51 pages • 1 hour read
Virginia WoolfTo the Lighthouse
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1927A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Lighthouse
Throughout the novel, the lighthouse is always capitalized. Its status in the novel as a proper noun suggests that to the author herself, the lighthouse carries significant meaning. As a structure that provides relief from darkness, any lighthouse can carry symbolic value; in the novel, the lighthouse on the island off the coast of the Isle of Skye illuminates the emotional darkness of the characters, all of whom suffer a loss or disappointment in their lives.
Six-year-old James’s desire to go to the lighthouse is the driving image of Part 1, and his disappointment at his father’s pessimism regarding the weather sets the tone for most of the novel. Later in Part 1, Mrs. Ramsay reflects on the light from the lighthouse after the dinner party, remembering that “[n]o happiness [can last]” (87) and that suffering and death will always afflict the living. In Parts 2 and 3, the deaths of Mrs. Ramsay, Prue, and Andrew cast a long shadow over the house and its occupants; only the light from the lighthouse in the distance illuminates the rooms as they sit empty in Part 2, its owners and their friends unable to travel thanks to the war. In Part 3, Lily paints and watches the boat carrying Mr. Ramsay, Cam, and James to the lighthouse in bright sunshine; it is this natural light that enables Lily to mourn the loss of Mrs. Ramsay and the sadness of the ten years since her last visit to the Ramsay’s house. The lighthouse does not shine in Part 3 because there is no darkness, and Lily is able to finish her painting and put her vision on canvas, ending the novel on an optimistic note.
As a lighthouse guides the way for ships approaching potentially perilous waters, so does the novel demonstrate a new approach to fiction. To the Lighthouse functions as a lighthouse, proving to 20th century readers that successful literature need not follow a traditional plot nor rely on a series of events for meaning. Thanks to Woolf, ordinary people living ordinary lives provide writers and readers with extraordinary opportunities to better understand themselves and the world around them.
The Sea
As the Ramsay house is so close to the coast, the sea is always near in To the Lighthouse, which means the characters in the novel are always aware of its presence. Ever-changing and continuously powerful, the sea provides an apt backdrop to a novel that focuses on the passage of time. Though the human characters in the novel may fear the natural processes of childhood, maturity, and death, the sea is a reminder of the impermanence of human existence.
Several characters in the book appear particularly susceptible to the effects of the sea on their emotions and their psychologies. Lily Briscoe and William Bankes are deeply moved by the sea; on their walk in Part 1, they are alternately overjoyed and deeply saddened by the irregular movements and the sounds of the waves. The sea is also linked with sadness for Minta Doyle. When Minta’s grandmother’s brooch disappears in the tide, Minta is overwhelmed with a sense of loss. Her grandmother is no longer living, so the brooch functions as a symbol of Minta’s relationship with her grandmother, and the sea has taken the only physical representation of this relationship. For Minta, the sea has stolen an object that reminds her of someone no longer walking the earth; the impermanence of life is all the more real for the loss of the brooch to the waves.
After the dinner party, the power of the waves seems to have a vivifying effect on Mrs. Ramsay. As a woman who feels her 50 years and reflects often on the past, she is perhaps less susceptible to the melancholy that the sea inspires in others. When Prue comes to her after dinner in Part 1 and tells her of a plan to walk down the beach, Mrs. Ramsay’s enthusiasm is youthful and infectious; she wraps Minta’s shawl around her, “like a girl of twenty, full of gaiety” (157), unburdened by the uncertainties of life that appear to plague other members of her party.
The Green Shawl
Mrs. Ramsay’s green cashmere shawl appears at several points in Part 1, and at each point, the color and the purpose of the shawl has symbolic resonance. The color green is often associated with fecundity and springtime; as Mrs. Ramsay is a mother of eight children who spends much of her time on domestic concerns and the well-being of others, the color green is consistent with her generous nature and her maternal role.
A shawl is also a humble item of clothing that provides warmth and protection to its wearer. Mrs. Ramsay tosses the green shawl on a gilt picture frame in the drawing room when she is irritated with the shabby appearance of the house. This gesture represents Mrs. Ramsay’s desire to protect the beauty of the house, which she feels is in decline; and because Mrs. Ramsay is 50, she may understand the house as an extension of herself, and the green shawl, the color of youth and seasonal renewal, distracts her from the fade. She also tosses her shawl over the boar’s skull in the children’s room, protecting them from any suggestion of death as they sleep.
Mrs. Ramsay wears her shawl as she walks in the garden with her husband before dinner and watches her children play catch. The shawl as a source of warmth and protection serves as a reminder to Mrs. Ramsay, Mr. Ramsay, Lily Briscoe, and the reader that Mrs. Ramsay, for all her strength and her ability to bring harmony to her family and her community, is vulnerable to the passage of time and the elements, just like all humans.
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By Virginia Woolf
