To the Lighthouse

Mrs. Ramsay is 50 years old, a great beauty, a mother of eight and a wife to a metaphysical philosopher. She is a quintessential nurturer, and her generosity of spirit is apparent in Part 1. Mrs. Ramsay displays a maternal instinct towards much of the people with whom she comes into contact. She is also sensitive to the plight of the less fortunate and anyone who suffers. A matchmaker and a natural organizer of people, Mrs. Ramsay has the love and awe of her daughters; Lily Briscoe also professes love for Mrs. Ramsay. Mr. Ramsay’s inner workings reveal he too is devoted to Mrs. Ramsay and desirous of her happiness, though he fails to understand her, criticizing her feminine tendencies and lack of intellectual depth silently to himself.

Though Mrs. Ramsay receives love and admiration from many characters in the novel, her regard for others is more complex than their regard for her. She sees her husband for all of his eccentricities, his genius, and his penetrating need for sympathy, and she does not always give him what he wants. As a matchmaker, Mrs. Ramsay does not celebrate marriage itself; rather, she understands engagements for the radiant glow they can provide a young woman like Minta Doyle and understands marriages primarily for the children they can beget.