Lily Briscoe (To The Lighthouse)

Lily is seen throughout the novel as a the antitheses of Mrs. Ramsay, yet she spends the book attempting to define and portray Mrs. Ramsey through her art. This judgment she is forced to make inspires a sense of juxtaposition regarding the two characters, while ultimately leads to Lily’s artistic struggle. While Lily rejects the conformity of traditional feminist qualities that Mrs. Ramsay has, she also puts them into practice by eluding the diligence she acquired from watching Mrs. Ramsey’s commitment to others. In the last line of the book, Lily says her vision is finished which reflects her sense of completeness, in the sense that she has now become comfortable with her lifestyle choices when compared to those of more traditional women, such as Mrs. Ramsey. Contrarily however, her vision being done could also just be her finishing a painting, ready to move on to the next. Personally, I choose to believe the completion of her painting is a more symbolic metaphor that she has come to terms with herself, almost as if she’s speaking for Virgina Woolf herself. Lily's vision is not simply just a lighthouse, rather its a representation of her choice to be exactly the way she is as a painter. Reaching the lighthouse is a transition of life as it was before, filled with doubt, to the way it will be going into the future, filled with acceptance. I think the last few lines are Lily's final moment of clarity and her ability to feel whole.