Summary: Chapter IV
As the boat sails toward the lighthouse, both James and
Cam feel their father’s mounting anxiety and impatience. Mr. Ramsay
mutters and speaks sharply to Macalister’s boy, a fisherman’s son
who is rowing the boat. Bound together against what they perceive
to be their father’s tyranny, the children resolve to make the journey
in silence. They secretly hope that the wind will never rise and
that they will be forced to turn back. But as they sail farther
out, the sails pick up the wind and the boat speeds along. James
steers the boat and mans the sail, knowing that his father will
criticize him if he makes the slightest mistake.
Mr. Ramsay talks to Macalister about a storm that sank
a number of ships near the lighthouse on Christmas. Cam realizes
that her father likes to hear stories of men having dangerous adventures
and thinks that he would have helped the rescue effort had he been
on the island at the time. She is proud of him, but also, out of
loyalty to James, means to resist his oppressive behavior. Mr. Ramsay
points out their house, and Cam reflects how unreal life on shore
seems. Only the boat and the sea are real to her now. Cam, though
disgusted by her father’s melodramatic appeals for sympathy, longs
to find a way to show him that she loves him without betraying James. James,
for his part, feels that Cam is about to abandon him and give in
to their father’s mood. Meanwhile, Mr. Ramsay muses that Cam seems
to have a simple, vague “female” mind, which he finds charming.
He asks Cam who is looking after their puppy, and she tells him that
Jasper is doing it. He asks what she is going to name the puppy, and
James thinks that Cam will never withstand their father’s tyranny
like he will. He changes his mind about her resolve, however, and
Cam thinks of how everything she hears her father say means “Submit
to me.” She looks at the shore, thinking no one suffers there.
Summary: Chapter V
Lily stands on the lawn watching the boat sail off. She
thinks again of Mrs. Ramsay as she considers her painting. She thinks
of Paul and Minta Rayley and contents herself by imagining their
lives. Their marriage, she assumes, turned out badly. Though she
knows that these sorts of imaginings are not true, she reflects
that they are what allow one to know people. Lily has the urge to
share her stories of Paul and Minta with the matchmaking Mrs. Ramsay,
and reflects on the dead, contending that one can go against their
wishes and improve on their outdated ideas. She finally feels able
to stand up to Mrs. Ramsay, which, she believes, is a testament
to Mrs. Ramsay’s terrific influence over her. Lily has never married,
and she is glad of it now. She still enjoys William Bankes’s friendship
and their discussions about art. The memory of Mrs. Ramsay fills
her with grief, and she begins to cry. She has the urge to approach
Augustus Carmichael, who lounges nearby on the lawn, and confess
her thoughts to him, but she knows that she could never say what
she means.
Summary: Chapter VI
The fisherman’s boy cuts a piece from a fish that he has
caught and baits it on his hook. He then throws the mutilated body
into the sea.
Summary: Chapter VII
Lily calls out to Mrs. Ramsay as if the woman might return,
but nothing happens. She hopes that her cries will heal her pain,
but is glad that Carmichael does not hear them. Eventually, the
anguish subsides, and Lily returns to her painting, working on her
representation of the hedge. She imagines Mrs. Ramsay, radiant with
beauty and crowned with flowers, walking across the lawn. The image soothes
her. She notices a boat in the middle of the bay and wonders if
it is the Ramsays’.
Analysis—The Lighthouse: Chapters IV–VII
Although Chapter VI is presented in brackets and is only
two sentences long, its description of a live mutilated fish is
important to the novel since the fish represents the paradox of
the world as an extremely cruel place in which survival is somehow
possible. The brackets also hearken back to the reports of violence
and sorrow in “Time Passes,” which recount the deaths of Prue and
Andrew Ramsay. To the Lighthouse is filled with
symbols that have no easily assigned meaning. The mutilated fish,
the boar’s head wrapped in Mrs. Ramsay’s shawl, Lily’s painting,
and the lighthouse itself are symbols that require us to sift through
a multiplicity of meanings rather than pin down a single interpretation.
