I consider Mrs. Ramsay to be the "Angel of the House," by which I mean the Victorian ideal woman: She is devoted to her children and submissive to her husband. We see this very clearly in the scene in chapter VI of "The Window" section (page 33 in most editions) when Mr. Ramsay loses his temper and says "Damn you" to her. (This is a very unusual thing for him to do and he is immediately contrite.)
Mrs. Ramsay goes from this thought: "To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other people's feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilisation so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency that, without replying, dazed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt of jagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked," to this thought: "There was nobody whom she reverenced as she reverenced him....She was not good enough to tie his shoe strings, she felt."
Her dilemma here is that the husband she adores has just spoiled the plans of an outting that her favorite and youngest child, James, had been looking forward to. (We'll get back to this scene from Mr. Ramsay's perspective later.) Who should she protect?
In her role as Angel, Mrs. Ramsay idealizes the male. "Indeed, she had the whole of the other sex under her protection: for reasons she could not explain, for their chivalry and valour, for the fact that they negotiated treaties, ruled India, controlled finance....and woe betide the girl--pray Heaven it was none of her daughters!--who did not feel the worth of it, and all that it implied, to the marrow of her bones!"
It seems to me that hers are all the wrong reasons to honor men. She blindly supports the patriarchal tradition which she seems to consider the natural state of things and wants to indoctrinate younger women in her beliefs. And what do her daughters feel? More on the Angel tomorrow.
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