Week 5 — The Lighthouse, Sections 1-6

[Susan]

Week 5 — The Lighthouse, Sections 1-6

On her first morning with the Ramsays in Skye, Lily begins to paint her picture. Mr Ramsay interrupts with demands for sympathy and tells her about his boots. After Mr Ramsay, Cam, and James leave on their expedition, Lily paints while thinking about Mrs Ramsay and the past. As the Ramsays begin their trip to the lighthouse, Cam and James are allies, determined “to resist tyranny” aka Mr Ramsay “to the death,” but Cam feels torn between her father and her brother.

Some Questions to Start:

1) Ten years later, how has the death of Mrs Ramsay affected her husband and children?

2). As Lily works on the picture, she remembers Mrs Ramsay with affection, anger, pity, respect, and grief. Thinking about an incident on the beach with Charles Tansley, Lily also seems to see Mrs Ramsay as a sort of artist and an inspiration. “This, that, and the other; herself and Charles Tansley and the breaking wave; Mrs Ramsay bringing them together; Mrs Ramsay saying ‘Life stand still here’; Mrs Ramsay making of the moment something permanent (as in another sphere Lily herself tried to make of the moment something permanent)—this was of the nature of a revelation”. (Section 3). Do you agree with Lily’s conclusion? Did Mrs Ramsay make “something permanent?”

Info/Links:

“We perished each alone” — The Castaway, William Cowper https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...

List of Characters — The Lighthouse

The Ramsay Family
—Mr Ramsay, a philosopher, 70+ years old
—Mrs Ramsay, died before the War
—Rose
—Prue, the Fair, died before the War
—Andrew, the Just, died in the War
—Jasper
—Roger
—Nancy
—Cam, the Wicked, the youngest daughter, 17 years old
—James, the Ruthless, the youngest, 16 years old

Guests of the Ramsays
—Lily Briscoe, paints, 44 years old
—Augustus Carmichael, a successful poet, 70+ years old
—Mrs Beckwith, kind, old lady who sketches

Others
—Charles Tansley, a former protege of Mr Ramsay
—William Bankes, a botanist, an old friend of Mr Ramsay, 70+ years old
—Minta and Paul Rayley, married at Mrs Ramsay’s instigation
—Old Macalister, boatman
—Macalister’s boy, boatman

[Mike]

I am really interested in seeing how Macalister’s boy using part of a live fish as bait in part 6 is significant (assuming it is significant since it is in brackets).

[Tamara]

Susan wrote: "Thinking about an incident on the beach with Charles Tansley, Lily also seems to see Mrs Ramsay as a sort of artist and an inspiration..."

I don't see Mrs. Ramsay as an artist. I see her more along the lines of a conductor of an orchestra. She waves her baton to guide and direct the people around her. She is alert to every aspect of her surroundings, offering sympathy to one corner as needed, and nodding encouragingly to another corner as needed. And all the while, the music is playing in her head like some symphony that demands her continuous and undivided attention. But as with music, once the orchestra has finished playing the piece, the conductor takes his/her bow and vanishes along with the music.

There is no permanence to her action--unlike words or paintings which are frozen in time. As Lily says, "Nothing stays; all changes; but not words, not paint."

[Tamara]

I love the exchange--or lack of it--between Lily and Mr. Ramsay. So much of it is unspoken: Mr. Ramsay pleading for sympathy and expecting to receive it from Lily because she is a woman; Lily knows what he wants but refuses/is unable to give it to him.

I am also amazed at Woolf's skill in capturing and interpreting the thoughts of Cam and James as they trudge along behind their father. A powerful image of a patriarchal father barking orders at his children who have no choice but to follow along. They seethe with resentment, secretly vow to resist tyranny to the death, and communicate in a language that is unspoken.

Woolf dips in an out of her characters' interiority, interpreting, capturing their movement back and forth, their hesitations, their feelings, and their memories that keep intruding. It's amazing writing.

[Tamara]

I'm wondering what to make of the very last image in this section.

Lily has just said Mrs. Ramsay's name aloud. The tears are streaming down her face. This is immediately followed with a horrible and cruel image of the mutilated body of the fish being thrown back into the sea. Why the juxtaposition? Is it supposed to suggest a callous dismissal of Lily's grief at the loss of Mrs. Ramsay?

[Susan]

Mike wrote: "I am really interested in seeing how Macalister’s boy using part of a live fish as bait in part 6 is significant (assuming it is significant since it is in brackets)."

This is such a powerful image, and the thoughtless cruelty gains impact from the matter of fact language. Prior deaths and the violence of World War I occurred off-page, but this visceral image is smack in the middle of “The Lighthouse” section. I wonder if a parallel is implied with Jasper’s shooting at the rooks in “The Window”.

[Susan]

Tamara wrote: "Susan wrote: "Thinking about an incident on the beach with Charles Tansley, Lily also seems to see Mrs Ramsay as a sort of artist and an inspiration..."

I don't see Mrs. Ramsay as an artist. I see..."

I don’t see how Mrs Ramsay can be considered an artist either, Tamara. I’m at a loss to understand Lily’s thought or how Mrs Ramsay makes moments permanent. Perhaps like the conductor in your analogy, her music/actions live in memory as a complete whole, but I’m not sure that’s what’s meant.

[Susan]

Tamara wrote: "I love the exchange--or lack of it--between Lily and Mr. Ramsay. So much of it is unspoken: Mr. Ramsay pleading for sympathy and expecting to receive it from Lily because she is a woman; Lily knows..."

And the boots! Lily inadvertently gets Mr Ramsay on his “hobbyhorse” and diverts him from his need for sympathy, and then unexpectedly regrets not giving him sympathy. Woolf is so acute here on those missteps of communication.

[Susan]

Tamara wrote: "I'm wondering what to make of the very last image in this section.

Lily has just said Mrs. Ramsay's name aloud. The tears are streaming down her face. This is immediately followed with a horrible ..."

The mutilated fish being tossed into the sea to no doubt perish is a complete change in tone from what’s gone before. I don’t know that it functions as a dismissal of Lily’s grief, although the placement suggests it might relate to it somehow. Might the fish be a symbol for the cruelty and violence in the world which Mrs Ramsay’s children must see and process without her intervention to buffer the impact — analogous with the symbol of mortality of the pig’s skull in “The Window” where she protects Cam from its shadow by wrapping it in her shawl? Does the image of the helpless fish relate to the senseless violence of World War I, which is presented in “Time Passes” as a stain on the sea?

[Thomas]

Mike wrote: "I am really interested in seeing how Macalister’s boy using part of a live fish as bait in part 6 is significant (assuming it is significant since it is in brackets)."

The death of Mrs. Ramsay was bracketed as well. This cold treatment puts distance between the reader and the family. (Or this reader, anyway.) The distancing makes me think the narrator wants the reader to look objectively and coldly at the phenomenon of this family -- there's an invitation to analyze objectively something that is subjectively painful. It's hard not to feel that pain though, and the more the narrator distances me the more I want to get closer to figure out what is causing that pain. This bit of petty cruelty in part 6 offers the same kind of invitation, I think.

[Susan]

Susanna wrote: "Did the Rayley's marriage really turn out badly, or is that just how Lily imagines it?"

It’s a puzzlement to sort out what’s true and what Lily is imagining, isn’t it? I’m thinking each imagined scene begins with something that Lily actually witnesses or hears and then embroiders — with that reading, Paul did say “he played chess in coffeehouses,” but Lily has imagined the call home, the place with the waitresses who get to know you, and the little man in the tea trade as well as the scene on the stairs with the poker.

So, I’m taking as true that Lily visited the Rayley’s last summer, the car broke down, and Minta handed Paul the tools. But is Paul having an affair with another woman? Would the Minta who is described earlier as never giving herself away confide in Lily about her husband’s having an affair? I’m not sure. What do you all think?

[Susan]

For me, there’s such a feeling of movement in this reading as Lily works on her painting and the Ramsays’ sail toward the lighthouse. Perhaps this relates to a sense that the young members of the Ramsay family have moved on in some way from their family’s losses, while Mr Ramsay is still stuck.

[Tamara]

Susan wrote: "Perhaps this relates to a sense that the young members of the Ramsay family have moved on in some way from their family’s losses, while Mr Ramsay is still stuck.."

I read Mr. Ramsay's determination to go to the lighthouse as an attempt to make amends for being such a stick-in-the mud about it in the past. Now that his wife is no longer around, maybe he is trying to redeem himself by doing something she wanted to do but he had squashed.

[Gary]

I may take some heat for this, but I'm beginning to think that Mr. Ramsay is the central character in the novel as story. Much of what other characters do (and think) is in response to, contra to, related to, in anticipation of, in support of, in criticism of, him. Is this simply because he is the paterfamilias of the family and its circle? Or perhaps Woolf is using him as a kind of anchor in the novel... non-heroic to be sure, but a center which the other major characters relate to, albeit in different ways at different times.

[Roger]

Allow me to make my curmudgeonly comments.

Lily knows Mr. Ramsay is going out. Why doesn't she wait until after he leaves to set up her easel? She knows he distracts her. Maybe she just likes to complain.

As Lily muses, she says to herself, in so many words, "What is the meaning of life?" That earned a guffaw. To be fair, maybe it wasn't a cliche when Woolf wrote it.

Why does Woolf think we need to hear the inner thoughts of sullen and rebellious teenagers? Jane Austen would have regarded them as of no interest until and unless they grew up.

And a final non-curmudgeonly thought: It entered my head that maybe Mrs. Ramsay is the figurative lighthouse, giving direction to others and warning them of dangers.

[Thomas]

Roger wrote: "And a final non-curmudgeonly thought: It entered my head that maybe Mrs. Ramsay is the figurative lighthouse, giving direction to others and warning them of dangers."

Nice observation. It occurs to me now that James's desire to go to the lighthouse is symbolic of his relationship with his mother. And the distance that characterizes much of the second half of the novel is what the act of going to the lighthouse is meant to overcome. Mr. Ramsay is all too quick to point out the impossibility of getting there, of overcoming that distance -- at first because of a temporary obstacle (the weather) and then a permanent one (Mrs. Ramsay's death.) It is interesting though that they make the trip to the lighthouse when it is merely symbolic, almost a nostalgic re-enactment. Or perhaps when they arrive they will see the light? Will the distance will be closed?

[Tamara]

Thomas wrote: "Mr. Ramsay is all too quick to point out the impossibility of getting there, of overcoming that distance -- at first because of a temporary obstacle (the weather) and then a permanent one (Mrs. Ramsay's death.).."

There was distance between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay even when she was alive. He was aware of it and kept trying to break through to her.

[Tamara]

Roger wrote: "And a final non-curmudgeonly thought: It entered my head that maybe Mrs. Ramsay is the figurative lighthouse, giving direction to others and warning them of dangers.

And, just like a lighthouse, she remains aloof and distant. She seems to be an island unto herself. She orchestrates, plans, warns, but she won't allow anyone in, remaining an elusive figure who keeps her thoughts to herself.

[Gary]

I was fascinated by Woolf's description, through Lily, of the artistic process. Not being an artist myself, I found Lily's thoughts and feelings as she prepared for and worked on her painting intriguing. Woolf loved painting. In a 1934 essay she wrote, “Words are an impure medium – better far to have been born into the silent kingdom of paint”, and she consciously set out to express an artist's use of color in her writing. She hung out with artists and loved to talk with them. I like to think that in some measure she has captured the visual artist's creative process.

[Borum]

In response to Lily's question 'What is the meaning of life?' she concludes that the revelation had never come and perhaps never will come. Instead, the little illuminations come and go yet somehow Mrs Ramsay and Lily, in each of their own spheres, try to order the chaos into shape and re-form and re-fashion the passing moments into some stability.

she dipped into it to re-fashion her memory of him, and there it stayed in the mind affecting one almost like a work of art.

Mrs Ramsay saying, "Life stand still here"; Mrs Ramsay making of the moment something permanent (as in another sphere Lily herself tried to make of the moment something permanent) - this was of the nature of a revelation. In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves shaking) was struck into stability Life stand still here, Mrs. Ramsay said.

I don't know if Mrs. Ramsay's saying 'Life stand still here' is an assertive statement as if Life does stand still here or if it's wishful thinking as 'Life, (do please) stand still here'. What is your take on this? Could we find any stable shape among the chaotic passing and flowing?

[Tamara]

Borum wrote: "I don't know if Mrs. Ramsay's saying 'Life stand still here' is an assertive statement as if Life does stand still here or if it's wishful thinking as 'Life, (do please) stand still here'. What is your take on this? Could we find any stable shape among the chaotic passing and flowing?.."

I read it as an attempt to freeze time--as in "Life, please stand still." But life never stands still. You can't "freeze" time. It is constantly moving, changing, disrupting. The most you can do is capture a moment in time through art--as in Lily's painting and/or in literature (I'm thinking of Keats' Grecian Urn, for example, where images are frozen in time.)

[Susan]

Thomas wrote: "Mike wrote: "The death of Mrs. Ramsay was bracketed as well. This cold treatment puts distance between the reader and the family.."

Is it the brackets or the terse statements of events that create the distance you refer to? There is certainly a physical distance between the house and most of the bracketed events. Woolf sticks to one location and a fairly straight timeline while characters’ POVs shift constantly (although less in “The Lighthouse” than “The Window”). My sense is there’s a method/meaning to the brackets, but I’m not sure what it is ;).

[Susan]

Tamara wrote: 'I read Mr. Ramsay's determination to go to the lighthouse as an attempt to make amends for being such a stick-in-the mud about it in the past. Now that his wife is no longer around, maybe he is trying to redeem himself by doing something she wanted to do but he had squashed. .."

I agree Mr Ramsay may feel guilty about their disagreement over the weather (and other things). In his defense, though, he was correct as it begins to rain that night (Section 2 of “Time Passes”). And I think we see in “The Lighthouse” why they want a nice day to go. It’s a day trip in what seems to be a small, open sailboat.

[Susan]

Gary wrote: "I may take some heat for this, but I'm beginning to think that Mr. Ramsay is the central character in the novel as story. Much of what other characters do (and think) is in response to, contra to, ..."

You make a good case for Mr Ramsay as the central character, at least in “The Lighthouse”. Certainly he is the main character that others are reacting to/with as both Lily on the lawn and James and Cam on the boat seem pre-occupied with him. (Lily of course is also pre-occupied with Mrs Ramsay and her picture.)

[Thomas]

Susan wrote: "Thomas wrote: "Mike wrote: "The death of Mrs. Ramsay was bracketed as well. This cold treatment puts distance between the reader and the family.."

Is it the brackets or the terse statements of eve..."

I'm not sure what the meaning of the brackets is either, but a conventional author would have the death of a major character revealed through another character with all its attendant emotions. Certainly we see how Mrs. Ramsay's family deals with the aftermath of her death, but the gravity of the event itself is depersonalized, or at least muted, by the brackets.

But maybe it makes sense that a family with so many repressed feelings and communication problems should bracket an intensely painful and private experience. Or that a sensitive narrator would bracket it for them.

[Tamara]

Thomas wrote: "But maybe it makes sense that a family with so many repressed feelings and communication problems should bracket an intensely painful and private experience. Or that a sensitive narrator would bracket it for them..."

I like that. They can't cope with her death so they "bracket" it--set it off to the side, i.e. separate it from the sentence/their experience.

I'm also wondering if the brackets are related to a phrase that has popped up several times throughout the novel. Cam repeats it when they're on the boat:

About here, she thought, dabbling her fingers in the water, a ship had sunk, and she murmured, dreamily half asleep, how we perished, each alone."

Notice she says, how we perished, not how they perished.

Maybe that is what the brackets are all about. We saw them in the beginning as a large group of family and friends surrounding each other, living together, eating together, bustling about. The appearance is one of community. In reality, each one is alone in life, trapped in his/her version of reality--separated, isolated, bracketed from everyone else.

Death strips away the appearance of community. Just as brackets separate words from the rest of the sentence, we are separated from the people who surround us in life and in death. Our lives and deaths are "bracketed". We live alone; we die alone.

I'm not sure if that makes any sense.

[Susan]

Roger wrote: "Allow me to make my curmudgeonly comments.

Lily knows Mr. Ramsay is going out. Why doesn't she wait until after he leaves to set up her easel? She knows he distracts her. Maybe she just likes to complain"

Lily doesn’t wait for the Ramsays to leave because she is excited/inspired to get back to work on her picture. “She would paint that picture now. It had been knocking about in her mind all these years. Where were her paints, she wondered. Her paints, yes. She had left them in the hall last night. She would start at once.”

Maybe the bigger question is why shouldn’t Lily be able to do that? Mr Carmichael can bask in the sun right next to her without Mr Ramsay interrupting him.

[David]

NOTE: This fine post was originally placed in the Week 2 discussion but moved here due to spoilers.

by Sam
I could just be typing up passages all day, commenting on all of it in my mind. It is so rich.
Lily's painting. It could not be that she doesn't want anyone to see it since she is painting practically in public, with the crowd of children and guests. Of course anyone could see it. I think what she is more afraid of is anyone saying something about it. And that it is not finished. So she is the only one who has a chance to see it, and she doesn't. Where should this go, or that. Move the tree here, or there. It is not an "it" yet.
And yes Lily is very much in love with Mrs. Ramsay. That is evident.
As to what is the story? It's about a Summer's day, the beginning of the Summer, when everything gets started and is left unfinished: the brown stocking, does Mrs. Ramsay finish it? The trip to the Lighthouse, nope, doesn't happen, the affair between Minta and Paul? Likewise just starting. Carmichael's poems have not yet been recognized, Mr. Ramsay has not finished his book, has not gotten from Q to R.
And then 11 years later (Lily was first 33, then 44), the events that started have their consequences and finishes. There are many stories, starting then finishing.
Back at the opening, the beginning: As "Time passes" is reminiscent of "The Dead", the opening cacophony of intermingled thoughts (which, when you go back to it, you'll see is not that confusing; is really very straight forward.), reminds me of the opening of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist... where Baby nicens meets a moo cow.
There is a passage where Lily is thinking directly for Virginia,("The Lighthouse", section 1) "...was a question, as if the link that usually bound things together had been cut, and they floated up here, down there, off, anyhow. How aimless it was, how chaotic, how unreal it was, she thought, looking at her empty cup....And we all get together in a house like this on a morning like this, she said, looking out of the window. It was a beautiful still day." And to whom was she now saying this? A sentence earlier, "...how unreal it was, she thought...."
She's thinking and she's talking. Odd? Later she (Lily, recall) yells out "Mrs. Ramsay, Mrs. Ramsay," to no one.
Later, more Lily, thinking to go right up to him and say "Mr. Carmichael!" But one only woke people if one knew what one wanted to say to them. And she wanted to say not one thing, but everything. Little words that broke up the thought and dismembered it said nothing. 'About life, about death; about Mrs. Ramsay' --no, she thought, one could say nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark."
(Another oddity, a double negative, from Virginia?) So that's to think about too.
And I keep thinking Mrs. Ramsay is Mrs. Dalloway and that her "sudden death" was a suicide.
There is so much more, packed in. What about Mr. Ramsay's philosophy? There is the phantom Table in the kitchen, all angular, solid. Is he a British Empiricist? Bertrand Russell perhaps?

[Susan]

Roger wrote: “Why does Woolf think we need to hear the inner thoughts of sullen and rebellious teenagers?”

Good question. Why is so much told from James’ and Cam’s point of view in the boat scenes?

To reply, I’d like to quote your comment from “Time Passes:” “It seems like Mrs. Ramsay was the solid center of the family. I guess we'll see how it reorganizes without her, or doesn't.”

As the two youngest members of the family, Cam and James might be expected to be most impacted by the loss of their mother. James seemed to be especially close to her. Are they “sullen and rebellious” just because they are teenagers, or does their behavior reflect something askew in the family? This is explored more in the next section, so it’s another case of wait and see ;)

[Susan]

Roger wrote: " And a final non-curmudgeonly thought: It entered my head that maybe Mrs. Ramsay is the figurative lighthouse, giving direction to others and warning them of dangers.”

Interesting idea! It could be she is a better guide for some characters than others due to her own biases. Would Lily have ended up on the metaphorical rocks if she and Mr Bankes had married?

[Susan]

Gary wrote: "I was fascinated by Woolf's description, through Lily, of the artistic process. Not being an artist myself, I found Lily's thoughts and feelings as she prepared for and worked on her painting intri..."

You might be interested by the reaction of Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell, a painter herself. In a May 11, 1927 letter to Woolf written after she and Duncan Grant (another painter) finished reading “To the Lighthouse”: “By the way surely Lily Briscoe must have been rather a good painter—before her time perhaps, but with great gifts really?”

[Susan]

Borum wrote: I don't know if Mrs. Ramsay's saying 'Life stand still here' is an assertive statement as if Life does stand still here or if it's wishful thinking as 'Life, (do please) stand still here'. What is your take on this? Could we find any stable shape among the chaotic passing and flowing? ..."

I agree with Tamara’s take above that art via Lily’s painting or Mr Carmichael’s poetry is one way to make life stand still. Mrs Ramsay seems to have done this in another way, according to Lily. Perhaps, she created moments of understanding between opposing characters like Lily and Mr Tansley which become part of how they see the world and/or remain in memory? I’m not sure how Mrs Ramsay makes life stand still, but Lily asserts that she does, so those are my best guesses.

[Susan]

Thomas wrote: But maybe it makes sense that a family with so many repressed feelings and communication problems should bracket an intensely painful and private experience. Or that a sensitive narrator would bracket it for them. ..."

Could be. But there are still the brackets for events that don’t seem to require careful handling like Mr Carmichael turning off his lamp or Prue’s marriage, so I don’t know. I’ll keep an eye out for brackets when I reread Mrs Dalloway this summer ;)

[Susan]

Tamara wrote: ". About here, she thought, dabbling her fingers in the water, a ship had sunk, and she murmured, dreamily half asleep, how we perished, each alone.".."

Interesting ideas about the brackets. You and Thomas have good explanations for what would seem the hardest examples to explain, but then there are those other examples — Mr Carmichael’s lamp…

Btw, Cam is quoting her father here who has been quoting “how we perished, each alone” from the Cowper poem, “The Castaway.” It’s worth reading, I think, as a key to Mr Ramsay’s thoughts.

[Tamara]

It would be interesting to compile a list of all the places where brackets are used. I'll have a go at doing that. We might then be able to discern some sort of pattern.

[Tamara]

I had no idea when I was foolish enough to suggest doing this that there would be so many brackets all over the place. I hadn't paid much attention to them before. I started going through "The Window" section expecting to find a bracket or two dotted about the place. Oh my! There is a bracket on almost every page. They function as asides or commentary. A brief listing:

(James thought);
(here Mr. Ramsay would straighten his back and narrow his little blue eyes upon the horizon);
(as Nancy put it);
(which was true);
(she was seductive but a little nervous);
(those were his parched stiff words);
(and now again she liked him warmly);
(she must be talking to a child);
(as if she had been pretending up there, and for a moment let herself be now).

All this was just in section 1 (around 12 pages) of "The Window."

I gave up at this point. This is a task for someone made of stronger metal :)

[Susan]

Tamara wrote: "I had no idea when I was foolish enough to suggest doing this that there would be so many brackets all over the place. I hadn't paid much attention to them before. I started going through "The Wind..."

In my edition, there are ( ), parentheses that Woolf does use frequently, and [], brackets, which appear mostly in “Time Passes” with one in “The Lighthouse” (Section 6). Is this handled different in your edition, Tamara? Maybe we are just using “bracket” differently. Thanks for taking a look

[Tamara]

You're right. I messed up. Thanks for pointing that out. I was looking at parentheses when I should have been looking for brackets. She uses parentheses a lot but uses brackets sparingly.
I checked the "Time Passes" section and it has both parentheses and brackets.

[Tamara]

Of course, the question then becomes, why brackets in one area and parentheses in another? I wonder why she does that.

[Susan]

Sam wrote: Lily's painting….I think what she is more afraid of is anyone saying something about it. And that it is not finished. So she is the only one who has a chance to see it, and she doesn't. Where should this go, or that. Move the tree here, or there. It is not an "it" yet..."

Thanks, this is a helpful way to look at it, Sam. Since her painting is unfinished, Lily is the only one who has an idea what it will look like when it’s complete, and even she isn’t sure.

[Susan]

Sam wrote: And then 11 years later (Lily was first 33, then 44), the events that started have their consequences and finishes. There are many stories, starting then finishing.

The question of how long it’s been and Lily’s age puzzled me since the text states in a couple places that “The Lighthouse” takes place ten years after “The Window”. Lily thinks: “When she had sat there last ten years ago…” and “Yes, it must have been precisely here that she had stood ten years ago.” The change in James’ age supports this, “James was sixteen.”, since he was six at the beginning. But Lily also gives her own age as “forty-four” several times when she was thirty-three in “The Window”. (All quotes from Section 1, “The Lighthouse”)

The only explanation I can come up with is that Lily’s birthday is in September. “The Window” takes place on an evening in mid-September. “The Lighthouse” occurs on a September morning ten years later. As a “just suppose” to show how this could work, if “The Window” occurred on September 14, 1912, and “The Lighthouse” takes place September 17, 1922, and Lily’s birthday is September 15, 16 or even 17, she could now be 44 years old.

[Susan]

Sam wrote: There is a passage where Lily is thinking directly for Virginia. ("The Lighthouse", section 1) "...was a question, as if the link that usually bound things together had been cut, and they floated up here, down there, off, anyhow. How aimless it was, how chaotic, how unreal it was, she thought, looking at her empty cup....And we all get together in a house like this on a morning like this, she said, looking out of the window. It was a beautiful still day." And to whom was she now saying this? A sentence earlier, "...how unreal it was, she thought...."

Good question. Is Lily getting like Mr Ramsay and talking to herself here? She seems to be alone.

How is Lily thinking directly for Woolf here? Her musings and feelings seem appropriate to the situation of finding herself back with the Ramsays in Skye ten years later after the deaths of her friend Mrs Ramsay and two of her children. As Mr Carmichael thinks at the end of “Time Passes”, “And it all looked, Mr Carmichael thought, shutting his book, falling asleep, much as it used to look.” Couldn’t the contrast between the house and sea looking the same on a bright beautiful morning and the reality of the Ramsays’ losses account for Lily’s feeling of disassociation?

[Susan]

Sam wrote: And I keep thinking Mrs. Ramsay is Mrs. Dalloway and that her "sudden death" was a suicide”

Even if Mrs Ramsay is similar to Mrs Dalloway (the main character in “Mrs Dalloway”, another novel by Virginia Woolf), Mrs Dalloway doesn’t commit suicide.

It’s an interesting theory that Mrs Ramsay’s death was a suicide, but what is there in “To the Lighthouse” that supports it?

[Susan]

Tamara wrote: "Of course, the question then becomes, why brackets in one area and parentheses in another? I wonder why she does that."

Yes, Woolf seems to be using brackets or I guess technically “square brackets” in a unique way here. Her use of parentheses seems more standard: https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/w...