A BOOK REVIEW ON

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
by Virginia Woolf

Submitted to:
DR. VIRGINIA S. MACAHIG
Professor in Arts and Humanities (GEAH)
University of Makati

Submitted by:
Mirabless Sharon B. Valiente
IIB-PSYCH
August 18, 2016

AUTHORS DESCRIPTION
Published in 1927, To the Lighthouse is sandwiched between Virginia Woolfs
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 Lighthouse takes on some elements of Woolfs 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 Prues deaths in To the Lighthouse).
But, Woolf herself got fed up with critics who insisted on reading the Ramsays as
direct representations of the Stephens (Stephen was Woolfs 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 Woolfs ambitious
formal experimentation. Shes 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 theyre doing. Woolf is a great example of the
Show Dont 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.

SUMMARY
Part One spans approximately seven hours and takes up more than half the
book. Its set at the Ramsays 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 thats 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. Ramsays visiting students,
chimes in and supports Mr. Ramsays view that the weather will be rotten. Hes 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 Briscoes painting. (If
youre wondering who Lily is, we are in the same boat. Although, we gather shes a
family friend.) Mrs. Ramsay has the fleeting thought that Lily will have a hard time
getting married, but she likes Lily anyway and decides that Lily should marry William
Bankes, an old friend of Mr. Ramsays.
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 Pauls 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 Lilys thoughts, we hear that
she never married, but remained good friends with William Bankes. Paul and Mintas
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, its clear that Mrs.
Ramsay is sorely missed.

ELEMENTS OF FICTION
SETTINGS
-A summer house at the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides, 1920s. Well, there are brief jaunts
elsewhere: walks to town, walks around the lawn, and the all-important lighthouse
journey, but the house is where its at. Such a specific locale creates a particular
enclosure around the Ramsay family and their assorted friends and colleagues, allowing
Woolf to run in and out of their minds at will and create a true sense of background for
each of them, as well as a sense of unity during the dinner party scene.
CHARACTERS (Major and Minor Characters)
MRS. RAMSAY - Mr. Ramsays wife. A beautiful and loving woman, Mrs. Ramsay is a
wonderful hostess who takes pride in making memorable experiences for the guests at
the familys summer home on the Isle of Skye. Affirming traditional gender roles
wholeheartedly, she lavishes particular attention on her male guests, who she believes
have delicate egos and need constant support and sympathy. She is a dutiful and loving
wife but often struggles with her husbands difficult moods and selfishness. Without fail,
however, she triumphs through these difficult times and demonstrates an ability to make
something significant and lasting from the most ephemeral of circumstances, such as a
dinner party.
MR. RAMSAY - Mrs. Ramsays husband, and a prominent metaphysical philosopher.
Mr. Ramsay loves his family but often acts like something of a tyrant. He tends to be
selfish and harsh due to his persistent personal and professional anxieties. He fears,
more than anything, that his work is insignificant in the grand scheme of things and that
he will not be remembered by future generations. Well aware of how blessed he is to
have such a wonderful family; he nevertheless tends to punish his wife, children, and
guests by demanding their constant sympathy, attention, and support.
LILY BRISCOE - A young, single painter who befriends the Ramsays on the Isle of
Skye. Like Mr. Ramsay, Lily is plagued by fears that her work lacks worth. She begins a
portrait of Mrs. Ramsay at the beginning of the novel but has trouble finishing it. The

opinions of men like Charles Tansley, who insists that women cannot paint or write,
threaten to undermine her confidence.
JAMES RAMSAY - The Ramsays youngest son. James loves his mother deeply and
feels a murderous antipathy toward his father, with whom he must compete for Mrs.
Ramsays love and affection. At the beginning of the novel, Mr. Ramsay refuses the sixyear-old Jamess request to go to the lighthouse, saying that the weather will be foul
and not permit it; ten years later, James finally makes the journey with his father and his
sister Cam. By this time, he has grown into a wilful and moody young man who has
much in common with his father, whom he detests.
PAUL RAYLEY - A young friend of the Ramsays who visits them on the Isle of Skye.
Paul is a kind, impressionable young man who follows Mrs. Ramsays wishes in
marrying Minta Doyle.
MINTA DOYLE - A flighty young woman who visits the Ramsays on the Isle of Skye.
Minta marries Paul Rayley at Mrs. Ramsays wishes.
CHARLES TANSLEY - A young philosopher and pupil of Mr. Ramsay who stays with the
Ramsays on the Isle of Skye. Tansley is a prickly and unpleasant man who harbors
deep insecurities regarding his humble background. He often insults other people,
particularly women such as Lily, whose talent and accomplishments he constantly calls
into question. His bad behavior, like Mr. Ramsays, is motivated by his need for
reassurance.
WILLIAM BANKES - A botanist and old friend of the Ramsays who stays on the Isle of
Skye. Bankes is a kind and mellow man whom Mrs. Ramsay hopes will marry Lily
Briscoe. Although he never marries her, Bankes and Lily remain close friends.
AUGUSTUS CARMICHAEL - An opium-using poet who visits the Ramsays on the Isle
of Skye. Carmichael languishes in literary obscurity until his verse becomes popular
during the war.
ANDREW RAMSAY - The oldest of the Ramsays sons. Andrew is a competent,
independent young man, and he looks forward to a career as a mathematician.
JASPER RAMSAY - One of the Ramsays sons. Jasper, to his mothers chagrin, enjoys
shooting birds.

ROGER RAMSAY - One of the Ramsays sons. Roger is wild and adventurous, like his
sister Nancy.
PRUE RAMSAY - The oldest Ramsay girl, a beautiful young woman. Mrs. Ramsay
delights in contemplating Prues marriage, which she believes will be blissful.
ROSE RAMSAY - One of the Ramsays daughters. Rose has a talent for making things
beautiful. She arranges the fruit for her mothers dinner party and picks out her mothers
jewelry.
NANCY RAMSAY - One of the Ramsays daughters. Nancy accompanies Paul Rayley
and Minta Doyle on their trip to the beach. Like her brother Roger, she is a wild
adventurer.
CAM RAMSAY - One of the Ramsays daughters. As a young girl, Cam is mischievous.
She sails with James and Mr. Ramsay to the lighthouse in the novels final section.
MRS. MCNAB - An elderly woman who takes care of the Ramsays house on the Isle of
Skye, restoring it after ten years of abandonment during and after World War I.
MACALISTER - The fisherman who accompanies the Ramsays to the lighthouse.
Macalister relates stories of shipwreck and maritime adventure to Mr. Ramsay and
compliments James on his handling of the boat while James lands it at the lighthouse.
MACALISTERS BOY - The fishermans boy. He rows James, Cam, and Mr. Ramsay to
the lighthouse.

PLOT
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.

CONFLICTS
Man vs. Man
James against his father, Charles Tansley
-James wants to go to the Lighthouse, though his father says that the weather won't be
good enough to go. It 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 against Charles Tansley
-Lily wants to paint, though Charles Tansley has told her to her face that women can't
write or paint. 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.
Man vs. Himself
Mrs. Ramsay against herself
-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.
-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 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" 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.
Man vs. Nature
-The weather is not good.
-James is young that time.
-Lily failed on her first painting.

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 semi-abandoned 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?) So this section of the novel provides a kind of climax for James
and Lily: they're left in suspension, 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 be in the
last section.

EVALUATION/ COMMENTS
Values:
Spiritual
-Well aware of how blessed Mr. Ramsay is to have such a wonderful family.
Moral
-Woolf demonstrates that women are not morally inferior to men; they have other criteria
for approaching moral issues and defining justice based on their socialized caretaking
roles as wives and mothers. In fact, the novel indicates that if justice is indeed a human
quality, women are particularly qualified to form moral judgments.
Physical

-Mrs. Ramsay is a dutiful and loving wife but often struggles with her husbands difficult
moods and selfishness. Without fail, however, she triumphs through these difficult times
and demonstrates an ability to make something significant and lasting from the most
ephemeral of circumstances, such as a dinner party.
Cultural
-Affirming traditional gender roles wholeheartedly, she lavishes particular attention on
her male guests, who she believes have delicate egos and need constant support and
sympathy.
Intellectual
-Critics have often placed Woolf within the intellectual aristocracy of her time and judged
her as an elitist who avoided themes of social and political importance.
Social
*Insights
-Woolf's legal vision of social change, grounded in the common needs of humanity, is an
integral theme of the novel.
*Principles
-Obviously there is some emphasis throughout To the Lighthouse on the championing of
'the feminine principle' as represented in the archetypal Mother figure of Mrs Ramsay,
and set against the aridity and narrowness of 'masculine intelligence' as typified in Mr
Ramsay and Charles Tansley.
*Philosophical
-Concluding that Woolf's intellectual ideas about aesthetics, philosophy, and social
relations are carefully interwoven with a philosophy of legal and social reform.
-Approaching the novel through the lens of legal philosophy integrates Woolf's social,
philosophical, and aesthetic ideas into a unified moral aesthetic leading to a just society.