Thus far the aspects of To The Lighthouse that stands out to me most must be the palpable anxiety felt by many of the characters regarding one’s proper place in life, from Lily Briscoe to Mr. Bankes.  Mr. Ramsay functions as the most obvious and outward example of this anxiety, for he is apparently a great philosopher of metaphysics—and thus concerned with the such subjects as the nature of existence and time—and yet, at the same time, he has a wife and many young children.  Mr. Ramsay seems torn throughout from this fear that he has abandoned the completely devotion his true calling—philosophy—for the sake of having a family, and yet, when he looks at them all, he cannot help but find their existence beautiful. 

It was Mrs. Ramsay anxiety, however, that I found most interesting in Part I, for she is peculiarly and strikingly pessimistic regarding the passage of time, and sees it not as a place of hope or possibility, but only as a signifier of the impermanent cruelty of life.  As the mother of 8 thinks to herself while she worries over the future lives of her children, there “was no treachery too base for the world to commit; she knew that.  No happiness lasted; she knew that” (64).  Indeed, Mrs. Ramsay seems to idealize the simplicity residing within childhood, for she muses, thinking of her youngest son, James, why “should they grow up so fast?  Why should they go to school?” and she concludes, “he will never be so happy again.” Again, of the other 7 of her children, “They were happier now than they would ever be again” (64).  It is difficult for me to tell, when reading this, if Mrs. Ramsay is simply being worrisome, or else prophetic.

Taking her fears into account, then, I find it quite fascinating how Mrs. Ramsay attempts to work against such impermanence by striving to create these brief moments of eternity through her (apparently womanly and maternal?) gift of bringing harmony from dissonant parts.  For when everyone has at last gathered together, Mrs. Ramsay is in her element, and feels everything coming together in a moment remarkably reminiscent of the end of Mrs. Dalloway.  For Mrs. Ramsay, and apparently the rest of the party, feel that “There it was, all around them.  It partook, she felt, carefully helping Mr. Bankes to a specially tender piece, of eternity” (105).  Mrs. Ramsay further muses that in this moment around the table “there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out” and it is thus “Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures” (105). 

The moment cannot last, however, and when the night begins to wind down Mrs. Ramsay intentionally moves to leave the dinner first so as to have the opportunity of imprinting it into her mind: “With her foot on the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was vanishing even as she looked,” for even in the moments that are currently passing those present are being changed, and the scene has “shaped itself differently; it has become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past” (111).  Thus, this beautiful unity which has taken place during the dinner concludes on rather a high note for Mrs. Ramsay, but one that is tainted by the knowledge that even such moments must inevitably fade away.