Ana María Fortes Barral 1

Novela Inglesa: Tradición e Innovación

Sonia Villegas López

1 de Febrero de 2017

Images and symbols in To the Lighthouse

To the Lighthouse is one of the most famous and representatives novels written by Virginia Woolf

and published in 1927. It was also the most biographical novel of Virginia, who was one of the

most important modernist writers of the 20th century. The novel is a whole reflection about life and

the main character of the novel , Mrs. Ramsay, represents Virginia Woolf's mother. The novel tells

the story of the Ramsays , their children and their friends and all occurs in their summer house. One

of the most important features of the novel , apart from the use of consciousness, is the symbolism

and imagery used by Virginia Woolf. I am going to analyse Virginia Woolf's use of symbolism of

the lighthouse, the waves, the house, the dinner and the window in To the Lighthouse to develop the

theme of the passage of time.

As is declared by Julia Briggs in Reading Virginia Woolf, the passage of time is central to To the

Lighthouse and Woolf deals with this making it the central feature of the novel (119). The author

manages to do this through the use of five symbols.

The lighthouse

The whole novel is influenced from the beginning to the end by the most important symbol, which

is the responsible of the title of the novel, the lighthouse. We can see that the novel starts and ends

with the same topic, an expedition to the lighthouse, which is not accomplished until the end of the

novel. The lighthouse is the most important and complex symbol in the novel, it has numerous

meanings. For Mrs. Ramsay the lighthouse represents a source of stability and contentment, she

insists on going to the lighthouse to please her son James and she is constantly thinking about the
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light that the lighthouse sends out. For Lily Briscoe the lighthouse represents a solution to her

painting, at the end of the novel she sees Mr. Ramsay's boat approaches to the lighthouse and only

when they had reached she completes her painting. For James the lighthouse is a destination. For

Mr. Ramsay the lighthouse is a symbol of his authority in the family. For Charles Tansley the

lighthouse represents his inability to insert himself into social situations. In the second section of

the novel, "Time Passes", the light from the lighthouse remembers that time is passing although

people are not in the house.

The general meaning of the lighthouse is the time wasted, all the characters have some desires to

achieve while the time is passing. Lily has not completed her painting, Mrs. Ramsay has not said "I

love you", James has not been in the lighthouse, Charles Tansley has not participated in the

conversations. The tower reminds characters all time that they have an specific period of time in the

life to achieve all the goals that they want. At the end of the novel when James reaches to the

lighthouse he realizes that the image he sees is not the image he wanted to see it. This represents the

difference between observing a desire you have from a distance, or imagine it, and the getting of

that desire. Sometimes people realize that that goal was not the correct one. As a conclusion, the

lighthouse represents the definition of life, the process of moving towards what one desires.

The lighthouse is always present in To the Lighthouse to remind the characters that they have to use

their time for getting their goals before this time is completed. In the following quote we can see

how Mrs. Ramsay decides to watch at the Lighthouse with her husband without fear, because she

realizes that she has not wasted her time, she is in love with her husband and happy with her family.

"Getting up she stood at the window with the reddish-brown stocking in her hands, partly to turn

away from him, partly because she did not mind looking now, with him watching, at the

Lighthouse. For she knew that he was thinking, You are more beautiful than ever." (To the

Lighthouse, 115)
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The waves

A second important symbol in the novel is the waves, the waves are the representation of life itself,

they are always present, they are not the same, they go and come back and they are always

remembering characters that life is going on. They are represented as "being eating a portion of

land", this represents how time slowly destroy human beings. Mrs. Ramsay is afraid of that, she

expresses that saying that she doesn't want James to grow up. This important symbol can be

compared to the use of the Big Ben as a symbol in Mrs. Dalloway , Big Ben is a famous monument

in London but it also serves as a symbol of time and tradition. Virginia uses the clock tower to

remember constantly the characters that the time is going on, Clarissa Dalloway fears the passage of

time and the inevitability of death and Big Ben is a reminder of the short time she has to live, the

clock interrupts characters' thoughts and actions. Likewise, Virginia Woolf use the waves in The

Waves as a symbol of the passage of time and the novel begins and ends in the same way, with the

breaking waves. In a similar way, waves are always present interrupting the characters' thoughts

and Mrs. Ramsay is also afraid of the passage of time , as Clarissa. The waves, combined with the

tides,are also a kind of warning, when Mrs. Ramsay feels safe and secure, the waves sound

soothing, but when she feels disoriented , the waves sound furiously, moreover, in the second

section ,during the World War I, the ocean becomes brutal. In the first section of the novel the

waves seem to represent the prediction of the terrible future acts. In the following quote we can see

both functions of the waves, as reminder of the passage of time and as a warning.

"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 wit

the children the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, 'I am guarding you - I am your

support', but at other times suddenly and unexpectedly, especially when her mind raised itself

slightly from the task actually in hand, had no such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of drums

remorselessly beat the measure of life made one think of the destruction of the island and its
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engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had slipped past in one quick doing after another

that it was all ephemeral as rainbow - this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the

other sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her ears and made her look up with an impulse of

terror." (To the Lighthouse, 13)

The summer house

The third symbol is the summer house, this place is always present in the novel . In the second

chapter "Time Passes" the house acquires an important meaning, characters and actions are

secondary. The whole chapter provides a description of the disintegration of the house and the

invasion of nature in it. As Cara Lewis states "the absence of consciousness in a space which was

previously peopled by so many perceiving subjects results in a ghostly atmosphere, a house

inhabited by shades. In “Time Passes,” even the loveliness and stillness that Woolf personifies offer

cold comfort: “the shape of loveliness itself” is, after all, “a form from which life had parted "

( Still Life in Motion: mortal form in Woolf's To the Lighthouse, 441) . This shows the symbolism of

the house to represent the cycle of life. People must die and the time will make them to decay as the

nature has made to the house. The presence of nature in the house means that life continues, people

die and new people are born. As Cara Lewis points out the objects in the house regards the human

inevitability of mortality (442). Relating to this, Katie Gemmil states " the ideas of mortality and

immortality are generally seen as relevant only to humans, but in this case Woolf applies these

larger life questions to commonplace items like wall-paper, flowers, books and letters."(Time and

The Sacred in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, 3). In the house we see the presence of the first

symbol, the lighthouse, which is helping the abandonment of the house to remind that the time is

wasting. In the following quote we can see the description of the disintegration of the house and the

presence of nature in it.

"The house was left; the house was deserted. It was left like a shell on a sandhill to fill with dry salt

grains now that life had left it. The long night seemed to have set it; the trifling airs; nibbling, the
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clammy breaths, fumbling, seemed to have triumphed. The saucepan had rusted and the mat

decayed. Toads had nosed their way in. Idly, aimlessly, the swaying shawl swung to and fro. A

thistle thrust itself between the tiles in the larder. The swallows nested in the drawing room; the

floor was strewn with straw; the plaster fell in shovelfuls; rafters were laid bare; rats carried off this

and that to gnaw behind the wainscots. Tortoise-shell butterflies burst from the Poppies sowed

themselves among the dahlias; the lawn waved with long grass; giant artichokes towered among

roses; a fringed carnation flowered among the cabbages; while the gentle tapping of a weed at the

window had become, on winter's nights, a drumming from sturdy trees an thorned briars which

made the whole room green in summer" (To the Lighthouse, 128)

The house is also present in Mrs. Ramsay's thoughts and it serves as a reminder of her when she

dies to Lily Briscoe.

The dinner

The fourth important symbol is the dinner. The first section of the novel ,"The Window", ends with

a dinner in which all the characters are present. This dinner is a climax point, after this dinner

nothing is the same, is the last time that all characters are together. It is a mark in the time of the

novel, a turning point which marks a before and an after, a past and a future. After the dinner the

time will rush and everything will change. Mrs Ramsay is very worried about the dinner, because

she wants to get together the whole family and friends, this is the role of the character. At the

moment that Mrs. Ramsay sits at the table she thinks about the meaning of life, her own actions in

her life, she questions herself is she is doing the correct with her own life. This dinner makes her

consider her purpose in the life, the time is running and she does not know if she is wrong with her

own life. "But what I have done with my life? thought Mrs Ramsay, taking her place at the head of

the table" (To the Lighthouse, 76) Her worries about the "perfect" dinner she wants to create and her

own reflections about her life are very similar at the party in Mrs. Dalloway, she is all the novel

preparing this party, she wants it to be perfect and when the party starts she feels herself lost in her
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own life and questions many things about her life. The party, as the dinner, make people reflect

about their life and the rest guests' lives, despite the fact that Mrs. Dalloway , as Mrs. Ramsay, is the

central character and affected one. The dinner also serves as a combination of characters in which

they make sense although they are very different. The dinner represents how time changes things

and life.

The window

The fifth symbol is the window, this element is the protagonist of the title of the first chapter and

also is very present in this chapter, in the last chapter it is also important. From the beginning of the

first chapter, the majority of the novel occurs in the window, characters are sitting or standing next

to the window seeing the passing of the day, Mrs Ramsay is sitting there reading to James of

knitting, Mr. Ramsay sits there to read, Lily is constantly seeing through it . The window represents

an important element in the first chapter, Virginia represents in this section a whole day from

morning to night with the meaning of the progress of life. The window represents the contrast

between day and night and present and past, and at the same time the speed in which life happens.

The characters see through the window how the days pass and their lives are developing.

All these symbols that emphasize the passage of the time in the novel, show us how the characters

have a fear of death. This anxiety is particularly represented in Mrs Ramsay who expresses this

when she thinks in her children growing older, at the same time she accepts the fact that she will die

one day at the end of the first chapter , when she decides to look at the Lighthouse. In conclusion,

the meaning of the symbols is the course of life and the proximity of death with which everyone has

to face, knowing that one day they will die.

Works Cited

➔ Primary Sources

• Briggs, Julia. Reading Virginia Woolf, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2006.

• Gemmil, Katie. "Time and The Sacred in Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse."An

Undergraduate Journal (2008)

• Lewis, Cara. "Still Life in Motion: Mortal Form in Woolf's to the Lighthouse. Twentieth
Century Literature: a scholarly and critical journal ", vol. 60, no. 4, 2014., pp. 423.
• Woolf, Virginia. Mrs Dalloway. London: Collin Classics, 2013. Print.

• Woolf, Virginia. To The Lighthouse. London: Collin Classics, 2013. Print.

➔ Secondary Sources

• Brown, Paul T. "The Spatiotemporal Topography of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway:

Capturing Britain's Transition to a Relative Modernity."Journal of Modern Literature, vol.

38, no. 4, 2015., pp. 20doi:10.2979/jmodelite.38.4.20.

• Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning. "Swinburne's Tristram Of Lyonesse And Woolf's To The

Lighthouse."Explicator 66.1 (2007): 11-15. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Dec. 2016.

• Harker, James. "Misperceiving Virginia Woolf."jml: Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 34,

no. 2, 2011., pp. 1-21doi:10.2979/jmodelite.34.2.1.

• Strascina, Chloe. "Major Symbols in To the Lighthouse"To the Lighthouse- A Reader's

Guide" .n.p., 14th Dec 2013. Web. 18 Dec 2016.