[T]here is a coherence in things, a stability;
something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out. . . .
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary
Mrs. Ramsay takes her place at the dinner table and wonders
what she has done with her life. As she ladles soup for her guests,
she sees the true shabbiness of the room, the isolation among her
guests, and the lack of beauty anywhere, and she believes herself
to be responsible for fixing these problems. She again feels pity
for William Bankes. Lily watches her hostess, thinking that Mrs.
Ramsay looks old, worn, and remote. She senses Mrs. Ramsay’s pity
for Bankes and dismisses it, noting that Bankes has his work. Lily
also becomes aware that she has her own work. Mrs. Ramsay asks Charles
Tansley if he writes many letters, and Lily realizes that her hostess
often pities men but never women. Tansley is angry at having been
called away from his work and blames women for the foolishness of
such gatherings. He insists again that no one will be going to the
lighthouse tomorrow, and Lily reflects bitterly on Tansley’s chauvinism and
lack of charm. Tansley privately condemns Mrs. Ramsay for the nonsense
she talks, and Lily notices his discomfort. Lily recognizes her
obligation, as a woman, to comfort him, just as it would be his duty
to save her from a fire in the subway. She wonders what the world
would come to if men and women refused to fulfill these responsibilities.
She speaks to Tansley, sarcastically asking him to take her to the
lighthouse.
While Mrs. Ramsay rambles on to Tansley, William Bankes reflects
on how people can grow apart, to the point that a person can be
devoted to someone for whom he or she cares little. Eventually, the
conversation turns to politics. Mrs. Ramsay looks to her husband,
eager to hear him speak, but is disappointed to find him scowling
at Augustus Carmichael, who has asked for another plate of soup.
Candles are set out on the table, and they bring a change over the
room, establishing a sense of order. Outside, beyond the darkened
windows, the world wavers and changes. This chaos brings the guests
together.
Finally having dressed for dinner, Minta Doyle and Paul
Rayley take their places at the table. Minta announces that she
has lost her grandmother’s brooch, and Mrs. Ramsay intuits that
the couple is engaged. Minta is afraid of sitting next to Mr. Ramsay,
remembering his words to her about Middlemarch, a
book she never finished reading. Meanwhile, Paul recounts the events
of their walk to the beach. Dinner is served. Lily worries that
she, like Paul and Minta, will need to marry, but the thought leaves
her as she decides how to complete her painting. Sitting at the
table, Lily notices the position of the saltshaker against the patterned
tablecloth, which suggests to her something vital about the composition
of her painting—the tree must be moved to the middle. Mrs. Ramsay
considers that Bankes may feel some affection for her but decides
that he must marry Lily, and she resolves to seat
them closer at the next day’s dinner. Everything suddenly seems
possible to Mrs. Ramsay, who believes that, even in a world made
of temporal things, there are qualities that endure, bringing stability
and peace.
In another turn of the conversation, Bankes praises Sir
Walter Scott’s Waverley novels. Tansley quickly denounces this kind
of reading, and Mrs. Ramsay thinks that he will be this disagreeable until
he secures a professorship and a wife. She considers her children,
studying Prue in particular, whom she silently promises great happiness.
The guests finish dinner. Mr. Ramsay, now in great spirits, recites
a poem, which Carmichael finishes as a sort of tribute to his hostess,
bowing. Mrs. Ramsay leaves the room with a bow in return. On the
threshold of the door, she turns back to view the scene one last
time, but reflects that this special, defining moment has already
become a part of the past.
Analysis
The stunning scene of Mrs. Ramsay’s dinner party is the
heart of the novel. Here, the dominating rhythm emerges as the story
moves from chaos to blissful, though momentary, order. To Mrs. Ramsay’s mind,
the party begins as a disaster. Minta, Paul, Andrew, and Nancy are
late returning from the beach; Mr. Ramsay acts rudely toward his
guests; Charles Tansley continues to bully Lily; and, although she
recognizes it as her social responsibility, Lily feels ill-equipped
to soothe the man’s damaged ego. The opening of the chapter shifts
rapidly from one partygoer’s perceptions to the next, giving the
impression that each person is terribly “remote”—like Tansley, they
all feel “rough and isolated and lonely.” But a change comes over
the group as the candles are lit. Outside, the dark betrays a world
in which “things wavered and vanished.” The guests come together
against this overwhelming uncertainty and, for the remainder of
the dinner, fashion collective meaning and order out of individual
existences that possess neither inherently.
At the start of the party, Mrs. Ramsay’s thoughts sharply
contrast with the literary allusions and learned talk of her male
guests. By the end, however, she prevails in her gift, which Lily
considers to be almost an artistic talent, for creating social harmony.
If Mrs. Ramsay is an artist, the dinner party is her medium; indeed,
if the purpose of art for her, as it is for Lily, is to break down
the barriers between people, to unite and allow them to experience
life together in brief, perfect understanding, then the party is
nothing less than her masterpiece. The connection Lily feels between
herself and Mrs. Ramsay deepens in Chapter XVII. When Lily finds
herself acting out Mrs. Ramsay’s behaviors toward men in her banter
with Tansley, she realizes the frustrations that all women, even
those in traditional roles, feel at the limitations of convention.
