MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
Characterisation and Relationships in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse
Until approximately the 1890s an author writing a traditional novel would depict characters through their actions and words, as well as through comments of other characters and those of the narrator on them and their actions. It implied that character, the qualities or features distinguishing an individual, group or thing, is knowable, and even predictable; that the essence of personality can be more or less obtained from the description of external appearance and behaviour. In her novel To the Lighthouse (1927) Virginia Woolf takes this conventional notion of character and characterisation one step further. According to Margaret Drabble the novel “displays Woolf’s technique of narrating through stream of consciousness and imagery at its most assured, and suggestive”¹.
Woolf rejected the work of her contemporary novelists, objecting to how they followed old conventions. She believed an author’s duty was to find new ways of writing and as a result all her modernist novels are different, experiments in different ways of writing. In this sense, To the Lighthouse can be considered her masterpiece. In the novel one of the themes Woolf explores is the relationship between the narrator and the characters, and the relationships between the individual characters. The perspective is very fluent due to the relation between direct and indirect speech; Woolf emphasizes direct speech is not important by limiting the direct speech in the novel, and when it is used it focuses on unimportant matters. Direct speech diverts attention from the characters and what goes on inside them.
The form of the novel is in itself not complicated, but the three parts into which it is divided, unequal in length, are in no way a reflection of the complexity that is To the Lighthouse. In the novel external reality is ambiguous, it cannot be trusted at first glance. That way, the reader’s impressions of characters develop from the perception of the actions of a character, their growth over the duration of the novel, and from the many versions of a character presented by the different narrative points of view. As often is the case in modernist novels, for example when the reader is left to interpret events, rewrite the novel, so to speak, here too the reader has to give their own final verdict on the characters they read about; he or she must construct a unified version of a character that has been glimpsed from multiple perspectives. From the very first section of To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf sets out this interpretative character puzzle for her readers.
This puzzle is not merely achieved by giving details of external appearance and action, but also by Woolf’s steering the reader towards recognising a deeper and more complete understanding of the inner workings of her characters. According to Hermione Lee, the evidence the reader can gather about the Ramsays is “constantly reshuffled through the attitudes of different onlookers”². The characters are complex in order to make them more real. It is by the emphasis on the small rather than the great, the focus put on insignificant statements and actions, that Virginia Woolf shows her readers something that goes beyond the text, beyond the characters. Her focus is on internal human experience, and on showing reality through her characters; the readers must come to their own conclusions by means of the information that they are provided with. It is through what goes on in the characters internally that those characters and others are being outlined, but the reader has the final word.
From the very first pages of the novel the reader is swept up into a maelstrom of narrative opinions. The story begins in medias res in the middle of the argument that gives the novel its title; the question whether they shall be able to go to the Lighthouse the next day. Mrs Ramsay tells her young son James that they will go, “if it’s fine to-morrow”³ and providing he gets up early enough. It is clear he is very happy his mother says those words; he has been looking forward to going, but moments later, on the next page, the first thing his father does is take the wind from James’s sails, stating “But ... it won’t be fine” (8). These, the first words of both Mrs and Mr Ramsay leave a great weight on their appearance over the course of the rest of the novel. The narrator extracts information from James’s mind through free indirect discourse, and it is clear James feels uncomfortable about his father and prefers his mother “who was ten thousand times better than he [Mr Ramsay] was” (8).
In a very small stretch of text, Virginia Woolf has provided her readers with a vivid picture of the Ramsay family dynamics, and it is easy to sympathise with Mrs Ramsay and feel hostile towards Mr Ramsay. But it is worthwhile to consider that this first part of the novel is called “The Window”, and that in its function as a frame on reality it can give a subjective perspective on this reality. Woolf provides information, but does so indirectly, giving a hint to the reader that what is given as what appears to be objective narrative is likely to be a limited perspective, leaving it up to the reader to pick up on the various suggestions and allusions and filter them in order to be able to put them in their proper perspective.
Mr Ramsay is a factual man, a philosopher, and the way Woolf introduces him paints a picture of an unkind, inflexible, and relentless man. He is associated by James with “the beak of brass”, “the arid scimitar of the male” (43): harsh and destructive images that indicate how the son sees the father as a threat, both of them fighting for the attention of Mrs Ramsay. It is in reaction to an instance in which Mr Ramsay more or less blackmails his wife into commiserating with him: “It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his genius, first of all, and then to be taken within the circle of life, warmed and soothed, to have his senses restored to him, his barrenness made fertile” (43). There is a definite opposition between Mr and Mrs Ramsay here, where he is referred to as barren, and she as fertile. There is another instance in the novel where he asks someone else for sympathy like that, and Lily Briscoe is not certain how to deal with him: “All Lily wished was that this enormous flood of grief, this insatiable hunger for sympathy, this demand that she should surrender herself up to him entirely ... should be diverted before it swept her down in its flow” (165-166). The way in which Mr Ramsay expresses his emotions is almost volatile, as is his need for sympathy.
He appears self-confident, but privately we find him admitting “He had not genius; he laid no claim to that” (40); he clearly has his doubts as well, calling himself a failure several times (43). The sympathy he asks for is something he needs desperately. As a scholar and a man, he has a need to prove himself, and he takes advantage of those around him to get this approval. And yet as a husband and a father he wants the best for his family and he loves his wife very much, considering himself “for the most part happy” (51). If as a scholar he is a self pronounced failure, it is his family that makes up for that. He is inwardly passionate, painfully aware of his own mortality and that of his work, and has a deep need for his family, and especially his wife. Especially in the last part of the novel “The Lighthouse”, his need to take his children to the Lighthouse is in many ways a quest to fulfil something his wife wished for so much, the only way to create unity again after her death.
In opposition to her husband Mrs Ramsay is introduced as the epitome of motherhood; protective of her son, considerate of the people of the Lighthouse, knitting the stocking for the Lighthouse keeper’s little boy and measuring it against her son’s leg. She is much admired by her daughters: “She was now formidable to behold” (10). But it is in chapter eight that Augustus Carmichael brings out her doubts; he wants nothing from her, needs nothing from her like her husband and children, and his behaviour makes Mrs Ramsay believe he might not like or trust her, and “It hurt her, ... not rightly.” (47). Her inability to charm Carmichael irritates her, it comes close to being a personal insult to her, but believing the fault cannot be hers, she blames Carmichael’s coldness on his wife instead. It is for her own satisfaction that she wants people to like and admire her. Outwardly she might appear to be the more emotional of the Ramsays, but inwardly she is much more reserved than her husband; she cannot be as spontaneous as he can be. Where Mr Ramsay is not very interested in what effect he has on others, Mrs Ramsay is very aware, and very contemplative about the people surrounding her and of what they might think.
In a way, chapter 12 describes the relationship between Mr and Mrs Ramsay very well; at one moment Mrs Ramsay accuses her husband of being “born blind, deaf, and dumb, to the ordinary things, but to the extraordinary things, with an eye like an eagle’s.” (77) According to her he is impervious to the little things, of the view surrounding them, of the flowers, even of his own daughter’s beauty, which are all things she takes notice of. But moments later she engages in a similar transgression when her mind jumps from one thought to another, and no one thing seems more important than another:
All the great men she had ever known, she thought, deciding that a rabbit must have got in, were like that, and it was good for young men ... simply to hear him, simply to look at him. But without shooting rabbits, how was one to keep them down? she wondered. It might be a rabbit; it might be a mole. Some creature anyhow was ruining her evening primroses. (78)
Mrs Ramsay accuses her husband of not sharing the world she is a part of, but at the same time she cannot share his either. He is aware of this, while she is not: “It saddened him, and her remoteness pained him, and he felt ... that he could not protect her, and ... he was sad.” (71) As her husband has a need to be given sympathy, Mrs Ramsay has an inherent need to be liked and worshipped, and there is a hint that besides this, everything else around her in her life, is equally important, and nothing takes precedence. But what it comes down to is that Mrs Ramsay needs Mr Ramsay just as much as he needs her.
Virginia Woolf’s way of writing fiction is not didactic, as she shows more than that she tells; which adds to her goal of representing reality. She does this also by associating both Mr and Mrs Ramsay with certain objects. Through symbolism it is suggested that many of the novel’s characters, and especially Mr and Mrs Ramsay, stand for something more than just the accumulation of their characterisations. Making Mr and Mrs Ramsay become a symbol of marriage through Lily Briscoe “And suddenly the meaning which ... descends on people, making them symbolical, making them representative, came upon them, and made them in the dusk standing, looking, the symbols of marriage, husband and wife.” (80), increases the reader’s understanding of the couple. That it is not all they are becomes clear in the last part of the novel, when Lily is looking back and cautions herself and the reader: “But it would be a mistake ... to simplify their relationship.” (215)
Few other characters in the novel come close to sharing quite such relationship dynamics as can be found between Mr and Mrs Ramsay. When looking at the other characters in the novel it is clear that virtually none of them have been given quite such an extensive characterisation as the Ramsays, except Lily Briscoe. All of the Ramsay children, except for James, are virtually interchangeable; or as William Bankes puts it: “As for being sure which was which, or in what order they came, that was beyond him” (27), and there is the distinct impression that the guests are more or less there to prove a point, for example to provide a different perspective on the three central characters, or to reveal something of their character by looking at the guests through their perspective.
Section thirteen of “The Window” brings the two couples who have been the focus of the novel up to now together. The first thought Mrs Ramsay spends on Lily Briscoe in the novel is when she is looking around to see whether anyone has heard one of Mr Ramsay’s poetic outbursts. She determines that only Lily can have heard, and then comments “and that did not matter.” (21) As if that is not dismissive enough, Mrs Ramsay suddenly remembers she is sitting for a picture Lily is painting:
Lily’s picture! Mrs. Ramsay smiled. With her little Chinese eyes and her puckered-up face she would never marry; one could not take her painting very seriously; but she was an independent little creature, Mrs. Ramsay liked her for it, and so remembering her promise, she bent her head. (21)
Whatever Mrs Ramsay thinks of Lily Briscoe, Lily has no trouble clearing herself of this prejudice. She is busy with her painting, standing aside from the other characters, and wants nothing more than to be left alone, with no one coming up to look at what she has painted. For the rest of To the Lighthouse, she will remain an observer, providing some of the more interesting and objective perspectives. Though nervous of what others have to say about her painting, Lily is a strong presence. Shortly after Mrs Ramsay’s first comments on her, perspective shifts to Lily who notices someone coming out of the house, heading towards her. Had it been anyone else she would have turned “her canvas upon the grass” (22), but she leaves it where it is.
This is the way in which William Bankes is first introduced; he and Lily lodge in the same house in the village which makes him enough of an ally to her, “smelling of soap, very scrupulous and clean” (22), that she trusts him to look at her picture. The first comment from Bankes is about Lily’s shoes: “Her shoes were excellent, he observed” (22) and he goes on to comment on “how orderly she was ... without the complexion or the allurement of Miss Doyle certainly, but with a good sense which made her in his eyes superior to that young lady” (23), all in a rather detached manner. As Mr Ramsay comes their way, they are “both vaguely uncomfortable” (23). There is an almost immediate sense of alliance; they both feel outsiders, and so naturally unite, but the similarity between them is only superficial. Bankes lacks Lily’s creativity, and her passion for her art and life itself. William Bankes provides a perspective of Mr Ramsay from the time before he was married, and Lily respects and admires him; “Indeed, his friendship had been one of the pleasures of her life. She loved William Bankes.“ (192) It is interesting to consider whether this has only been possible exactly because they have not married, and neither of them has been limited in what they want to achieve. She admits to admiring him because “you are not vain, you are entirely impersonal; you are finer than Mr Ramsay; you are the finest human being that I know; you have neither wife nor child; ... you live for science; ... praise would be an insult to you; generous, pure-hearted, heroic man!” however, immediately after she has silently said this, she remembers some of the sides she does not admire: “how he had brought a valet all the way up here; objected to dogs on chairs; would prose for hours ... about salt in vegetables and the iniquity of English cooks.” (29) Besides giving an indication that to Lily love is a non-sexual matter in this case, she expresses exactly what Virginia Woolf tries to prove; it is difficult to predict people simply by what they say and do.
To describe William Banks as merely kind but detached is not enough to do him justice. His is a cleverly deceptive perspective; “he was anxious that Lily Briscoe should not disparage Ramsay” (26) but admits to saying himself that “’Ramsay is one of those men who do their best work before they are forty.’” (28). As they discuss both the Ramsays, Lily observes in Bankes a certain admiration for Mrs Ramsay: “For him to gaze as Lily saw him gazing at Mrs. Ramsay was a rapture, equivalent, Lily felt, to the loves of dozens of young men ... It was love, she thought ... distilled and filtered; love that never attempted to clutch its object; but ... was meant to spread over the world and become part of the human gain.” (53) And yet during the dinner in section 17 of “The Window” he stays only out of courtesy, and considers it a “sacrifice one’s friends ask of one” (96) because had he dined alone he could have returned to his work earlier. “Yet now, at this moment her presence meant nothing to him; her sitting with her little boy at the window - nothing, nothing.” (97) He betrays that his work is everything to him, and that he feels a kind of superiority towards the Ramsays because of this. But in pursuit of his work, in getting to used to his habits, his deliberate emotional distance has made his life chilly and empty.
In deciding “They must marry!” (78) Mrs Ramsay ignores Lily’s artistic inclinations ; indeed Mrs Ramsay’s very presence seems to limit Lily as she paints. Why does Mrs Ramsay work so hard at marrying off her family friends and guests? Is it yet another way to satisfy herself and gather further admiration and even immortality, because the couple will need to be thankful to her for the rest of their married lives? Is it somehow her way of creating order in chaos? The dinner party splits up after Mrs Ramsay’s departure: “And directly she went a sort of disintegration set in; they wavered about, went different ways” (122): the family seems to disintegrate as well after her death, particularly through the subsequent deaths of Prue and Andrew, the most promising of the Ramsay children. And in the final part of the novel “The Lighthouse”, chaos seems to rule the house; it is “full of unrelated passions” (162). During her life, Mrs Ramsay did create order in chaos, but it is only after Mrs Ramsay’s death that Lily can escape from under her presence and finish her painting. She too, can now establish a pattern in the chaos that surrounds her.
A main theme in To the Lighthouse is the conflict between chaos and establishing a pattern in it, and between male and female principles, and nowhere is this better expressed than in the relationship between Mr and Mrs Ramsay and how they are represented as characters. As early as in the opening section of the novel, it is made quite clear that Mr and Mrs Ramsay are in opposition to each other concerning how they view the world and how they are represented. By doing this, Woolf shows the complexity of the two characters, and the complexity of the relationship between them. They might seem to be completely opposite to each other, but to say so would be unfair to the multifaceted characterisation in the novel. As with people who can be met in everyday life, it is not possible to predict their inward personality simply by means of their outward actions. Characters think one thing of other characters at certain points in the novel, and then change their mind on the basis of actions or insights they gather from something they see or hear. All the characters are trying to find their place among the others and in the world, and for everyone this is an active process. Through them and their search for order Virginia Woolf is able to show her readers that there is certainly more than meets the eye to the human mind.
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