Quote 1
Who
shall blame him? Who will not secretly rejoice when the hero puts
his armour off, and halts by the window and gazes at his wife and
son, who, very distant at first, gradually come closer and closer,
till lips and book and head are clearly before him, though still
lovely and unfamiliar from the intensity of his isolation and the
waste of ages and the perishing of the stars, and finally putting
his pipe in his pocket and bending his magnificent head before her—who will
blame him if he does homage to the beauty of the world?
As Mr. Ramsay strolls across the lawn
in Chapter VI of “The Window,” he catches sight of Mrs. Ramsay and
James in the window. His reaction comes as something of a surprise
given the troubled ruminations of his mind described just pages
before. He, like nearly every character in the novel, is keenly
aware of the inevitability of death and the likelihood of its casting
his existence into absolute oblivion. Mr. Ramsay knows that few
men achieve intellectual immortality. The above passage testifies
to his knowledge that all things, from the stars in the sky to the
fruits of his career, are doomed to perish. Here, rather than cave
in to the anxieties brought on by that knowledge, punish James for
dreaming of the lighthouse, or demand that Mrs. Ramsay or Lily lavish
him with sympathy, Mr. Ramsay satisfies himself by appreciating
the beauty that surrounds him. The tableau of his wife and child
cannot last—after all, they will eventually move and break the pose—but
it has the power, nevertheless, to assuage his troubled mind. These
moments integrate the random fragments of experience and interaction
in the world. As Mr. Ramsay brings his wife and son visually “closer
and closer,” the distance among the three shortens, buoying Mr.
Ramsay up from the depths of despair.
