),
Nancy Ramsay (daughter), and Andrew (son), who are not yet back from the
beach.
She
hopes
that
Paul
has
proposed
to
Minta.
At dinner, Mrs. Ramsay triumphs. The food is delicious; she is beautiful; Mr. Bankes
has stayed for dinner; and Paul’s proposal to Minta has been accepted. She
wishes she could freeze the moment but knows it is already part of the past. She
tucks her youngest two children into bed and then sits with her husband as he
reads. They make small talk and she knows he wants her to say, "I love you,"
though she refuses. She gets out of it by smiling at him and telling him that he was
right – the weather will be bad tomorrow and they will not be able to visit the
Lighthouse.
Part Two compresses ten years into about twenty pages. All the traditionally
important information in a story (read: what happened to the characters) is briefly
imparted in brackets. We learn that Mrs. Ramsay, Prue Ramsay (daughter), and
Andrew Ramsay (son) have died. Mrs. Ramsay died at night; Prue died in childbirth
(after first getting married); and Andrew died when a shell exploded in France. Oh,
right. There also happens to be a war going on – World War I – which gets glossed
over in favor of extended descriptions of the weather and the summer house by
the
sea.
Part Three takes place at the summer house and begins with Mr. Ramsay and two
of his children, Cam and James, finally going to the Lighthouse, and Lily working on
the painting of Mrs. Ramsay that she never finished. Via Lily’s thoughts, we hear
that she never married, but remained good friends with William Bankes. Paul and
Minta’s marriage fell apart. Mr. Ramsay, Cam, and James actually make it to the
Lighthouse. Lily finishes her painting. Throughout this last part of the novel, it’s clear
that Mrs. Ramsay is sorely missed.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary




James Ramsay, age six, gets super-excited when his mom tells him that if the
weather is good tomorrow, then they can take a trip to the Lighthouse.
Essentially, wordy Woolf says, in a 101-word-long sentence, that James is so
excited about the Lighthouse, everything in the present is colored by his
expectant joy of tomorrow’s trip.
When Mr. Ramsay says that the weather will be terrible, James is seized with
a rampant desire to kill his father… with an axe, a poker, or whatever’s
available.
James likes his mother much better than he likes his father, clearly.
2
T. Enas Fawzy














Mr. Ramsay doesn’t mind disappointing James; he wants his children to
learn early that life is tough.
Mrs. Ramsay, who is knitting, insists that the weather will be fine. She is knitting
stocking and compiling a number of odds and ends to give to the
Lighthouse keepers because she feels sorry for them.
Charles Tansley, who gets a lot of flak for being an atheist, supports Mr.
Ramsay’s point of view that the weather will be awful. This is in keeping with
his generally disagreeable character and constant sucking up to Mr.
Ramsay.
Everyone leaves the dinner table as soon as lunch is over.
Mrs. Ramsay can see that Mr. Tansley is feeling left out, so she asks him to
accompany her on her errands. He agrees to.
On their way out, Mrs. Ramsay stops and asks Mr. Carmichael, who is sitting
on the lawn, if he wants anything, but he doesn’t.
On their walk into town, Mrs. Ramsay makes Mr. Tansley feel much better
about himself – so much so that he wants to do something manly and
chivalrous for her, like carry her bag, but she insists on carrying it herself.
Mrs. Ramsay sees an advertisement for a circus, and says that they should all
go.
Mr. Tansley repeats her words but they don’t come out right, and soon his
whole sob story spills out: his father worked a lot, he had a lot of siblings, they
never went to the circus, now he’s doing a dissertation…blah blah blah.
Mrs. Ramsay thinks that he’s an insufferable bore who’s obsessed with all
that academic jargon, but she now sees that this is his way of recovering
from the fact that he’s never been to the circus.
The two of them come to the quay and Mrs. Ramsay exclaims at the
beautiful view. She says her husband loves the view, and that loads of artists
come to paint it.
The two of them watch one of the artists, and Mrs. Ramsay draws a
comparison between the artist’s method and the method used in her
grandmother’s day. (Basically, everyone nowadays paints like this guy
named Paunceforte.)
Mrs. Ramsay goes inside a house to talk to some woman, and as Mr. Tansley
waits in the drawing room his emotions intensify into deep feelings of love for
Mrs. Ramsay. He’s convinced that she – a mother of eight children, and 50
years of age – is the most beautiful woman ever. He’s now absolutely
determined to carry her bag.
As they walk back, Mr. Tansley is on Cloud Nine because he’s walking next
to the most beautiful woman ever – and he’s carrying her bag. He feels like
a real man.

To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary


Mr. Tansley tells James that there’s no way they can go to the Lighthouse,
but he softens his tone, out of respect for his beloved Mrs. Ramsay.
Mrs. Ramsay thinks to herself that Mr. Tansley is an awful man to
keep bringing that up. She actually calls him an "odious little man," which is a
pretty good insult.
3
T. Enas Fawzy
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary




Mrs. Ramsay consoles her little boy, saying that the weather might still turn
fine tomorrow. She does this not because she actually believes it, but
because she can see that James really wants to go to the Lighthouse.
Mrs. Ramsay begins turning the pages of a catalog, looking for a rake or
mowing machine.
Mrs. Ramsay is startled when the men stop talking, and concludes that Mr.
Tansley has been cast off by the rest of the men. She is fine with this because
Mr. Tansley has hurt James with all of his bad weather comments, anyway.
Mrs. Ramsay remembers that she has promised to keep her head down for
the portrait that Lily Briscoe is painting. She thinks briefly that Lily will never get
married, then bends her head again.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary










A man who is not identified – but we later find out is Mr. Ramsay – comes out
of the house shouting lines from Lord Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light
Brigade, and almost knocks over Lily Briscoe’s easel.
Lily is relieved that he runs away. She really hates it when anyone looks at
what she’s painting.
But then, she has this moment where she listens to incoming footsteps and
figures out that they belong to William Bankes. She’s fine with William Bankes
seeing her painting – in fact, she and William are buddy-buddy.
Mr. Ramsay stares at them; William Bankes suggests that he and Lily take a
stroll.
They walk over to where they can see the beautiful water of the bay, and
feel united in watching the waves. How romantic.
Mr. Bankes thinks about the difference between his and Mr. Ramsay’s lives.
He and Mr. Ramsay were once good friends, but their lives took different
paths: Mr. Ramsay has a wife and many children, whereas Mr. Bankes is
childless and a widower. Mr. Bankes believes that Mr. Ramsay is a great
man, but at the same time understands that the "spice" has gone out of their
friendship.
As Mr. Bankes begins walking back to the house, he sees Cam, the Ramsays’
youngest daughter, throwing a rebellious temper tantrum against her
nursemaid, who wants the girl to give away a flower.
Mr. Bankes is amazed that the Ramsays manage to raise eight children on
philosophy (meaning that Mr. Ramsay works in philosophy and can’t possibly
make enough money).
In his mind, each of the eight children is connected with a different
superlative. We hear four of them: Cam the Wicked, James the Ruthless
(he’s the one that wanted to axe his dad two chapters ago), Andrew the
Just, and Prue the Fair. So, in spite of the aforementioned difficulty keeping
track of who’s who, we at least know that these four are Mr. and Mrs.
Ramsay’s kids.
Lily thinks of Mr. Ramsay’s work, which Andrew ("the Just") equates to
"a kitchen table when you’re not there." Don’t worry if you’re not getting
Woolf’s drift. It’s all philosophical stuff about the nature of reality.
4
T. Enas Fawzy



Lily and Mr. Bankes discuss Mr. Ramsay’s work.
As the two of them walk back, a shot rings out and a flock of starlings take
flight.
Mr. Ramsay yells, "Someone had blundered!" He then turns and slams his
private door.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary






Mrs. Ramsay takes her stocking and measures it up against James’s leg as
she, in a flash of inspiration, decides that William and Lily should marry.
James fidgets deliberately, jealous that the stocking is for the Lighthouse
boy.
Mrs. Ramsay looks up, confused, and reflects on the room they are in, and
then the whole house. It’s getting shabbier and shabbier every summer, she
concludes.
She speaks sharply to her boy and he straightens up. The stocking is too
short.
We get a couple of paragraphs about Mrs. Ramsay’s beauty – how she’s
not aware of it, and how she has a certain personality that is inseparable
from her beauty.
Mrs. Ramsay continues knitting the stocking, kisses her little boy, and suggests
that they go cut out some pictures.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary








With the phrase "someone had blundered" ringing in her ears, Mrs. Ramsay
watches her husband approach.
She can sense that he’s distraught, and gives him time to collect himself.
The two of them chat about Charles Tansley and the possibility of going to
the Lighthouse tomorrow. Mrs. Ramsay thinks it’s possible. Mr. Ramsay does
not, and is irritated that his wife disagrees.
Mr. Ramsay thinks that female minds are irrational.
Mrs. Ramsay thinks that it’s indecent for Mr. Ramsay to crush hope.
Mrs. Ramsay bends her head and Mr. Ramsay then feels bad. Hepromises to
ask the Coastguards.
Mr. Ramsay leaves, still murmuring "someone had blundered" under
his breath – only now it’s more joyful.
Mr. Ramsay walks up and down around the garden, and thinks for a long
time about how to be amazing.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary



Now we get a really, really long paragraph from James’s point of
view about how much he hates his father. This is, after all, "James the
Ruthless."
Mr. Ramsay comes over and declares that he’s a total failure.
Mrs. Ramsay strokes his ego until he finally leaves to watch the kids play
cricket.
5
T. Enas Fawzy



Mrs. Ramsay sort of crumples after her husband leaves, but turns back to
the fairy tale she is reading to James.
She’s angry because she doesn’t like feeling better than her husband.
Augustus Carmichael shuffles by and Mrs. Ramsay asks if he is going indoors.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary












Mr. Carmichael does not respond, and we get an extended ramble down
Mrs. Ramsay’s Memory Lane. We suggest that you take a deep breath right
now. Ok, here we go:
Mr. Carmichael takes opium, which the children say stains his beard.
Mrs. Ramsay thinks Mr. Carmichael is obviously unhappy and comes to stay
with the Ramsays each year as an escape.
Mr. Carmichael doesn’t trust her; Mrs. Ramsay blames his deceased wife.
Mrs. Ramsay goes out of her way to be nice to him. She suspects that her
desire to be helpful and nice is merely vanity, and that Mr. Carmichael’s
rejection of her efforts reveals the pettiness in her character.
And we’re back. Mrs. Ramsay continues reading The Fisherman and his
Wife to James.
Mr. Ramsay stops, looks at his wife and kid, nods approvingly, and continues
walking.
As he walks, he thinks. You may ask, what is he thinking about? In a
sentence: He wonders what would happen if Shakespeare had never
existed, and from there somehow concludes that the greatest good of
society requires a class of slaves.
Mr. Ramsay walks to a piece of land which he can’t seem to avoid. The sea
is eating it away.
And now we have a metaphor! The sea is human ignorance.
Mr. Ramsay always needs praise.
Lily puts away her painting things and Mr. Ramsay walks back to the house,
stopping once to look back at the sea.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary










Lily and Mr. Bankes criticize Mr. Ramsay as Lily puts away her brushes.
Lily is about to criticize Mrs. Ramsay as well when she sees the look of
complete adoration that Mr. Bankes, age 60, turns on Mrs. Ramsay.
Watching Mrs. Ramsay gives Mr. Bankes the same feeling he gets when
solving a scientific problem.
As Lily wipes her brushes, she is cheered by the thought that people can
love this way.
She looks at her picture and nearly has a nervous breakdownbecause it’s
bad!
Lily recalls Mr. Tansley’s words that women can’t paint or write.
Lily joins Mr. Bankes in staring at Mrs. Ramsay.
Lily begins to think about Mrs. Ramsay, considering what comprises Mrs.
Ramsay’s unique identity.
Mr. Bankes stops watching Mrs. Ramsay and looks at Lily’s painting.
Lily braces herself. Mr. Bankes asks the meaning of the purple triangle.
6
T. Enas Fawzy



Lily says that it’s meant to represent Mrs. Ramsay reading to James.
They talk briefly about light and dark and composition.
Lily feels that she has shared something very intimate with Mr. Bankes (and
without taking off her clothes, too, wow!).
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary













Cam (the temper tantrum daughter, or "Cam the Wicked") runs past, almost
knocking over the easel. She ignores everyone who tries to get her attention:
Mr. Bankes, her father, her mother.
Mrs. Ramsay is stressing because Minta Doyle and Paul Rayley have not
come back from their walk. She wants to know if they’re going to get
married. Her son, Andrew, is with them as well.
James tugs on Mrs. Ramsay to remind her to continue reading.
As she reads, Mrs. Ramsay continues thinking about Minta Doyle, and recalls
her obligations to Minta’s parents, who she has nicknamed the Owl and the
Poker.
Mrs. Ramsay remembers Mrs. Doyle accusing her of manipulation.
Then Mrs. Ramsay thinks about her children. She doesn’t want them to get
older.
Basically, she thinks James is sensitive and full of promise; Cam is a demon of
wickedness; Prue is a beautiful angel; Andrew is mathematically gifted;
Nancy and Roger and "wild creatures"; Rose is gifted with her hands; Jasper
shoots birds; and she clearly never should have had so many children. OK,
you got us. We added that last bit.
Mrs. Ramsay then carries on a mental argument with her husband over her
belief that the children will never again be as happy as they are now, in their
childhood.
Mrs. Ramsay’s thoughts then shift to Minta Doyle. She wonders briefly if she
put too much pressure on Minta to marry Paul.
Night falls.
Mrs. Ramsay finishes reading James the story about the fisherman and his
wife.
James turns his attention to the recently lit lighthouse.
Mrs. Ramsay worries that James will forever remember not going to the
Lighthouse tomorrow.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary







Mrs. Ramsay continues to think about how children "never forget" and it’s
therefore important to watch what you say.
Despite all of Mrs. Ramsay’s thinking, if we were impartial observers, this is
what we would have seen:
Mrs. Ramsay knits, watching the Lighthouse.
Mrs. Ramsay stops knitting.
Mr. Ramsay looks at Mrs. Ramsay.
Mrs. Ramsay takes a green shawl and goes to her husband.
We know the whole sequence misses some explosions and bikini-clad
babes, but this is "action" in a Woolf novel. Seriously.
7
T. Enas Fawzy


What happens beneath the surface:
Mrs. Ramsay finally has a breather, i.e., a moment to herself. She has no one
to check up on, take care of, attend to, etc., so her real self is let loose. And
just what does that real self do? Well, it becomes hypnotized by the strokes
of light coming from the Lighthouse. Imagining that the beam of light is
stroking her brain, she feels momentarily ecstatic.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary
















Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay walk past the greenhouse, which is beginning to get
repaired, but Mrs. Ramsay doesn’t have the heart to tell her husband the
cost (50 pounds, incidentally, and Mrs. Ramsay often thinks randomly on this
fact).
Instead, Mrs. Ramsay brings up Jasper’s fondness for shooting defenseless
creatures.
Mr. Ramsay says that’s natural, and not to worry about it. Mrs. Ramsay thinks
Mr. Ramsay is so sensible!
They chat some more about Charles Tansley, Prue Ramsay (Mr. Ramsay fails
to see her beauty), and about the garden.
Mr. Ramsay brings up Andrew, and says that if the boy doesn’t work harder,
he’ll lose a scholarship. Mr. Ramsay will be proud if Andrew gets a
scholarship; Mrs. Ramsay will be proud either way. They seem to like this
balance in each other.
Then there’s a tiny paragraph about what the two of them can’t say to
each other.
Mrs. Ramsay expresses worry that some of the kids aren’t back yet, but Mr.
Ramsay glosses over her fears.
The two of them reach a place where the Lighthouse can be seen again.
Mrs. Ramsay doesn’t look.
Mr. Ramsay looks at everything and murmurs, "poor little universe." Just who
does this guy think he is?!
Mrs. Ramsay thinks his little phrases are ridiculous, and that it’s a perfectly
fine evening. Then she brings up the idea that Mr. Ramsay would have
written better books had he not married her.
He says that he’s not complaining, and then kisses her hand passionately.
Ooh… hot.
The two of them walk up the path and Mrs. Ramsay reflects that even
though her husband is over 60, his arm feels just like a young man’s.
Mrs. Ramsay contemplates her husband’s inability to understand the simple
and the ordinary in favor of dealing with the complex and the extraordinary.
Mr. Ramsay shouts at a woman named Mrs. Giddings. Mrs. Ramsay is not
sympathetic to Mrs. Giddings, and instead bends down to examine her
evening primroses.
Mr. Ramsay makes some comment about the flowers to please his wife.
Mrs. Ramsay looks at Lily Briscoe and William Bankes walking along, deciding
in her head that the two of them must marry.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 13 Summary
8
T. Enas Fawzy





Mr. Bankes and Lily are talking about travel.
Lily is arrested by the sight of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay watching a girl throw a
ball, and this vision is enshrined for her as "marriage."
As Mrs. Ramsay turns and smiles at the couple, Lily realizes that Mrs. Ramsay
wants her and William Bankes to marry.
Mrs. Ramsay expresses pleasure that Mr. Bankes will be joining them for
dinner.
Prue runs into them, and Mrs. Ramsay asks her if Nancy was with the (still
missing) group.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 14 Summary


















(This entire chapter takes place within parentheses. And there are
(parentheses within parentheses), which we will analyze later. Just note them
for now and say "weird."
We’re in Nancy’s viewpoint. She went (reluctantly) with the others after
Minta gave her a pleading look.
Nancy and Minta hold hands. More accurately, Minta keeps reaching for
Nancy’s hand.
Nancy is understandably confused. What the heck does Minta want?
Andrew notes that Minta wears sensible clothes. (Thereafter, he states that
"she wore short skirts"… and before you ask, we’re analyzing that later. Not
now.)
Minta is sensible about everything, except bulls. For some reason she reacts
to them the same way most women react to mice.
Minta sits on the edge of a cliff and sings the song, "Damn your eyes."
Everyone else joins in.
They (in case you forget: Paul, Minta, Nancy, and Andrew) get to the
beach.
Andrew and Nancy, being like third and fourth wheels, head out in opposite
directions as soon as they reach the beach in order to give the couple some
privacy.
Nancy settles down with a tide pool and imagines that the pool is a giant
sea, all the little minnows are ferocious sharks, and that she’s… um… there’s
no delicate way to put this, but, God.
She plays with giving them life and death, light and dark, etc., and sits there
and broods (actually, she’s just thinking, but with a side of sulking thrown in).
Andrew yells that the tide is coming in, and Nancy runs away from the sea –
right into Paul and Minta getting their mack on.
Andrew and Nancy get really awkward as they put their socks and shoes on.
As they get ready to walk back, Minta freaks out because she lost her
grandmother’s brooch. Everyone helps her look for it, but the tide is rising.
Nancy gets the sense that Minta is crying for more than just the loss of the
brooch.
They mark the place where Minta was sitting, and Paul silently swears to
wake up early tomorrow and go look for it.
Paul brags to Minta that he’s so good at finding lost items.
Paul and Minta walk ahead of Nancy and Andrew. Paul can’t wait to find
Mrs. Ramsay and tell her everything. Asking Minta to marry him was, to
9
T. Enas Fawzy


paraphrase, "the worst moment ever," and Paul sort-of-kind-of-and-basically
blames Mrs. Ramsay for making him do it.
They get to the house, which is lit up for dinner, and Paul silently determines
not to make a fool of himself.
End parenthesis!)
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 15 Summary

Short chapter! Prue tells her mother that Nancy did go with the others.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 16 Summary















Jasper and Rose come into Mrs. Ramsay’s room as she’s getting ready for
dinner, asking if dinner should be postponed until the missing members
return.
Mrs. Ramsay, mindful that fifteen will be sitting down to dinner, tells Jasper to
tell the cook not to put dinner on hold.
Rose receives permission to pick out the jewels her mother will wear at
dinner.
Mrs. Ramsay is annoyed that the missing four are late, because she wants
tonight’s dinner to be especially nice. William Bankes had finally agreed to
eat with them, and the cook will be serving a magnificent boeuf en daube.
Mrs. Ramsay wants everything to be precise and perfect.
Her children (now that Jasper has joined them) offer necklaces to try against
her dress.
Mrs. Ramsay looks out the window absentmindedly and watches some rooks
(birds) trying to decide where to settle down.
She has named one of the old birds Joseph.
The birds start fighting and then leave.
Mrs. Ramsay deliberately lets Rose take her time in choosing the necklace
she is to wear.
After also choosing a shawl, all the preparations are finally over and Mrs.
Ramsay descends to dinner with Jasper and Rose.
Jasper is talking to Mrs. Ramsay about the birds when Mrs. Ramsay is
distracted by some commotion in the hall.
Mrs. Ramsay is eager to find out if Paul and Minta are now engaged, but
knows she’ll have to wait.
She descends the staircase and is compared to a queenaccepting tribute
from her people. Yes. She’s apparently that beautiful.
Anyway, Mrs. Ramsay smells something burning and worries that it’s
the boeuf en daube.
The dinner gong sounds (apparently just yelling "dinner!" doesn’t work for
these people) and everyone drops what they’re doing and heads to
the dinner table.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary
10
T. Enas Fawzy



















Let’s take a moment and establish who’s the fifteen people at dinner: Mr.
and Mrs. Ramsay, the eight Ramsay kids, Minta, Paul, Augustus Carmichael,
Lily, William, and the "odious little" Charles Tansley.
After a brief moment spent questioning what she’s accomplished with her
life, Mrs. Ramsay organizes the seating, the food, etc.
As she ladles out soup, Mrs. Ramsay feels a discord over the shabbiness of
her surroundings and the separation of her guests. She feels it her sole duty
to create beauty and harmony.
Mrs. Ramsay engages William Bankes in conversation.
Lily Briscoe watches Mrs. Ramsay, noticing that she looks old and tired until
she begins talking to Mr. Bankes, at which point Mrs. Ramsay brightens up.
It’s clear that Mrs. Ramsay pities William Bankes. According to Lily, Mrs.
Ramsay doesn’t pity William because he is pitiful, but because Mrs.
Ramsay wants him to be pitiful, heck, needs him to be pitiful, even.
Lily thinks of her painting and realizes that she should put a tree in the middle
of it. She moves the salt shaker on the table in front of her to remind herself
of that intention later.
Listening to Mrs. Ramsay and Mr. Bankes talk about letters, Mr. Tansley is
irritated.
Mrs. Ramsay takes pity on Mr. Tansley and tries to draw him into the
conversation.
Lily observes that Mrs. Ramsay always pities men, but never women.
Mr. Tansley is bothered by this superficial conversation. He had been reading
(presumably something so very important and so very deep) before coming
down to dinner. He’s also embarrassed that everyone is dressed nicely and
he’s just wearing the same old clothes he has been wearing all day.
Mr. Tansley then thinks mean thoughts about women being superficial and
silly. Mean man.
To assert himself and his manliness, he returns to the impossibility of a trip to
the Lighthouse tomorrow. If he thinks this makes him attractive to Mrs.
Ramsay, he’s definitely wrong.
Lily Briscoe is annoyed at Mr. Tansley, and thinks mean thoughts about him,
including that he is the "most uncharming human being she had ever met."
She tries to think about her painting in an effort to control her temper.
Lily sweetly asks if she can join Mr. Tansley on the Lighthouse trip, and Mr.
Tansley can see that she obviously doesn’t mean a word of it and answers
her like a jerk, "you’d be sick."
Then we have a paragraph designed to put us in Mr. Tansley’s shoes and
feel sorry for the guy: he’s wearing old flannel trousers; he didn’t mean to
sound like a jerk with Mrs. Ramsay listening; he may have crappy clothes but
he’s never been in debt; he is even helping his family financially, and
educating his sister… yadda yadda yadda. Well, sure, we are feeling a bit
more sympathetic now.
Mrs. Ramsay is now talking to Mr. Bankes about an old friend of hers named
Carrie.
Mrs. Ramsay feels very uncomfortable that Carrie has gone off and had her
own life, and Mrs. Ramsay hasn’t given her a single thought over the years.
Mr. Bankes feels superior because he never loses touch with friends. Maybe
it’s because he doesn’t have many to keep in touch with.
11
T. Enas Fawzy


















Mrs. Ramsay breaks off their conversation to talk to the maid, and Mr.
Bankes is irritated. He regrets he stayed for dinner in the first place.
When Mrs. Ramsay turns back to him, Mr. Bankes doesn’t really want to talk,
but he’s afraid Mrs. Ramsay will realize that he doesn’t give a rat’s behind
about her, so he continues chatting with her.
Mr. Tansley daydreams that he’s bragging to his female acquaintances
about staying with the famous Ramsays and how they failed to impress him
at all.
Mr. Tansley again feels uncomfortable, and looks around the table in the
hopes that someone will give him an opportunity to be a jerk again.
Lily can see all this, and knows that social convention deems that she make
conversation with the man, but remembering his nasty comments about
women’s inability to paint and write, Lily leaves Mr. Tansley to struggle.
Alone.
Mrs. Ramsay asks Mr. Tansley if he is a good sailor, and Mr. Tansley gets ready
to assert something and show how admirable he is, but he realizes how it
would be ludicrous and simply says that he never gets seasick. Which
doesn’t really seem like an answer to her question, but we do learn that he
has a major chip on his shoulder about having raised himself up by his own
bootstraps.
Mrs. Ramsay basically looks at Lily and telepathically tells her to take social
pity on the poor, awkward Mr. Tansley.
Lily proceeds to have a completely insincere conversation with Mr. Tansley,
which Lily reflects is characteristic of all human interactions.
She is cheered by the thought of painting tomorrow.
Conversation continues largely about fishermen and their wages, but
everyone feels that something is lacking. There is no harmony among the
group.
Mrs. Ramsay looks down the table at her husband, expecting him to be
magnificently holding forth about fishermen and their wages, but he is
instead looking very angry that Augustus Carmichael has asked for another
bowl of soup.
Mrs. Ramsay knows that her husband hates it when people continue eating
after he is finished.
Then the married couple, sitting at opposite ends of the table, have a little
mental argument.
Mrs. Ramsay, realizing that Nancy are Roger are about to laugh at their
father, calls for the candles to be lit.
Mrs. Ramsay reflects that Mr. Augustus never follows social norms – he does
stuff like asking for more soup, takes a liking to Andrew, and lies on the lawn
thinking of his poetry (for Mr. Augustus is a poet).
Eight candles are lit along the table and everyone stares at Rose’s fruit
arrangement. They are united in that stare.
Minta and Paul finally come in to dinner; Minta fumbles to explain their
lateness.
Mr. Ramsay teases Minta, telling her it was foolish to take jewelry to the
beach. That’s what their relationship is like, in a nutshell: Minta giggles and
flirts and Mr. Ramsay calls her a fool.
12
T. Enas Fawzy





















Moreover, Minta’s got it going on tonight. She knows it, too, which is why she
smiles a wide grin.
Mrs. Ramsay sees the grin and assumes that Minta has gotten engaged to
Paul Rayley.
For a split second, Mrs. Ramsay is unexpectedly jealous. She flashes back to
her own engagement to her husband.
The boeuf en daube is set on the table as Paul sits down next to Mrs.
Ramsay. She asks him to tell her what had happened.
The first word out of Paul’s mouth is "we," and Mrs. Ramsay can immediately
tell that he and Minta are engaged.
The boeuf en daube is unveiled and it is a triumph. Mrs. Ramsay says that it is
a French recipe of her grandmother’s, and everyone talks about the
culinary arts for a while.
Mrs. Ramsay talks about vegetable skins.
Lily sees everyone silently worshipping Mrs. Ramsay.
Lily, envisaging a wonderful rescue, offers to help Paul look for Minta’s
brooch tomorrow morning. Paul doesn’t say yes or no. It’s obvious that he
just doesn’t care about anything other than his love.
Lily feels upset, then sees the salt shaker and remembers that she will paint
tomorrow, and that she doesn’t have to marry. (Apparently, the two are
connected.)
Lily feels that staying with the Ramsays causes her to feel two violently
opposite emotions at the same time: On the one hand, that love is
wonderful, but, on the other hand, it’s childish beyond belief.
Mrs. Ramsay goes on and on about the British dairy system. Everyone laughs
at her.
Mrs. Ramsay looks at Lily and Mr. Tansley, concluding that both of them
suffer in the presence of the happy Paul and Minta Doyle. Mr. Tansley
obviously looks like he feels left out because no woman is going to give him
a second glance with Paul in the room, and Lily just seems faded and
inconspicuous next to Minta’s beautiful glow.
Mrs. Ramsay does believe, however, that if you compare Lily and Minta at
40, Lily will be the fairer of the two. She has an indefinable something that
Mrs. Ramsay likes but is afraid no man will like.
This sets her thinking about how to get Lily and Mr. Bankes together.
Mrs. Ramsay gives Mr. Bankes more boeuf en daube.
Mr. Tansley continues being egotistical and Mrs. Ramsay reflects that he will
probably continue being that way until he becomes a professor or gets
married.
Mrs. Ramsay tunes in to the conversation about numbers and philosophers,
and monitors for topics that could potentially upset her husband and make
him think about his failures.
Minta Doyle staves off a potential tantrum by Mr. Ramsay making some
inane comment about Shakespeare.
Paul Rayley tries to talk about Anna Karenina. He likes the name Vronsky for
a villain.
Paul asks if she wants a pear. Mrs. Ramsay says no and then realizes she’s
been guarding the fruit basket jealously, hoping no one would disturb it.
13
T. Enas Fawzy







Mrs. Ramsay looks at Prue and sees that Prue has caught some of Minta’s
beauty of being in love.
Dinner is over, but Mr. Ramsay is telling Minta some absurd story. Mrs. Ramsay
determines to wait until everyone is done laughing.
She decides she likes Charles Tansley.
One story leads to another.
Mrs. Ramsay waits patiently.
Mr. Ramsay and some of the other guests start reciting poetry.
Mrs. Ramsay gets up and leaves, looking once over her shoulder to confirm
that that dinner has already become part of the past.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 18 Summary











As though Mrs. Ramsay’s departure is a signal, everyone gets up and
scatters in different directions.
As Mrs. Ramsay walks off, she’s suffused with a sense of her own place in the
stream of Time.
She goes into her children’s room and is irritated to find that James and Cam
are still awake.
A pig skull has been nailed to the wall. Cam can’t sleep with it there and
James gets mad if anyone touches it.
Mrs. Ramsay finally covers it up with her shawl and tells Cam stories until the
girl falls asleep.
Mrs. Ramsay then turns her attention to James, who asks if they are going to
the Lighthouse tomorrow. Mrs. Ramsay says no, but that they will go on the
next time the weather is good.
Mrs. Ramsay leaves the room and encounters Prue, Minta, and Paul.
Prue looks at her mother and feels very proud. She says they are thinking of
going to the beach to watch the waves.
Mrs. Ramsay suddenly turns into a giggling teenager. She tells them to go
after making sure they have a watch. (They do, indeed, have a watch: a
beautiful one belonging to Paul.)
Mrs. Ramsay expresses a wish to go with them, but something holds her
back.
She goes into a room where her husband is reading.
To the Lighthouse Part 1, Chapter 19 Summary





Mrs. Ramsay continues to knit the stocking as she watches her husband
read.
She’s troubled because she knows her husband is stressed about the legacy
his books will leave behind.
As she knits, Mrs. Ramsay murmurs snippets of the poem they had been
reciting at dinner. Finally, she opens a book and begins to read it without
really absorbing the words.
Mr. Ramsay is pleased. He feels like he’s triumphed over an unseen
adversary.
Mrs. Ramsay continues to read until she becomes aware that her husband is
watching her. To him, she is more beautiful than ever. But he’s also thinking
14
T. Enas Fawzy





about how she’s ignorant and less educated than he is, though he likes that
too.
Mrs. Ramsay continues knitting as she searches for something to say, and
finally she tells her husband that Paul and Minta are engaged.
The two of them make awkward conversation.
Mr. Ramsay continues to look at Mrs. Ramsay, but Mrs. Ramsay feels the look
change. He wants her to tell him "I love you."
Mrs. Ramsay can’t do it – she says she has a hard time saying what she feels.
She tries to figure out if there’s something else she can do for him, like brush
his coat, but there’s nothing. She gets up and looks at the sea.
Finally she turns around and just smiles at him, and when she smiles she is
certain that he knows that she loves him. She tells him that he was right, they
won’t be able to go to the Lighthouse tomorrow. She wins!
To the Lighthouse Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary


There’s some dialogue between Mr. Bankes, Andrew, Prue, and Lily, who are
presumably coming back from the beach, about how dark it is outside.
Mr. Carmichael keeps his candle burning. He likes to stay up late and read
Virgil.
To the Lighthouse Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary




Darkness creeps in. Nothing moves.
A door slams in the kitchen.
[Mr. Carmichael blows out his candle.]
[In this part of the novel, Virginia Woolf likes using brackets for things.]
To the Lighthouse Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary


The novel has zoomed way, way out. A mysterious narrator talks about
night succeeding night, death in battle, trees, moonlight, divine goodness,
repentance, the sea, solitude, yadda, yadda, a sleeper stumbling from bed
to seek an answer.
[We find out, in a single bracketed sentence, that Mrs. Ramsay died
suddenly last night.]
To the Lighthouse Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary


Now we get a description of the summer house: bedroom, shoes, buttons,
shadows, loveliness, blah, blah, will any of it remain?
Then suddenly Mrs. McNab comes in to open all the windows and dust all
the rooms.
To the Lighthouse Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary


Mrs. McNab sings a weird song that is so not attractive coming from an old
toothless woman who is just under 70 years old.
She cleans the house.
15
T. Enas Fawzy
To the Lighthouse Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary








It is spring.
[Prue Ramsay gets married. She’s beautiful.]
Summer comes.
[Prue Ramsay dies in childbirth.]
The house becomes more decrepit again. The Lighthouse light still sweeps
through.
[Andrew Ramsay, along with 20 or 30 other guys, dies when a shell explodes
in France. This is presumably during World War I and not while he’s just
hanging out in Paris.]
People try to pace the beach but it’s difficult. Contemplation doesn’t seem
right.
[Mr. Carmichael publishes a successful volume of poems.]
To the Lighthouse Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary



Night, summer, winter, storms, and good weather all pass.
The house creaks.
In spring the garden fills with flowers again, but the flowers have no
audience.
To the Lighthouse Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary








Mrs. McNab doesn’t expect any of the family to come to the house ever
again, so she swipes some flowers from the yard.
She thinks about how dirty the house is, and how impossible it is for her to
clean it properly. She’s old.
Apparently the Ramsays have been sending Mrs. McNab regular money for
the upkeep of the house, although they never visit.
The house was never really vacated. There’s a brush and comb,
for instance, set on the dressing table as if Mrs. Ramsay were expected to
come back tomorrow.
We take a trip down Mrs. McNab’s memory lane as she thinks about Mrs.
Ramsay.
Now the house is gross and moldy. Mrs. McNab goes into the nursery. The
skull is still there, but it’s gone moldy. And there are apparently rats in the
attic.
Mrs. McNab figures she’s too old for all this.
She locks up and leaves.
To the Lighthouse Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary



The house is deserted. We get a description of just how deserted: swallows
have built nests in the drawing room.
After Mrs. McNab boarded the place up, only the beam from the Lighthouse
seems to penetrate the house’s walls.
There’s some hypothesis of further degeneration that the house could
undergo, but it doesn’t.
16
T. Enas Fawzy




One of the young ladies wrote to Mrs. McNab to get the house ready. Mrs.
McNab and her friend Mrs. Bast went and started cleaning. Mrs. Bast’s son
caught the rats.
Builders made repairs.
Mrs. Bast and Mrs. McNab gossip for a bit, saying that the family will find the
house all changed.
[Lily and Mr. Carmichael come by the same train in September.]
To the Lighthouse Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary



Peace has come – again – presumably Woolf is referring to WWI.
The house is full of guests.
The chapter ends with Lily waking up in the morning.
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 1 Summary














Sitting at the breakfast table, Lily Briscoe feels awkward. And you would too
if you came back after years and years to a house whose hostess has, um,
kicked the bucket.
OK, so Lily doesn’t explicitly think this, but we thought we’d save you the
trouble of piecing together all the showy examples and just point out the big
obvious fact that MRS. RAMSAY HELD EVERYTHING TOGETHER.
Mr. Ramsay, James, Cam, and Nancy are late for their expedition to the
Lighthouse, and you can just imagine poor Lily sitting at the breakfast table
as Mr. Ramsay loses his temper, Nancy forgets the sandwiches, Cam and
James aren’t ready, and Nancy is at a loss for what to bring to the
Lighthouse keepers.
Lily, sitting at the breakfast table, feels isolated from the rest of her family
and wonders what she’s even doing there.
Mr. Ramsay looks straight at Lily for a moment, which throws her off balance.
Lily sits and thinks for a while longer. Mr. Carmichael comes in, makes a cup
of coffee, and leaves to sit in the sun.
Finally, Lily remembers that she was painting the last time she stayed in the
house, and gets up to fetch her paints. She resolves to finish the darn
painting.
Lily sets up her easel at the exact spot she set it up ten years ago. What? It’s
been ten years?! Way to just slip that in, Virginia Woolf.
Poor Lily can’t get any painting done because Mr. Ramsay keeps walking up
to her. She equates him with, to put it mildly, chaos and ruin.
Lily has a flashback to last night, where Mr. Ramsay told Lily that she would
find them all much changed. And then he scares his kids into going to the
Lighthouse with him.
Mr. Ramsay’s presence continues to disturb Lily and she can’t paint.
Lily is repeatedly reminded of Mrs. Ramsay’s absence and death.
She’s confused about it, because she feels like she’s trying to conjure up a
feeling inside herself that isn’t there.
We figure out that Lily is about 44 years of age.
She gives up, puts her brush down, and tries to give Mr. Ramsay whatever
attention and/or sympathy she can.
17
T. Enas Fawzy
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 2 Summary











Mr. Ramsay looks at Lily and notes that she has shriveled. He also notes that
Mrs. Ramsay liked Lily, that he, too, likes Lily, and that Lily has still not married
Mr. Bankes.
Mr. Ramsay is having a Moment. In this Moment, he becomes hell bent on
making the nearest woman give him something that he really, really needs.
And desires.
Lily knows what he wants, and she’s nervous. She knows that basically any
other woman in the world would be better able to give Mr. Ramsay what he
wants.
Mr. Ramsay keeps making desperate plays to get it from Lily, but Lily seems
incapable of giving it.
Finally Lily says something. She tells Mr. Ramsay that he has beautiful boots.
This is not what Mr. Ramsay wanted, but he smiles anyway.
Mr. Ramsay goes off on the awesomeness of his boots, and then disses Lily’s
method of shoelace tying. He shows her his method of shoelace tying, which
is far superior.
Lily is finally, unexpectedly, ready to give Mr. Ramsay what he
wants: sympathy.
James and Cam interrupt the shoelace tying party, looking serious.
The Ramsays go off on their expedition, leaving Lily feeling hollow inside.
As the Ramsays march off, Lily realizes that, essentially, Mr. Ramsay needs to
feel awesome. All the time. And Mrs. Ramsay used to fill that role.
The gate bangs as the Ramsays go through it.
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 3 Summary





Lily adjusts all of her painting things, and then contemplates where to start.
Lily paints.
As she paints, Lily tries to figure out the point of all this effort. She knows the
painting will probably wind up under some servant’s bed, but the words
"women can’t write, women can’t paint," ring in her ears and urge her on
(remember, that’s what Tansley said).
Lily thinks about the meaning of life, and about, essentially, halting
life. Freezing it. Mrs. Ramsay was able to do it well, and when
she remembers this, Lily thinks that she owes everything to Mrs. Ramsay.
Lily walks to where she can see the sea. She sees a little boat, and imagines
Mr. Ramsay, Cam, and James sailing in it.
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 4 Summary



Mr. Ramsay sits in the middle of the boat and pouts. (Figuratively. The
pouting, we mean, not the sitting.)
James and Cam are nervous and also a bit ticked off that their dad
essentially forced them on this trip.
Mr. Ramsay tells the Macalister boy and Macalister, who are in the boat with
the Ramsays, to start rowing.
18
T. Enas Fawzy














James and Cam simultaneously wish that their dad’s desires were denied in
every way. They make an unspoken pact to be as quietly uncooperative as
possible. The good, old silent treatment.
Old Macalister tells amusing stories and Cam almost breaks the pact.
They’re having a nice sail. It’s a nice day. James is steering the boat. The
Macalister boy is fishing.
Mr. Ramsay points out their house. He imagines himself receiving lots of
sympathy, then begins softly reciting a Cowper poem.
The words of the poem make Cam angry.
Mr. Ramsay asks them all to look at the island they are sailing towards.
Cam could see nothing. Her patronizing father begins to tease her about
points of the compass – doesn’t she know them?
Mr. Ramsay thinks a disparaging comment about women generally, but he
decides he will try to make Cam smile at him.
He asks her questions about a puppy.
James, hand on the tiller, knows that Cam will yield and he will be left alone
to fight tyranny.
Cam surprises James. She doesn’t answer her father’s question about the
puppy’s name.
James thinks briefly of his mother surrendering to his father.
The Macalister boy catches a mackerel.
Although Cam doesn’t surrender, she secretly sends her dad good vibes.
She wants to yield, but she remembers that her dad’s tyranny has poisoned
her childhood and stays silent.
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 5 Summary








Standing at the edge of the lawn, Lily Briscoe finds the boat that Mr.
Ramsay, Cam, and James are traveling in. She regrets not giving him her
sympathy. Since she has never been able to praise him to his face, Lily’s
relationship to him is neutral. It lacks a certain sexual element that infused
Minta’s relationship with Mr. Ramsay.
As she paints, Lily daydreams a little about sitting next to Mrs. Ramsay on the
beach.
Then Lily thinks about Minta and Paul Rayley. Their marriage fell apart after a
year, but then Lily visited them last summer and saw that they now have a
very straightforward, amicable relationship. They’re not in love – Paul is
getting it on with another woman, one who shares his views on taxes – but at
least they are good friends.
Lily wonders what Mrs. Ramsay would think of the marriage.
Lily feels triumphant over Mrs. Ramsay’s old-fashioned values. She (Lily) had
never married, nor had William Bankes, although Mrs. Ramsay did try her
best to get them together.
Lily thinks for a moment about the idea of being "in love," but remembers the
Rayleys’ marriage.
Lily and William Bankes are, however, extremely good friends.
Lily wants to talk to Mr. Carmichael about Mrs. Ramsay, but ends up
(unexpectedly) crying and calling out Mrs. Ramsay’s name.
19
T. Enas Fawzy
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 6 Summary

[The Macalister boy takes a chunk of flesh out of the newly caught fish to use
as bait, and tosses the rest of the fish back into the sea.]
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary




Lily continues to cry out for Mrs. Ramsay. Mr. Carmichael doesn’t notice.
Lily continues painting. She looks up at one point and sees Mr. Ramsay’s
boat halfway across the bay.
The weather is very good.
She looks at the sea again. The boat is in the middle of the bay.
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 8 Summary








The world stands still for Cam as they wait for a breeze to fill their sail. They
are miles from shore and miles from the Lighthouse.
Mr. Ramsay is reading like he wants sympathy. This irritates James. He wants
to take a knife and plunge it into his father’s heart. Still James the Ruthless.
Since he’s grown older, James has realized that it’s not his father that he
wants to kill, but essentially the tyrannical, nasty moods that descend upon
his father.
James is often beginning to feel, however, that only he and his father
understand one other.
James absorbs himself in memories.
He thinks of his mother, and how she alone spoke the truth, and to her alone
could he speak the truth.
James feels powerless and miserable, but at that moment the sail fills with
wind and the boat moves on.
Mr. Ramsay barely moves.
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary

(Lily watches the sea. She feels as if the Ramsays have gone forever.)
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 10 Summary




Cam looks at the island as she trails her fingers in the water.
She has a mental argument with James about their father. She wants her
brother to get along with Mr. Ramsay.
She repeats to herself a story that old Macalister told earlier about escaping
from a sinking ship.
Waves pile high around the boat.
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 11 Summary


Lily ruminates that a lot depends on distance; her feelings for Mr. Ramsay
change the further away he is.
She looks at her painting in shock. She has not been able to achieve
balance between two opposing forces.
20
T. Enas Fawzy









Something is evading Lily whenever she thinks of Mrs. Ramsay or her picture.
Lily thinks about Mr. Carmichael and how he has changed. The two of them
don’t know each other very well, but Lily argues in her mind that
she knows Mr. Carmichael. She can imagine the shape of his poetry.
Lily thinks about Mr. Carmichael’s interactions with Mrs. Ramsay, how Mrs.
Ramsay, sensing that Mr. Carmichael didn’t like her, would always try to be
helpful towards him.
A hinge squeaks.
Lily thinks about Mrs. Ramsay’s character.
Then Lily thinks about Charles Tansley, and how he got married, had a little
girl, and denounced the war in favor of brotherly love.
Lily reflects that 50 eyes are necessary to see people clearly.
Lily imagines the life that Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay had together.
She turns her attention back to her painting, then walks again to the edge of
the lawn. She wants Mr. Ramsay. Don’t get so excited, not in that way.
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 12 Summary














Mr. Ramsay is almost finished with his book. He is reading quickly, as if eager
to finish.
They’re almost at the Lighthouse.
James looks at the Lighthouse. Cam looks at the sea.
Mr. Ramsay closes his book and tells his children that it’s time for lunch.
Macalister praises James’s steering.
Mr. Ramsay hands out sandwiches.
Cam feels good. She feels safe now that her father is keeping an eye on her.
Macalister and Mr. Ramsay compare stories, since they are 75 and 71 years
old, respectively.
Macalister’s boy points out where three men drowned.
Cam and James are afraid for a moment that Mr. Ramsay will burst out with
lines from a poem.
Mr. Ramsay praises James’s sailing, and Cam mentally congratulates James,
because she knows this is what he’s been waiting for.
James holds himself aloof. He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s pleased.
Two men stand waiting at the Lighthouse for them. Mr. Ramsay takes out the
parcel Nancy prepared.
Mr. Ramsay tells his children to bring the parcels for the Lighthouse men and
then springs up onto the rock like a young man.
To the Lighthouse Part 3, Chapter 13 Summary


Last chapter. It ends suitably, with Lily and Mr. Carmichael positive that Mr.
Ramsay has reached the Lighthouse.
Lily’s painting finished, and the painting matches her vision.
21
T. Enas Fawzy
Analysis
To the Lighthouse Plot Analysis
Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation,
conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great
writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Admittedly, it's kind of tough to talk about To the Lighthouse in terms of plot
trajectory because, while time does certainly move in the novel, "plot" would seem
to suggest that there's some sort of definite goal to the narrative. And yet, really,
the book seems like it might be more of a three-part portrait than a real beginningmiddle-end kind of story. Still, there are two characters who do have something
22
T. Enas Fawzy
approaching plot: Lily Briscoe and James Ramsay. Both are actively striving for
something, so we're going to organize our plot analysis to see what they actually
get.
Initial Situation
Both James Ramsay and Lily Briscoe are trying to find places for themselves within
the society of the Ramsay family.
At the start of Part One ("The Window"), James Ramsay is six, Lily Briscoe, thirty-four.
James is the baby of the Ramsay family and much-beloved by his mother, but he
feels fiercely competitive with his father, who occupies a place in Mrs. Ramsay's life
that James cannot hope to occupy. Lily Briscoe, on the other hand, is an
impoverished friend of the Ramsay family whose uncertain social place is due to
the fact that she's thirty-four, unmarried, and not very conventionally attractive.
Not a good situation for a woman in the 1920s to be in. But she has a strong,
mutually affectionate relationship with Mrs. Ramsay that sustains her throughout
her stay with the Ramsay family on the Isle of Skye.
Conflict
James wants to go to the Lighthouse, though his father says that the weather won't
be good enough to go. Lily Briscoe wants to paint, though Charles Tansley has told
her to her face that women can't write or paint.
James's desire to go to the Lighthouse – and his father's (and Charles Tansley's)
insistence on refusing – is the main conflict through which James's difficult
relationship with his oppressive father gets represented. Mr. Ramsay wants all of his
children to behave on his terms and to strive according to his orders. James's
rebelliousness shows that the main conflict of James's life is going to be with his
father
and
his
father's
power
over
James's
life.
Lily Briscoe, like James, is sadly squelched by a man with more status than she has
– Charles Tansley. She wants to paint, but to do so seems to be a threat to the
masculine system of intellectual hierarchy that both Mr. Ramsay and Charles
Tansley rely upon. Lily's trying to find a way, as a woman, to pursue her own artistic
development freely, but she's meeting lots of obstacles along the way because of
her gender and relatively low social status.
Complication
Both James and Lily rely on Mrs. Ramsay as a kind of alternative model of power to
Mr. Ramsay's bullying tyranny. But Mrs. Ramsay throws them each a curveball by
not really supporting either James's trip to the lighthouse or Lily Briscoe's painting.
The beautiful, charming, perhaps secretly frustrated Mrs. Ramsay seems at first like
one possible alternative to the oppressive Mr. Ramsay. But 1) Mr. Ramsay turns out
not to be all that bad, with his massive secret insecurity, and 2) Mrs. Ramsay turns
out not to be all that great. We mean, she's still lovely and sympathetic, but
she knows that James isn't going to get to the Lighthouse. And she regrets the fact
23
T. Enas Fawzy
that she disguised the truth from him ("She felt angry with Charles Tansley, with her
husband, and with herself, for she had raised his hopes" [1.18.8]), but she still lied to
him
in
the
name
of
preserving
his
feelings.
In the end, while she's angry at Mr. Ramsay for oppressing James, Mrs. Ramsay
does nothing to change his behavior. In fact, Mrs. Ramsay actively wishes that
James would stay a child forever (1.10.10) because she loves him as a child. This
works directly against James's desire to grow and replace his father. Similarly, Lily
Briscoe is fully aware that Mrs. Ramsay is willing to care for Lily – but only on her
own terms. She's not willing to go out on a limb for Lily's painting ("one could not
take [Lily's] painting seriously" (1.3.7), thinks Mrs. Ramsay). And she still believes that
Lily must marry William Bankes. Lily feels Mrs. Ramsay's pressure on her to be married
and resents it, despite her affection for Mrs. Ramsay as a person.
Climax
World War I strikes and the Ramsay family suffers a series of losses that change the
shape of both the house on the Isle of Skye and of the family itself.
In the midst of James Ramsay's efforts to get to the Lighthouse and Lily Briscoe's
efforts to get recognition for her artwork, To the Lighthouse draws its focus away
from the people of the novel. The second part of the novel experiments with the
passage of time through focusing on the shifting, decaying form of the semiabandoned house on the Isle of Skye, with limited interruptions for the deaths of
Mrs. Ramsay, Prue Ramsay (she falls ill in childbirth), and Andrew Ramsay (he is
killed
in
France
by
a
mine
during World
War
I).
These deaths must leave the structure of the Ramsay family forever changed (as,
not to get too melodramatic, the intrusion of World War I left England forever
changed – see how Virginia Woolf gets at massive movements of history through
the lens of the everyday? Good stuff!). So this section of the novel provides a kind
of climax for James and Lily: they're left in suspension (as are we, the readers),
waiting to see what's going to happen to them now that Mr. Ramsay has lost the
soothing, socializing influence of his wife. They were trying to find places for
themselves in the Ramsay family as it was in the first section; now, they must work
out what space there is for them in the Ramsay family as it will bein the last section.
Suspense
It's the beginning of Part Three, and ten years have passed. What are James and
Lily going to do now that Mrs. Ramsay, who gave both of them a place in the
Ramsay family, has died? What are they now going to work towards?
The third part begins with Lily Briscoe asking, "What does it mean then, what can it
all mean?" (3.1.1), and boy, we're right along with her. What does all of this mean?
That's where the suspense comes in: we're waiting to see if there's going to be any
purpose or conclusion given to the James Ramsay and Lily Briscoe story lines now
that
Mrs.
Ramsay
has
died.
24
T. Enas Fawzy
And we find out almost immediately that there is going to be some kind of
continuation with the plot lines of Part One. James is finally getting his expedition to
the Lighthouse, but this time, it's on his father's terms and he's being forced to go
with his sister Cam. As for Lily Briscoe, she still feels the oppressive force of Mr.
Ramsay that interfered with her painting so many years ago. And she, like James, is
picking
up
where
she
left
off:
She must escape somewhere, be alone somewhere. Suddenly [Lily] remembered
[...] There had been a problem about a foreground of a picture. Move the tree to
the middle, she had said. She had never finished that picture. She would paint that
picture now. It had been knocking about in her mind all these years [...] She had
borne it in her mind all these years. It seemed as if the solution had come to her:
she
knew
now
what
she
wanted
to
do. (3.1.7-8)
In other words, both James and Lily are picking up their quests again, but they're
starting from different places. They must begin in other ways because the James
and Lily – and indeed, the Ramsay family – of ten years ago have disappeared. As
we read, we wonder if this new James will reach his Lighthouse and this new Lily will
finish her picture, as neither succeeded in doing in Part One.
The suspense portion of the plot for both of these characters certainly covers most
of Part Three. Both James himself and his sister Cam observe James's growing
resentment of his father, as he chats anxiously with Macalister and continues to
criticize and bully his children. This trip seems almost like an intensification of the
strain between the two men, and between Cam, her father, and her brother that
we saw in Part One. On Cam's part, she finds herself feeling drowned in the
competition between James and Mr. Ramsay, seeking comfort in the dreams the
steady rock of the boat inspires: "It was a hanging garden; it was a valley, full of
birds, and flowers, and antelopes" (3.12.3). This echoes the lullaby that Mrs. Ramsay
spoke to her when she was afraid of the boar's skull in Part One, the skull that Mrs.
Ramsay wrapped in her shawl to cover it from view. Cam is capable of being
soothed, of ignoring the ugly truths under things. As her father and James lock in
silent
struggle,
Cam
sits
to
the
side,
quietly
stifling.
James becomes wearily resentful of Cam's unwillingness to take his side (much as
his mother failed really to take his side over the Lighthouse thing in Part One?). So,
between his father's bullying and James's resentment of a female family member,
it's almost like old times. Meanwhile, Lily Briscoe is watching Mr. Ramsay's boat
tacking towards the lighthouse, and as she paints, she considers her relationship to
the Ramsay family. Once again, her painting is like a magnifying glass for her to
use small subjects – a tree moved towards the middle of the canvas – as a jumping
off point for larger explorations of past, present, art, and reality.
25
T. Enas Fawzy
Denouement
The denouement is the point in the plot when everything becomes clear. Both
James Ramsay and Lily Briscoe do get their denouements by the end of To the
Lighthouse.
In Part Three, Chapter Twelve, Mr. Ramsay praises James Ramsay for his steering
skills. At last, he acknowledges that James has talents in his own right, that he need
not
control
every
aspect
of
James's
life.
James Ramsay and Mr. Ramsey share a moment of mutual understanding at the
Lighthouse, witnessed by Cam: "[James] was so pleased that he was not going to
let anyone share a grain of his pleasure. His father had praised him. They must think
[James] was perfectly indifferent. But you've got it now, Cam thought" (3.12.15).
Mr. Ramsay has at last given some of his power to the next generation. He will
always be a domineering father, but he's brought up James to follow in his
footsteps, and he is willing at last to let James take his place at the Lighthouse. We
finally learn what James's quest to get to the Lighthouse really means: he is taking
up the social and intellectual authority of the Man. (See "The Lighthouse" in
"Symbols,
Imagery,
Allegory"
for
more.)
Lily Briscoe, for her part, is attempting to create a different heritage for herself.
She's trying to make peace with the memory of Mrs. Ramsay, both her quiet
bullying (why should Lily have married Mr. Bankes?) and her all-encompassing love
(Lily learned a great deal about the importance of the little things in life from Mrs.
Ramsay). Lily's peacemaking with the memory of Mrs. Briscoe gives her a way to
solve
her
aesthetic
problem
of
how
she
should
be
painting:
One wanted, [Lily] thought, dipping her brush deliberately, to be on a level with
ordinary experience, to feel simply that’s a chair, that’s a table, and yet at the
same time, It’s a miracle, it’s an ecstasy. The problem might be solved after all. Ah,
but what had happened? Some wave of white went over the window pane. The
air must have stirred some flounce in the room. Her heart leapt at her and seized
her
and
tortured
her. (3.11.21).
Lily gets the everyday from Mrs. Ramsay, but the "miracle," the "ecstasy" – that's all
her own artistic aspiration. "The problem" that she's looking for, how to capture that
miracle, is something that Mr. Ramsay is also, in a sense, seeking. He's got his
theorem in Part One that he never finishes, but Lily's focus on the everyday gives
her enough to work with that "the problem might be solved after all."
It's in this moment of realization that Lily understands that Mr. Ramsay has no
authority over her. She is effectively outside the traditional family structure of the
Ramsays. He has firmly established his heirs, James and Cam, who sail with him to
the Lighthouse. Lily is free to do something different, to carve out an artistic legacy
for
herself.
Lily has come to realize that Mr. Ramsay doesn't have to bother her any more. She
has solved with art what he attempts to solve with philosophy. Her willingness to
26
T. Enas Fawzy
look outside the ordered rationality of social and philosophical structures has given
her true inspiration. She has broken free of the bonds of traditional class and
gender roles to capture something more essential: a true moment of aesthetic
revelation.
Conclusion
Both James and Lily have gotten what they've been wanting, so all that's left for the
conclusion is that final "line there, in the centre" to emphasize Lily's recognition of
her own freedom from the Lighthouse and all it represents.
Following the denouement, we get a final chapter in Part Three. Lily Briscoe sees
that Mr. Ramsay's boat must have arrived at the Lighthouse. It's at this moment,
when she observes from afar Mr. Ramsay's greatest moment of family bonding,
that Lily really gets the degree of perspective on the Ramsay family that she's been
searching for all of these years. Lily and Mr. Carmichael (a successful poet) have
both achieved an aesthetic resolution. They may not share the Ramsay family's
social status, but their abilities to capture the essence of such scenes gives them
intellectual and artistic security outside the conventions of marriage and family life.
Lily has come to understand that all of the minor pressures of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay
on her fate have fallen away – which is perhaps why the Lighthouse (and all the
social and family pressures that it represents) "had become almost invisible, had
melted away into a blue haze" (3.13.1). Lily has solved the problem of the
Lighthouse and how she can operate independently of it as a single woman artist:
she has, at last, completed her painting.
Three-Act Plot Analysis
For a three-act plot analysis, put on your screenwriter’s hat. Moviemakers know the
formula well: at the end of Act One, the main character is drawn in completely to
a conflict. During Act Two, she is farthest away from her goals. At the end of Act
Three, the story is resolved.
Act I
Act I ends when the protagonist(s) have reached a point of no return, which we
feel comes when Mrs. Ramsay passes away in Part Two. Until then, all of the
struggles of the novel (between Charles Tansley and everyone, between James
and Mr. Ramsay, between Lily and all of the Ramsays) have taken place under the
condition that Mrs. Ramsay was there to make everyone feel better. Mrs. Ramsay
complemented Mr. Ramsay's rough edges, and her social ease drew everyone
together in a way that could never be matched in the subsequent chapters. So
the point of no return is the moment when Mrs. Ramsay is removed from the scene,
and we are left wondering – how is James going to get along with Mr. Ramsay
now that his beloved mother is gone? And how is Lily going to form her artistic
identity against the discouragement of men like Mr. Ramsay and Charles Tansley
without Mrs. Ramsay's (sort of grudging) support?
27
T. Enas Fawzy
Act II
Act II should take us from that point of no return to the place in the narrative where
the characters are furthest from their goals. Insofar as the characters have goals,
then, we'd have to say that Act II starts with Mrs. Ramsay's death and ends with the
beginning of Part Three, when James and Lily both pick up their struggles with Mr.
Ramsay again. We don't know how James is going to resolve is problems with his
dad, nor do we know how Lily's going to manage to finish her painting after ten
years of waiting. But once Lily picks up her brush and James sets sail for the
Lighthouse with Cam and Mr. Ramsay, we know they've laid the foundations of
their final plot developments, which carries us into Act III.
Act III
This is the part of the story where everything is solved: James reconciles with his
father, who has decided to share some of his power with James (symbolized by
their shared arrival at the Lighthouse under James's steering). And Lily recognizes
the contribution that the Ramsay family has made to her life without feeling like
she owes them any shame over her unmarried status. Lily has solved her aesthetic
problem of how to be a painter separate from Mr. Ramsay's philosophies on the
subject. The End.
Themes
The Transience of Life and Work
Mr. Ramsay and Mrs. Ramsay take completely different approaches to life: he
relies on his intellect, while she depends on her emotions. But they share the
knowledge that the world around them is transient—that nothing lasts forever. Mr.
Ramsay reflects that even the most enduring of reputations, such as
Shakespeare’s, are doomed to eventual oblivion. This realization accounts for the
bitter aspect of his character. Frustrated by the inevitable demise of his own body
of work and envious of the few geniuses who will outlast him, he plots to found a
school of philosophy that argues that the world is designed for the average,
unadorned man, for the “liftman in the Tube” rather than for the rare immortal
writer.
Mrs. Ramsay is as keenly aware as her husband of the passage of time and of
mortality. She recoils, for instance, at the notion of James growing into an adult,
registers the world’s many dangers, and knows that no one, not even her husband,
can protect her from them. Her reaction to this knowledge is markedly different
from her husband’s. Whereas Mr. Ramsay is bowed by the weight of his own
demise, Mrs. Ramsay is fueled with the need to make precious and memorable
28
T. Enas Fawzy
whatever time she has on earth. Such crafted moments, she reflects, offer the only
hope of something that endures.
Art as a Means of Preservation
In the face of an existence that is inherently without order or meaning, Mr. and Mrs.
Ramsay employ different strategies for making their lives significant. Mr. Ramsay
devotes himself to his progression through the course of human thought, while Mrs.
Ramsay cultivates memorable experiences from social interactions. Neither of
these strategies, however, proves an adequate means of preserving one’s
experience. After all, Mr. Ramsay fails to obtain the philosophical understanding he
so desperately desires, and Mrs. -Ramsay’s life, though filled with moments that
have the shine and resilience of rubies, ends. Only Lily Briscoe finds a way to
preserve her experience, and that way is through her art. As Lily begins her portrait
of Mrs. Ramsay at the beginning of the novel, Woolf notes the scope of the
project: Lily means to order and connect elements that have no necessary relation
in the world—“hedges and houses and mothers and children.” By the end of the
novel, ten years later, Lily finishes the painting she started, which stands as a
moment of clarity wrested from confusion. Art is, perhaps, the only hope of surety
in a world destined and determined to change: for, while mourning Mrs. Ramsay’s
death and painting on the lawn, Lily reflects that “nothing stays, all changes; but
not words, not paint.”
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas
or concepts.
The Lighthouse
Lying across the bay and meaning something different and intimately personal to
each character, the lighthouse is at once inaccessible, illuminating, and infinitely
interpretable. As the destination from which the novel takes its title, the lighthouse
suggests that the destinations that seem surest are most unobtainable. Just as Mr.
Ramsay is certain of his wife’s love for him and aims to hear her speak words to
that end in “The Window,” Mrs. Ramsay finds these words impossible to say. These
failed attempts to arrive at some sort of solid ground, like Lily’s first try at painting
Mrs. Ramsay or Mrs. Ramsay’s attempt to see Paul and Minta married, result only in
more attempts, further excursions rather than rest. The lighthouse stands as a
potent symbol of this lack of attainability. James arrives only to realize that it is not
at all the mist-shrouded destination of his childhood. Instead, he is made to
reconcile two competing and contradictory images of the tower—how it
appeared to him when he was a boy and how it appears to him now that he is a
29
T. Enas Fawzy
man. He decides that both of these images contribute to the essence of the
lighthouse—that nothing is ever only one thing—a sentiment that echoes the
novel’s determination to arrive at truth through varied and contradictory vantage
points.
Lily’s Painting
Lily’s painting represents a struggle against gender convention, represented by
Charles Tansley’s statement that women can’t paint or write. Lily’s desire to express
Mrs. Ramsay’s essence as a wife and mother in the painting mimics the impulse
among modern women to know and understand intimately the gendered
experiences of the women who came before them. Lily’s composition attempts to
discover and comprehend Mrs. Ramsay’s beauty just as Woolf’s construction of
Mrs. Ramsay’s character reflects her attempts to access and portray her own
mother.
The painting also represents dedication to a feminine artistic vision, expressed
through Lily’s anxiety over showing it to William Bankes. In deciding that
completing the painting regardless of what happens to it is the most important
thing, Lily makes the choice to establish her own artistic voice. In the end, she
decides that her vision depends on balance and synthesis: how to bring together
disparate things in harmony. In this respect, her project mirrors Woolf’s writing,
which synthesizes the perceptions of her many characters to come to a balanced
and truthful portrait of the world.
The Ramsays’ House
The Ramsays’ house is a stage where Woolf and her characters explain their beliefs
and observations. During her dinner party, Mrs. Ramsay sees her house display her
own inner notions of shabbiness and her inability to preserve beauty. In the “Time
Passes” section, the ravages of war and destruction and the passage of time are
reflected in the condition of the house rather than in the emotional development
or observable aging of the characters. The house stands in for the collective
consciousness of those who stay in it. At times the characters long to escape it,
while at other times it serves as refuge. From the dinner party to the journey to the
lighthouse, Woolf shows the house from every angle, and its structure and contents
mirror the interior of the characters who inhabit it.
The Sea
References to the sea appear throughout the novel. Broadly, the ever-changing,
ever-moving waves parallel the constant forward movement of time and the
30
T. Enas Fawzy
changes it brings. Woolf describes the sea lovingly and beautifully, but her most
evocative depictions of it point to its violence. As a force that brings destruction,
has the power to decimate islands, and, as Mr. Ramsay reflects, “eats away the
ground we stand on,” the sea is a powerful reminder of the impermanence and
delicacy of human life and accomplishments.
Major Characters
Mrs. Ramsay
Mrs. Ramsay emerges from the novel’s opening pages not only as a woman of
great kindness and tolerance but also as a protector. Indeed, her primary goal is
to preserve her youngest son James’s sense of hope and wonder surrounding the
lighthouse. Though she realizes (as James himself does) that Mr. Ramsay is correct
in declaring that foul weather will ruin the next day’s voyage, she persists in
assuring James that the trip is a possibility. She does so not to raise expectations
that will inevitably be dashed, but rather because she realizes that the beauties
and pleasures of this world are ephemeral and should be preserved, protected,
and cultivated as much as possible. So deep is this commitment that she behaves
similarly to each of her guests, even those who do not deserve or appreciate her
kindness. Before heading into town, for example, she insists on asking Augustus
Carmichael, whom she senses does not like her, if she can bring him anything to
make his stay more comfortable. Similarly, she tolerates the insufferable behavior
of Charles Tansley, whose bitter attitude and awkward manners threaten to undo
the delicate work she has done toward making a pleasant and inviting home.
As LilyBriscoe notes in the novel’s final section, Mrs. Ramsay feels the need to play
this role primarily in the company of men. Indeed, Mrs. Ramsay feels obliged to
protect the entire opposite sex. According to her, men shoulder the burden of
ruling countries and managing economies. Their important work, she believes,
leaves them vulnerable and in need of constant reassurance, a service that
women can and should provide. Although this dynamic fits squarely into traditional
gender boundaries, it is important to note the strength that Mrs. Ramsay feels. At
several points, she is aware of her own power, and her posture is far from that of a
submissive woman. At the same time, interjections of domesticated anxiety, such
as her refrain of “the bill for the greenhouse would be fifty pounds,” undercut this
power.
Ultimately, as is evident from her meeting with Mr. Ramsay at the close of “The
Window,” Mrs. Ramsay never compromises herself. Here, she is able—masterfully—
31
T. Enas Fawzy
to satisfy her husband’s desire for her to tell him she loves him without saying the
words she finds so difficult to say. This scene displays Mrs. Ramsay’s ability to bring
together disparate things into a whole. In a world marked by the ravages of time
and war, in which everything must and will fall apart, there is perhaps no greater
gift than a sense of unity, even if it is only temporary. Lily and other characters find
themselves grasping for this unity after Mrs. Ramsay’s death.
Mr. Ramsay
Mr. Ramsay stands, in many respects, as Mrs. Ramsay’s opposite. Whereas she acts
patiently, kindly, and diplomatically toward others, he tends to be short-tempered,
selfish, and rude. Woolf fittingly describes him as “lean as a knife, narrow as the
blade of one,” which conjures both his physical presence and suggests the
sharpness (and violence) of his personality. An accomplished metaphysician who
made an invaluable contribution to his field as a young man, Mr. Ramsay bears
out his wife’s philosophy regarding gender: men, burdened by the importance of
their own work, need to seek out the comforts and assurances of women.
Throughout the novel, Mr. Ramsay implores his wife and even his guests for
sympathy. Mr. Ramsay is uncertain about the fate of his work and its legacy, and
his insecurity manifests itself either as a weapon or a weakness. His keen awareness
of death’s inevitability motivates him to dash the hopes of young James and to
bully Mrs. Ramsay into declaring her love for him. This hyperawareness also forces
him to confront his own mortality and face the possibility that he, like the forgotten
books and plates that litter the second part of the novel, might sink into oblivion.
Lily Briscoe
Lily is a passionate artist, and, like Mr. Ramsay, she worries over the fate of her work,
fearing that her paintings will be hung in attics or tossed absentmindedly under a
couch. Conventional femininity, represented by Mrs. Ramsay in the form of
marriage and family, confounds Lily, and she rejects it. The recurring memory of
Charles Tansley insisting that women can neither paint nor write deepens her
anxiety. It is with these self-doubts that she begins her portrait of Mrs. Ramsay at the
beginning of the novel, a portrait riddled with problems that she is unable to solve.
But Lily undergoes a drastic transformation over the course of the novel, evolving
from a woman who cannot make sense of the shapes and colors that she tries to
reproduce into an artist who achieves her vision and, more important, overcomes
the anxieties that have kept her from it. By the end of the novel, Lily, a serious and
diligent worker, puts into practice all that she has learned from Mrs. Ramsay. Much
like the woman she so greatly admires, she is able to craft something beautiful and
32
T. Enas Fawzy
lasting from the ephemeral materials around her—the changing light, the view of
the bay. Her artistic achievement suggests a larger sense of completeness in that
she finally feels united with Mr. Ramsay and the rational, intellectual sphere that he
represents.
James Ramsay
A sensitive child, James is gripped by a love for his mother that is as overpowering
and complete as his hatred for his father. He feels a murderous rage against Mr.
Ramsay, who, he believes, delights in delivering the news that there will be no trip
to the lighthouse. But James grows into a young man who shares many of his
father’s characteristics, the same ones that incited such anger in him as a child.
When he eventually sails to the lighthouse with his father, James, like Mr. Ramsay, is
withdrawn, moody, and easily offended. His need to be praised, as noted by his
sister Cam, mirrors his father’s incessant need for sympathy, reassurance, and love.
Indeed, as they approach the lighthouse, James considers his father’s profile and
recognizes the profound loneliness that stamps both of their personalities. By the
time the boat lands, James’s attitude toward his father has changed considerably.
As he softens toward Mr. Ramsay and comes to accept him as he is, James, like
Lily, who finishes her painting on shore at that very moment, achieves a rare,
fleeting moment in which the world seems blissfully whole and complete.
33