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Section To the Lighthouse, Chapters 1-6 Summary
Chapter 1 begins about ten years after the events recorded at the start of the novel, with Mr Ramsay getting angry that his children (James and Cam) are not quite ready to make their long-delayed trip to the lighthouse. Lily is still searching for the right way to paint the picture she is perpetually working on at the Ramsays cottage, but she is also trying to think of ways of resolving the old conflict between Mr Ramsay and his children, which surfaces here because Nancy has neglected to order sandwiches (and thus failed to fill Mrs Ramsays role). Though Lily still finds him difficult to deal with, she pities Mr Ramsays air of tragedy and wonders whether she could ever give him all the attention and comfort he seems to need.
Chapter is a complex but very rich chapter. It starts from Mr Ramsays perspective; he thinks about Lily as a potential replacement for his wife and finds her not unattractive, but it is clear that he views her as he would any woman, that is, as someone from whom he can demand sympathy. He and Lily have an awkward conversation, and the narrative continues through Lilys eyes. She feels bad about her inability to put him at ease, and compliments him on his boots. He uses this as a chance to complain about how uncomfortable boots always are, and to show her his foolproof way of tying his laces. This very typical petty display of pride makes Lily feel more at ease with him, and when Cam and James come to begin the expedition, she is filled with affection for all of them. Lily ends the chapter with a meditation on Mr Ramsays philosophical ideas, and decides that his doubts (about whether objects like tables actually exist and have a reality independent of our perceptions of them) show his vulnerability and loneliness.
Chapter shows Lily struggling with her painting, distracted by thoughts of Mr Ramsay and by Charles Tansleys discouraging words about womens limitations. She finds herself unable to fill a space in the middle of her painting and, remembering Mrs Ramsays reassuring and inspiring presence, tries to recall how she managed to connect people and places with each other. Lily has the beginnings of an inspiration for how to finish her painting, but once more she catches sight of the Ramsays in their boat and is distracted.
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Chapter 4 moves to the boat, where we see Mr Ramsay, Cam and James on their way to the lighthouse (accompanied by an old man named Macalister and his son). Mr Ramsay, always dramatizing himself, acts like a heroic explorer of sorts, giving orders to James who is steering the boat. In one respect, this behavior is justified, since the trip is a dangerous one and there are rocks to avoid, but Cam realizes that James is extremely angry with her father for his tyranny and tries to mediate between them. Cam is torn, because she feels loyal to her brother and his rebelliousness but cant help loving and admiring her father.
Chapter 5 returns us to Lily, still at her canvas, who is now recalling Mrs Ramsays matchmaking habits and their results. Minta and Pauls marriage has been a failure, and Lily wishes she could have shown this to Mrs Ramsay to prove that her conviction that all women should marry is wrong; she also remembers the attempted union between herself and Mr Bankes that never came off. She meditates on the extreme obscurity of human relationships and feels a kind of relief that she will never marry, and that her artistic problems are the greatest ones she will have to face.
Chapter 6 is made up of two short sentences which describe Macalisters son cutting out a piece from a fish and throwing it back (still alive) into the sea.
Section To the Lighthouse, Chapters 1-6 Commentary
After the first two chapters, the narrative in this section alternates between Lily and the Ramsays. One chapter shows us Lilys thoughts on what she sees from a distance, then the next chapter moves us closer in to describe Cam, James and Mr Ramsay in more detail (and so on). This back-and-forth movement establishes a kind of correspondence between the Ramsays and Lily, suggesting that their actions and thoughts are connected in an important way. Furthermore, Lily and the Ramsay children think back to Mrs Ramsay quite frequently, despite her absence; this common memory and shared love sets up a possibility (never fully articulated and left very much undecided) that Lily might replace Mrs Ramsay in their lives by marrying Mr Ramsay. To find a precedent for this scenario in other English novels of the period we might look at E. M. Forsters Howards End, where a somewhat bullying and unpopular widower marries a younger, independent spinster and thus inherits a house she has always loved and felt connected to (a house which is a kind of extension of her new husbands dead wife).
This possibility is unstated in Woolfs novel, and it is overshadowed by Lilys painting (which she resumes and tries to finish) as well as her still-passionate attachment to Mrs Ramsay. Lilys love for Mrs Ramsay has something in it of a childs desire for its mother; she yearns for the dead woman as keenly as any child might have done To want and not to have, sent all up her body a hardness... Oh Mrs Ramsay! she called out silently, to that essence which sat by the boat, that abstract one made of her... as if to abuse her for having gone. Lily cannot, however, summon Mrs Ramsay to mind without admitting that she is making her into an essence or abstract which signifies for her the whole lost world Mrs Ramsay inhabited. Lilys longing is for Mrs Ramsay as a symbolic figure, much more than as a real mother-figure; since Lily was never actually raised by Mrs Ramsay, it seems that her longing is not for an actual, sexual connection but for a symbolic one. Lilys memories of Mrs Ramsay suggest that the dead woman represents a way of maintaining the perception of human unity in a world of flux
…the whole scene on the beach... seemed to depend somehow upon Mrs Ramsay sitting under the rock... That woman sitting there, writing under the rock resolved everything into simplicity... in the midst of chaos there was shape; this external passing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves shaking) was stuck into stability. Life stand still here, Mrs Ramsay said. Mrs Ramsay! Mrs Ramsay! she repeated. She owed it all to her. (Section , Chapter )
Woolf seems to be saying that all artistic expression needs a central human figure like Mrs Ramsay to concentrate on; this fact is Lilys revelation-and it is hard to tell whether Lilys love for Mrs Ramsay comes as a result of such moments of insight, or whether the love produces the insight.
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