In the first section of To The Lighthouse Virginia Woolf has given an overview of the characters through indirect discourse. There is an emphasis and importance placed on this part of the story that does not necessarily blend as smoothly with Time Passes. In the second section of this story the importance is placed on the war itself and what the war does to this family. Mrs. Ramsey dies, Pru dies and Andrew dies. They all die very quickly and almost quietly. There is no importance to their deaths, it is just what happens during a time of war, people die. Just like the deaths of the family the vacation home dies as well. The war shows the affect on everyone and everything. The family cannot get back to the lighthouse because of the war. This story shows how the war destroyed so much just by giving the reader a glance at a family. 

When Mr. Ramsey returns to the lighthouse he is showing an attempt at repair. He and what is left of his family have to move on from the destruction of the war. They go back to what was once familiar and what they knew before the war came. The section Time Passes is exactly what the title of it means. It is so quick and time just passes over the war and the family telling the reader this is what the war was and what it has done to the world. The family must now try to be whole again and the house must be repaired to help bring some form of normalcy back to what is left.