To the Lighthouse

To the Lighthouse

by

Virginia Woolf

To the Lighthouse: Time Passes, 3 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
A whole autumn and winter’s worth of dark nights pass, “full of wind and destruction.” The trees are ravaged. “[T]he sea tosses itself and breaks itself.” It would be futile for any sleeper to rise and “ask the night those questions as to what, and why, and wherefore.” Inside a parenthesis, Mr. Ramsay reaches his arms out in the hallway on a dark morning and, since Mrs. Ramsay has died suddenly the previous night, his arms “remained empty.”
As the novel speeds up and tracks the cyclical time of the natural world, human structures of meaning fall to the wayside. Indeed, Mrs. Ramsay’s death which is, from the human perspective, an incredibly important event, is only recorded in a one-line parenthetical.
Themes
Time Theme Icon
The Meaning of Life Theme Icon
Quotes
Literary Devices