To the Lighthouse The Lighthouse: Chapters IV–VII Summary & Analysis

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.