To The Lighthouse...Conclusion

In "The Lighthouse" section of the novel we have Lily painting her picture and remembering Mrs. Ramsay. These chapters alternate with the trip to the lighthouse. The novel begins and ends with positive assertions: "Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow" and "Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision" (3 and 209). I think that Woolf's message to her readers is, in part, Montaigne's belief that "the greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself " (Essays, Book I, Chapter 39) and then one can carry on under any circumstance.


Upon reaching the lighthouse, Mr. Ramsay says, “’Well done!’ James had steered them like a born sailor.” And Cam thinks, “addressing herself silently to James. You’ve got it at last. For she knew that this was what James had been wanting.” James “was so pleased that he was not going to let anybody share a grain of his pleasure. His father had praised him.” They sit in the boat looking at their father. “What do you want? they both wanted to ask. They both wanted to say, Ask us anything and we will give it you” (206-207). In a reversal of their compact to fight their father’s tyranny to the death, both James and Cam have come to an understanding about themselves and their father. This understanding allows them to accept him and themselves.

While Lily is painting she is also remembering the past. The act of painting is a catharsis for her just as the trip to the lighthouse is a catharsis for James and Cam. As the boat reaches the lighthouse, Lily completes her painting. “With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished” (209). The words “it was finished” are those used by Mrs. McNab when she has finally gotten the house back in order (141). Lily, James and Cam seem to have gotten things in order. A cleansing of the spirit has taken place. There is an element of forgiveness and resolution at the close of the novel. We are left with a sense that these survivors will not only endure, they will prevail.

The line that Lily draws in the center of her canvas could represent many things. I'd suggest that it represents the lighthouse. The one unchanging, stable concept in the novel is the lighthouse--the lighthouse as dream, goal, reality--it is a constant. In a diary entry of June 23, 1927, Woolf wrote: “One stable moment vanquishes chaos. But this I said in Lighthouse.”