To the Lighthouse...Virginia Woolf

The novel takes the reader through the perils of time when the roles of men and women were challenged. Men were dominant and women acted in the role they were given. The Ramsey’s were a family of ten; two adults and eight children. The children had a difficult time connecting with their father and rightly so. His views and treatment of women especially his wife and mother of his children exacerbated this feeling of disdain and hatred for him, especially in their youngest son, James. All throughout the novel there are references made about how he wanted the death of his father and by his own hand: “Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father’s breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it” (p.8).  James “hated” his father (p. 40). This was due to the fact that his father not only took pleasure in ridiculing (she wanted to go to the lighthouse) and debasing his mother, but took joy in the fact that he could just make judgment calls on their lives in whatever way he saw fit. On pg. 35 when Mrs. Ramey spoke again about going to the lighthouse, Mr. Ramsey flew into a rage. The author speaks of how he saw women’s minds as “folly,” meaning, foolish, stupid or silly. Mr. Ramsey would come to Mrs. Ramsey in public to seek accolades of his accomplishments and receive a stroking of his ego so that it would further strengthen his dominance over her and secure his rule and position, while simultaneously making her seem inferior. After she got through performing her womanly duties, she was mentally and physically drained (lying and babying a grown man is hard work) (pgs. 40-43).

Mrs. Ramsey held her power in her beauty. In this era a woman’s beauty was like gold and the author describes it as having the power to wipe away tears from those in mourning (pgs. 44-45). The author may have been a bit facetious and hyperbolic but she was probably a very beautiful woman. The image of the lighthouse, the repeated reference to the lighthouse is something Mrs. Ramsey can see, but she can never get to. She seems to always be in this constant state of making preparations for the journey, but no matter what she does, she always meets opposition and the novel has it to where she is always fighting to get there and then we  hear of her death on pg. 132. The struggle to the lighthouse, is synonymous to her struggles as the wife of Mr. Ramsey which is synonymous to the struggles of women in the 1900’s. Imagism is all about ordinary speech and the concrete presentation of images; trying to create that moment in time and this is what Virginia Woolf was trying to do by way of Mrs. Ramsey.