Close Reading (To The Lighthouse)

Page 47, 2nd Full Paragraph


To begin, I should probably first explain my reading technique when it comes to Woolf. Unlike most books I’ve read, To The Lighthouse would be lost on me if I read it straight, from cover to cover, for plot summery and understanding. While the plot is intriguing to me as a hopeful psychology major, I find that the plot and interactions between the characters is not as important for the reader (me? Sure…) as is the way Woolf captures the characters. For instances, it would be easy to describe Mr. Ramsay as the traditional, s elf-absorbed, intellectual father yet Woolf creates him as a bizarre man who is always found in these unconventional scenes where he is deep in thought. Anyway, to revert back to my point, I’ve read this book section by section but then I’ve needed to go back to analyze different parts that I’d flagged as possibly important. This technique will be more clear in my close reading of a paragraph that will precede this part, but what I’m trying to say is that I find Virginia Woolf difficult to read, yet once my understanding is complete, its remarkable writing.
The section I choose to do a close reading of the second paragraph on page 47 beginning with “Mr. Banks expected…”. My initial reaction to this paragraph was clear to me, Mr. Banks has a crush on Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe notices it. However, the words “rapture” and “love” were used so many times in that paragraph that thought taking a closer look might be beneficial to my understanding of Mr. Banks, Lily and the causes of her opinion towards Mrs. Ramsay and most importantly, the allure Mrs. Ramsey seems to have. At first I gathered that Mr. Banks was starring at Mrs. Ramsay because she is a beautiful woman and he’s a (dirty and old!) man who is preoccupied with her looks. Such an action is not uncommon, men are always distracted by good looking or just women in general, yet such a shallow action has more than a superficial meaning. Mr. Banks might indeed just be starring to stare, but my intrigue was sparked when Lily was unable to comment back to banks to critize Mrs. Ramsay as she normally would. She was distracted by his “rapture” towards her which then brings the reader into Lily’s perceived notion of love. Lily describes love ass “never attempting to clutch its object” signifying that love is a few element that cannot be controlled and cannot be understood in some instances. This makes perfect sense in her mind as she watches Mr. Banks, a man of 60, fancy a married and younger woman. The fact is, he simply cannot help his love for Mrs. Ramsay and cannot explain why he does love her so. Lily goes on to compare love using mathematicians and their symbols, poets and their phrases and scientists and their solutions. At first I thought this meant that people love what is around them and what their focus is, regarding professions and their focal points. However, now I’ve drawn two important (that’s up for debate I suppose!) points from Lily’s examples. The first point is that Lily uses educational/ intellectual professions and their focal points instead of more conventional jobs. She could have easily compared love to a mechanic and the cars they work on, yet she uses mathematicians, poets and scientists. Education has the purpose of human gain and by comparing the love that educators have for their subjects to the love that people have for one another, Woolf makes the connection of love and human gain. This could mean two things, either love is for the gain of all humans (love = need) or that love is a process of learning. As a silly teenage girl who would admit to being “in love” twice at the tender age of 18, I might venture to say that both are true. Love is a basic need that all humans have while at the same time it is a learning process. I could go on about my thoughts on the evolution of love and Mr. Banks placement on my imaginary timeline, yet my second point regarding Lily’s comparison of love to education (poets, science, etc) has more validity. As we are reminded throughout the book, Lily is a forty-four year old single woman who spends her time painting with no hope of every marrying. Assuming that love and marriage connect (I’m not entirely sure they ALWAYS do, however this is an unnecessary interjection) Lily wouldn’t be the character in the book I would go to for advice on love. That’s precisely what makes this section so interesting. Lily has a commentary on love and the rapture it creates yet she is always the pitied character who has no hope of ever finding love. I found this to be the most meaningful part because Lily should be the one to comment on love. She has not been tainted by a failed or loveless marriage and has no apparent lover’s scorn that would cause her to think ill upon love, rather she sees it for the way it captures even the sanest of people (scientists anyone?) and how the preoccupation it causes is about overall gain. How charming.