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To the Lighthouse

by Virginia Woolf

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How does Mrs. Ramsay maintain her influence in To the Lighthouse even after her death?

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In To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Ramsay remains a powerful woman even after death due to the influence she exerts on Lily and James.

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In the first section of To the Lighthouse, "The Window," Mrs. Ramsay is the focal point, the nucleus around which all the characters orbit. When she dies in the second section, "Time Passes," the summer house's subsequent fall into disrepair seems a direct result; her guiding, custodial presence is no longer there to preserve it. As we see in the third section, "The Lighthouse," her absence is felt powerfully by everyone who returns to the house, particularly James and Lily.

When she first arrives, Mr. Ramsay tells Lily, "You will find us much changed." This is true not only because of Mrs. Ramsay's death but also that of Andrew Ramsay. There is a general sense of unease; Lily observes, "it was a house full of unrelated passions."

Yet for these changes, certain fundamental dynamics remain the same. Before his expedition with James and Cam, Mr. Ramsay stands beside Lily,...

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desiring the same emotional succor from her that his wife used to give him. "Was she not going to say anything?" Woolf writes. "Did she not see what he wanted from her?" His old need for sympathy has not changed in the last ten years, but Lily is not Mrs. Ramsay. She can't give him what he wants. It is only by complimenting his boots that she can offer him some sympathy, however obliquely.

In many ways, James is also the same as when the reader saw him last. As a child, he held a burning antipathy to his father. When Mr. Ramsay tells him he likely won't be able to visit the lighthouse at the beginning of the book, the narrator tells us this:

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.

James's hatred of his father has not abated in the intervening ten years. On the boat with his father and sister, he repeatedly refers to Mr. Ramsay as "the tyrant." While this hatred previously aligned him to his mother against his father, it now seems to be a way to preserve his memories of his mother; in order to honor his mother, he must maintain his hatred for his father.

This dynamic is one that Mrs. Ramsay herself took part in cultivating. She and her husband were very different people. She was a nurturer, and in order for her to satisfy her emotional needs, she needed to cultivate her husband's emotional neediness. Because of the differences between them, it is understandable how young James would see the need to choose allegiance to one parent or the other. Mrs. Ramsay's influence is just as strong now as it was then.

Lily certainly finds this to be the case, and her struggle throughout "The Lighthouse" is to break away from that influence. Earlier in the novel, we see a dichotomy emerge: Mrs. Ramsay as the traditional woman, content with her role as wife and mother; and Lily, the modern woman with no compulsion to follow the traditional path. Mrs. Ramsay has a patronizing affection for Lily, thinking of her as "an independent little creature." It is clear that, for Mrs. Ramsay, the right path for a woman is marriage and motherhood. Lily is steadfast in her commitment to her art, yet her deep love for Mrs. Ramsay, as well as her own self-doubt, leaves her susceptible to Mrs. Ramsay's influence—even after she has been gone for ten years.

As a painter, Lily tries to preserve "her vision." This is the pure conception of the painting, something entirely hers, uncompromised by others' ideas or her own limitations. Throughout "The Lighthouse," Lily fights through the gauntlet of anxiety that stands between her vision and its execution. This requires grappling with her memories of Mrs. Ramsay.

After remembering Minta and Paul, whom Mrs. Ramsay had successfully persuaded into marriage, Lily imagines triumphantly reporting how their lives turned out to Mrs. Ramsay: "It has all gone against your wishes. They're happy like that; I'm happy like this. Life has changed completely." She is finally able to separate her abiding affection for Mrs. Ramsay's memory from her determination to pursue her own path. By the final chapter, we see that she has successfully pursued her vision, something that may not be meaningful for others but is purely her own.

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