Mrs. and Mr. Ramsay

Mrs. and Mr. Ramsay create one of the most complex, almost baffling relationships in To the Lighthouse. They have a large, slightly dysfunctional, family that is kept together by the strength and perseverance of the mother figure. Alice van Buren Kelley argues that Virginia Woolf purposefully drops the reader “into the middle of a conversation, as if we entered a crowded room invisibly, and lets us find our way toward an understanding of what is going on and who these people are” (28). The only thing the reader is sure of is that there is a conflict of interests between characters that needs to be resolved.

Mrs. Ramsay is the protector of the men in her family, a hostess that mirrors Clarissa from Mrs. Dalloway. In fact, she uses the men’s relationship with each other to give her peace of mind, a chance to relax from her constant duties as mother and guardian of the family:

…that the men were happily talking; this sound, which had lasted now half an hour and had taken its place soothingly in the scale of sounds pressing on top of her…so that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again as she sat with the children the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, “I am guarding you—I am your support…” (TtL 19)

The waves and the incoherent sounds washing over her give her solace, time to reflect on her role as guardian, supporter of the family. Though she seems soothed by the lullaby, the reality of her situation is not far behind the memory of her mind: “…made one think of the destruction of the island and its engulfment in the sea…this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the other sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her ears and made her lookup with an impulse of terror” (19-20). Mrs. Ramsay is the island, where the lighthouse stands far off in the distance, the island that is getting overwhelmed by the ocean, by her sea of children and responsibilities she owes to the men in her life. She is not happy being the guardian, being the supporter. She has no leisure to just be herself, a woman. She must not let her identity be swallowed up by others.

Mr. Ramsay, on the other hand, cannot respect his wife because of the folly of her woman’s mind. As Kelley explains, “Mr. Ramsay is, superficially, the figure of the Victorian paterfamilias, authoritarian, detached emotionally from his family, asserting his male superiority as he pursues his concept of truth with integrity but insensitivity” (76). He is constantly annoyed at her optimistic nature, the way she tells lies to James, making him hope that they can go to the lighthouse even though logic and reason are not on her side:

The extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the folly of women’s minds enraged him. He had ridden through the valley of death, been shattered and shivered; and now, she flew in the face of facts, made his children hope what was utterly out of the question, in effect, told lies. (TtL 35)

For Mr. Ramsay, the worst crime that a mother can commit towards her children is to lie to them. He would rather present the harsh reality, the cold facts, no matter how young the children or how traumatic the result could be. Mrs. Ramsay, on the other hand, represents Victorian women, “a woman who leaves thinking to the men and devotes herself to children and to the hobby of matchmaking” (Kelley 78). Juxtaposing Mr. Ramsay’s perspective is his wife’s perspective: 

To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other people’s feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilization so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency that, without replying, dazed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt of jagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked. There was nothing to be said. (TtL 35)

Mrs. Ramsay focuses on civility and consideration of other’s feelings, compassion—a very feminine trait. She offers herself as a sacrifice for Mr. Ramsay, knowing that he does not respect her emotional coddling. She will try to shield and protect her children from the dirty water of life. In fact, Mrs. Ramsay is expected to bend and fold at will to her husband’s wishes. Her minor points of rebellion are not done on her own behalf, but are done on the behalf of her children, specifically James, who is too young to protect himself from his father’s bullying. When her husband needs reassurance, when he needs her to tell him that he is not a failure, she complies:

He was a failure, he repeated…she assured him, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by her laugh, her poise, her competence…If he put implicit faith in her, nothing should hurt him; however deep he buried himself or climbed high, not for a second should he find himself without her. So boasting of her capacity to surround and protect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by; all was so lavished and spent…(41)

Mrs. Ramsay gives too much of herself, her identity, in her effort to maintain her husband’s self-esteem. She has nothing left for herself, barely enough energy to sustain her own existence: “Immediately, Mrs. Ramsay seemed to fold herself together, one petal closed in another, and the whole fabric fell in exhaustion upon itself, so that she had only strength enough to move her finger…” (42). Her husband’s need for self-assurance is slowly killing her. She cannot continue the rest of her life like this. It is ironic, though, that Mr. Ramsay recognizes that he makes her life worse, that he does not give her anything in return but takes all that she offers him: “Indeed, the infernal truth was, he made things worse for her” (67). If Mr. Ramsay recognizes this, why can he not give her space, time to relax? He continues to bombard her with requests—I want this and I want it now. The consequences of his selfishness mean nothing.

The lighthouse symbol reflects Mrs. Ramsay’s idea of eternity. John Graham, in his article “Time in the Novels of Virginia Woolf,” explains:

[Mrs. Ramsay] sits in her room and undergoes the mystical experience of becoming the thing she looks at, the lighthouse….it is ‘so much her, yet so little her’; it stands firm and unchanging amid the seas of time, yet in a sense, has no reality apart from the sea…it gives her a sense of stability, ‘this peace, this rest, this eternity.’ It is not change, yet cannot be separated from change, and therefore represents a vital synthesis of time and eternity. (Critics on Virginia 33)

In fact, Mrs. and Mr. Ramsay’s relationship is partly created by the connection to the symbol of the lighthouse. Graham states: “…as husband and wife they are the lighthouse. Crudely put, Mrs. Ramsay equals eternity. Mr. Ramsay equals time; they are married…Together they fulfill each other, and are the creators of life” (34). Though modern day readers might view Mr. Ramsay as a tyrant, Mrs. Ramsay complements her husband in every way and conforms as necessary. Time and eternity must coexist and ameliorate the gap between life and death. Linear time is expressed through Mr. Ramsay while mind time and the soul are express by Mrs. Ramsay.

The real problem in their relationship was that Mr. Ramsay refused to see Mrs. Ramsay as a whole individual, a woman who had an identity outside of him. He does not understand anything about her, not even why she cannot say she loves him: “A heartless woman he called her; she never told him that she loved him. But it was not so—it was not so. It was only that she never could say what she felt” (TtL 125). Mrs. Ramsay could never say what she felt not because she did not know how she felt, but because she never had the time to think about her thoughts alone. Her husband’s presence is a constant form of intimidation that silences her voice, silences her womanhood. It is unfortunate, but she really is just “a shell of herself.”

Works Cited

Kelley, Alice van Buren.  To the Lighthouse: The Marriage of Life and Art. Boston: Twayne, 1987.

Latham, Jacqueline E.M. ed. Critics on Virginia Woolf. Coral Gables, FL: U of Miami P, 1970.

Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Orlando: Harcourt, 2005.