While To the Lighthouse is a re-read for me, I have always been confused as to what the lighthouse may represent. It is a symbol of desire in the first section of the book. It is the thing that James Ramsay desperately wants to experience/visit and the tension between Mrs. Ramsay and her husband is built around denying James the visit. It is also something far off and separate from the family, but able to affect them. Mrs. Ramsay times her speech with it at times, and characters focus on it at times. It's not just something that exists for James. It is something that is a real and influential presence in this family's life.

Then, in the "Time Passes" section, darkness arrives at the house after Mrs. Ramsay dies. Mr. Ramsay is lost to wandering and the family falls apart. Mrs. McNab stays as an old woman and caretaker. While night gives way to day, only the lighthouse can pierce the darkness of the night. 

 During "The Lighthouse," we bounce between Lily as detached artistic commentator (read: symbol for authorial voice) and Mr. Ramsay, James, and Cam going to the lighthouse. The family is angst ridden in the journey to the lighthouse, but once they are close to it (and especially after the land), wounds are healed. Not necessarily all of them, but enough of them. And the book is capped by Lily finishing her painting of the Ramsay family.

Seeing this, and taking our fractured family into account, the lighthouse would seem to symbolize intimacy or interconnectedness. It is what connects the family. It is what connects Mrs. Ramsay to Mr. Ramsay and James in "The Window." Also in that section, Charles agrees with Mr. Ramsay about James' not being able to go so that he can maybe score some points with Mr. Ramsay and forge a better connection. Lily is finished with the painting when they reach the lighthouse because she couldn't paint a completed picture of the family until they were a family. The lighthouse's connecting them accomplishes that.

This reading of the lighthouse plays well with the popular reading of the Ramsay generations from our class discussion. If the Ramsay elders are the older generation and the children are the "Lost" generation, then "Time Passes" is about World War I arriving and devastating what these generations believed to be reality. The lighthouse, or connectedness, is the only thing to break the darkness because the only way these generations can bridge the destruction is to reunite despite the overwhelming damage. The boat ride is the Lost generation trying to connect with the previous, and they manage to after accepting each other's faults. Lily, the passive authorial voice, interrupts the trips with her own commentary on where they must be or the imagined fates of other Ramsay children to illustrate that even authorial voice is groping in the dark when it comes to showing these real, meaningful connections between such a ravaged people.