Blog 2: The Inevitable

I found Virginia Woolfe’s novel To The Lighthouse to be quite a difficult read compared to other books we have chosen to dissect. This novel was much more of a challenge based on the way you read it. The main thing that Woolfe seemed to focus on when writing this novel was hidden meanings. It was hard to grasp the main aspects of the story at first. Then as I began to read deeper into the story, I began to understand what was happening. It is a very symbolic/deeper meaning story. This deeper meaning of the story mainly comes from the gender roles and what they represent. As I said, this novel felt different reading than the other ones we had been reading. You had to really focus on not only the words, but what the words were insinuating. That made this seem a bit challenging of a read because symbolic or deep meaning readings can be difficult at times. You have to really delve into the reading between the lines and focus on every detail of the story because everything means something, even when you may think it does not.

There is a large focus on the inevitable in the novel. I thought of something really interesting when I discovered the topic of the inevitability of life coming to an end, or that life is short. If anyone has ever read or seen John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars, they will understand the connection. To explain, that is a story about two teenagers who have cancer and they fall in love. Of course, this story alone has absolutely nothing to do with To The Lighthouse, but as you look into the meanings it makes sense. In Green’s novel, the main character’s love interest continuously talks about how “oblivion is inevitable” which is essentially him saying that life comes to an end. This small part of that story came to my mind while reading our novel because of how Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey views their mortality, or the inevitable.

Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey both have two very different philosophies on the topic of life. First, there is Mr. Ramsey. His beliefs on life are to preserve it. Mr. Ramsey and his wife seem to be opposites of each other. He represents preserving life and playing it more on the safe side. The family did not go to the lighthouse for years. The first time was because of bad weather, so he decided that the family would not risk it and he was quite persistent about it, “No going to the Lighthouse, James,” he said, as trying in deference to Mrs Ramsay to soften his voice into some semblance of geniality at least,” (Woolfe 13). Mrs. Ramsey on the other hand, kept the possibility of the lighthouse open as a possibility. He was very insistent about not going to the lighthouse, and he made that very clear. She has more of the mentality of a positive look of life and live the life that you have. The novel ends with the Mr. Ramsey, Cam, and James finally going back to the lighthouse. He finally lives life again and begins a new outlook on mortality.

As explained, To The Lighthouse has a great deal of focus on deeper meanings. The lighthouse has a deeper meaning, the gender roles, everything. The novel deals with what Silverman describes as the semic code, “The semic code functions to define persons and places,” (Silverman 241). Essentially, the semic code revolves around the signs within the text. In this case, the biggest example of the semic code is the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey. As I said, they are opposites of each other. They are like foils to one another. Mr. Ramsey wants to preserve life while Mrs. Ramsey wants to live life. 

The narrator wants you to see the patterns of gender roles in order to see that Mrs.Ramsey’s quality of life was diminished by gender roles. She isn’t able to live the life that she believes in because Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey follows gender roles to a tee. 

They have two different views of mortality. That view of mortality obviously changed closer to the end of the novel. The Ramsey family not going to the lighthouse was like a precaution. Mr. Ramsey decided they were not going, thus symbolizing them not living life. This idea brings the premise of the story into account. The premise of this novel that we had decided is what is the quality of a life lived in the grip of the fear of death? This was mainly Mr. Ramsey’s view of mortality.

During the time jump of the novel, it has been revealed that the family still has yet to go to the lighthouse. Mrs. Ramsey has died, and things had very obviously changed. The family had been through a lot such as deaths, World War I, and more hardship. In all those ten years of the time jump they still had not gone to the lighthouse. That was, until the final section of the novel. Mr. Ramsey, James, and Cam finally made their way to the lighthouse. Something that I question is if Mrs. Ramsey had anything to do with that. Yes, she died much before they went to the lighthouse, but Mr. Ramsey finally was learning that life is about quality not quantity. Even though she died much before their trip to the lighthouse, could Mrs. Ramsey have been the reason? Could she have symbolized Mr. Ramsey’s journey to understanding the quality of life? In my opinion, I do believe that is true. I think that Mrs. Ramsey symbolizes the factor of what pushed them to go. Over the years his thoughts of mortality seemed to become about quality as he finally did go to the lighthouse. The lighthouse seems to symbolize Mr. Ramsey’s understanding of that quality of life. It was the key to making him understand. They did not go all those years because he was not ready to live life. Once he was ready, they went to the lighthouse.