In To the Lighthouse,
Virginia Woolf tells the story of the Ramsay family and their relationships
with each other and those around them. One relationship in particular that
I found to be important is that of the husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay.
Their relationship seems to be quite dysfunctional, yet somehow they manage
to love each other. Is it a love of power, however, or is it a love of
the heart?
Mr. Ramsay is a very
domineering man. He is an egotist and a man who loves to get his way. He
is well educated and holds a high position in society. All of these factors
attribute to his dominance over his wife and children. In the beginning
section of the novel, James, the youngest son, wishes to go to the lighthouse.
Mr. Ramsay tells James he will not be able to go due to the bad weather,
but Mrs. Ramsay attempts to disagree by telling James there is still hope.
This angers Mr. Ramsay:
The extraordinary irrationality
of her remark, the folly of women’s minds enraged him. He had ridden through
the
valley of death, been shattered
and shivered; and now, she flew in the face of facts, made his children
hope what
was utterly out of the question,
in effect, told lies. He stamped his foot on the stone step. "Damn you,"
he said.
(pg. 31-32)
He is angry because she is taking some of his power away. He cannot
control the children if she is always opposing everything he says. He expects
her to agree with him, and when she doesn’t he is angry. He is very insecure
with himself, so he needs his wife to back him up and feel sorry for him
when he is hurt. He always seems to be stuck on this idea that his wife,
and all women for that matter, should give him sympathy anytime that he
needs it. He does this repeatedly within his family, and even in the end
of the story with Lily Briscoe. He feeds off of their sympathy, and it
makes him feel more secure in his power: "this was one of those moments
when an enormous need urged him, without being conscious what it was, to
approach any woman, to force them, he did not care how, his need was so
great, to give him what he wanted: sympathy" (pg.150-151). From the quote,
it seems as if sympathy is like an addiction or a necessary element of
life. If he doesn’t receive sympathy from a woman, than he can no longer
go on living. There is an urgency in his voice - he feels that he must
"force them" to give him sympathy. This is how it was in his marriage to
Mrs. Ramsay. He doesn’t use physical force, but mental force to get her
to do what he wants. I think that this idea of mental domination is why
he assumes power over his family, forcing them to hate and fear him.
Mrs. Ramsay is very
aware that her husband has a thirst for power. She is constantly watching
and observing his every move and emotion, always being careful not to step
over him in any way. She is a beautiful and intelligent woman, but the
constant reminder by her husband that she is a lesser person then he is
becomes too much for her. She believes this, and he is triumphant.
She did not like, even for
a second, to feel finer than her husband; and further, could not bear not
being entirely
sure, when she spoke to
him, of the truth of what she said. Universities and people wanting him,
lectures and
books and their being of
the highest importance - all relation, and his coming to her like that,
openly, so that any
one could see, that discomposed
her; for then people said that he depended on her, when they must know
that
of the two he was infinitely
the more important, and what she gave the world, in comparison with what
he gave,
negligible (pg.39).
He has pushed his education at her so much that she actually believes that she is inferior. In public, she doesn’t want anyone to think that she holds any power, but at home she holds more power within the family. Her children love her, and her husband depends on her for that treasured sympathy. She truly is the powerful one, yet she doesn’t seem to see it. For one moment, at the end of the first section, she gets a taste of that power and is actually happy.
He knew, of course he knew,
that she loved him. He could not deny it. And smiling she looked out of
the
window and said (thinking
to herself, Nothing on earth can equal this happiness)-
"Yes, you were right. It’s
going to be wet tomorrow. You won’t be able to go." And she looked at him
smiling. For she had triumphed
again. She had not said it: yet he knew" (pg. 124).
She realizes that his happiness relies heavily on her and her ability to sympathize and love him. I think that gives her a strong power over him, but she doesn’t seem to believe enough in herself to overcome the domination of Mr. Ramsay. She knows that their relationship is not the ideal one, but she never seems to take a step towards changing it.
It was Augustus Carmichael
shuffling past, precisely now, at the very moment when it was painful to
be
reminded of the inadequacy
of human relationships, that the most perfect was flawed, and could not
bear
the examination which, loving
her husband, with her instinct for truth, she turned upon it; when it was
painful
to feel herself convicted
of unworthiness, and impeded in her proper function by these lies, these
exaggerations -
it was at this moment when
she was fretted thus ignobly in the wake of her exaltation, that Mr. Carmichael
shuffled past (p.40).
It is clear that she is more intelligent than Mr. Ramsay thinks, but
one cannot comprehend why a knowing woman would stay with her husband in
such conditions. The love that she feels for Mr. Ramsay is always clouded
with doubt or issues of power, therefore it doesn’t seem like it is reasonable
to endure her husband as she does. It is safe to assume that death might
have been her only escape from the arms of her husband.
The death of Mrs.
Ramsay is rather strange. In the text, her death is merely mentioned as
almost a side note at the end of a paragraph, and then isn’t mentioned
again for many chapters. It doesn’t give much detail to how it happened,
just that she had died suddenly. "Mr. Ramsay, stumbling along a passage
one dark morning, stretched his arms out, but Mrs. Ramsay having died rather
suddenly the night before, his arms, though stretched out, remained empty"
(pg.128). It doesn’t even seem as though he mourns her at all. The description
of the deaths of his two other children, Prue and Andrew, is in a similar
manner. I think that this absence of description and mourning by Mr. Ramsay
is a perfect example of the relationship that he had with Mrs. Ramsay and
his family. He is too caught up in his own life to stop and pause for them.
Not until the end of the story do you see Mr. Ramsay express a little bit
of sorrow for his lost family, but even then it doesn’t seem sincere. He
is speaking with Lily Briscoe before he takes Cam and James to the lighthouse,
and he is looking for sympathy from Lily - almost as if he needs to feel
that power that was lost rather than the people that were gone.
"Such expeditions," said
Mr. Ramsay, scraping the ground with his toe, "are very painful." Still
Lily said
nothing. (She is stock,
she is a stone, he said to himself.) "They are very exhausting," he said,
looking, with
a sickly look that nauseated
her (he was acting, she felt, this great man was dramatising himself),
at his beautiful
hands. It was horrible,
it was indecent. Would they never come, she asked, for she could not sustain
this
enormous weight of sorrow,
support these heavy draperies of grief (he had assumed a pose of extreme
decrepitude; he even tottered
a little as he stood there) a moment longer (pg. 151-152).
I think that Mr. Ramsay can only love himself. He might have thought
that he loved his wife, but in actuality it was the idea of his wife loving
him that he liked the most. He plays on the heartstrings of his family
and of women without care for their own feelings. Even in the end he remains
the dominant figure.
As to the question of the
love between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay being a love of power or of heart, I have
to say it was one of power. There was an odd bond between them, but when
reading this novel you don’t see them giving each other much affection
or saying loving words to each other. Mr. Ramsay did love someone - himself.
I think that Mrs. Ramsay was much more intelligent than she gave herself
credit for, and that she was loved deeply by her children. One never knows
why the human race endures unnecessary trials and suffers through unnecessary
relationships. Here is another example of the imperfect human relationship.