Jayse Van Rooyen

Discussion Questions
“To the Lighthouse” Virginia Woolf

1) At the end of the novel Cam, James, and Mr. Ramsay finally set sails for the Lighthouse.
The Lighthouse is clearly a very strong metaphor able to evoke emotion in many
characters in the novel. Does the journey to the Lighthouse, as well as Lily’s on shore
journey through art, represent how each character deals with mourning? Does the
Lighthouse represent Mrs. Ramsay to these characters’? When Lily finishes the painting
and Cam, James, and Mr. Ramsay reach the shore of the island is this the end of their
journey to mourning such an important person in their lives? What does this represent?

Pg. 186 “For nothing was simply one thing. The other Lighthouse was true too. It was
sometimes hardly to be seen across the bay. In the evening one looked up and saw the eye
opening and shutting and the light seemed to reach them in that airy sunny garden where they
sat”.

2) James clearly has immense hatred toward his father, which started at a very young age.
Where does this hatred stem from? Will James forever remember that his father
continuously disappointed him throughout his life by not taking him to the lighthouse?
Is it ever too late to experience something important with your child? Is this gesture of
Mr. Ramsay taking James to the lighthouse a way for him to apologize? What would
Freud’s thoughts be on James’ and Mr. Ramsay’s relationship?

Pg. 36 “But his son hated him. He hated him for coming up to them, for stopping and looking
down on them; he hated him for the exaltation and sublimity of his gestures; for the
magnificence of his head; for his exactingness and egotism…but most of all he hated the twang
and twitter of his father’s emotion”

Pg. 62 “[Mrs. Ramsay] thought, he will remember that all his life”.

3) There are very apparent divides between men and women in this novel. Would it be fair
to say that Mr. Ramsay is misogynistic or does he have insecurities in his life that he
casts upon women because he really thirsts for sympathy. Do his insecurities prevent
him from taking him on the journey to the Lighthouse because he does not want to face
what they (insecurities) are? Is he stuck in his books and doesn’t face reality? Is he
jealous of Mrs. Ramsay and in turn projects his gender over hers?

Pg. 37 (Mr. Ramsay is standing over Mrs. Ramsay and James reading a book)

“But, no. Nothing would make Mr. Ramsay move on. There he stood, demanding sympathy.”
Pg. 152 “His immense self-pity, his demand for sympathy poured and spread itself in pools at
her feet, and all she did, miserable sinner that she was, was to draw her skirts a little closer
round her ankles, lest she should get wet”.

(Lily thought he was misogynistic and did not know how to understand him until her
painting was done and everything started to make sense, enlightened not in fear of
gender conventions any longer??)  just my thoughts

Pg. 123 “But through the crepuscular walls of their intimacy, for they were drawing together,
involuntarily, coming side by side, quite close, she could feel his mind like a raised hand
shadowing her mind; and he was beginning, now that her thoughts took a turn he disliked –
towards this pessimism as he called it – to fidget, though he said nothing, raising his hand to his
forehead, twisting a lock of hair, letting it fall again”.

4) We have been talking a lot about the self. What is the self and how is it affected… by
lack of nature in our lives, by our own corruption etc…

Does Woolf suggest that we (maybe more specifically women because Mrs. Ramsay is the
main caregiver to the children and is the one that gives birth) can lose our “self” when we
have children? Becoming a parent is a joy and responsibility but does that now not ever give
a person the time to completely retreat back to themselves and be just their “self”, “a
wedge-shaped core of darkness”. (How does post partum depression play a role in this?)

Pg. 32 “They came to her naturally, since she was a woman, all day long with this and that; one
wanting this, and another that; the children were growing up; she often felt she was nothing
but a sponge sopped full of human emotions”

Pg. 62 “For now she could not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that
was what now she often felt the need of – to think: well, not even to think. To be silent; to be
alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk,
with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something
invisible to others.”

5) Does the lighthouse represent the psychology of Mrs. Ramsay? Her distance from her
family after death, her want to be alone, the wedge-shaped core of darkness, but also
the shawl that continuously protects them, guidance (like the light gives), and the over
seer of her family. Is the significance of the journey to the Lighthouse to accept Mrs.
Ramsay for her “self”, the wedge-shaped core of darkness, and everything she did for
their family, when she wasn’t just her “self” the protector, the over seer, and the
guidance for their family… etc.

With the above quote in mind… pg. 62

6) There is a lot of repetition throughout the novel. What the characters say… like many
things twice in a row or James asking to go to the lighthouse. Why does Woolf write the
novel in this way?