The novel “To the Lighthouse” is the most representative of Virginia Woolf's fiction and the lighthouse is the central symbol of the novel, which represents a character: Mrs Ramsay, who is the reference point in her family.

In this extract the narrator describes Mr and Mrs Ramsay and their relationship under several points of view: his, Mr Ramsay, Mrs Ramsay and James' point of view.

At the beginning Mr and Mrs Ramsay are described from the narrator's point of view. Mrs Ramsay is described by terms, which underline her strenght and fecondity (“rain of energy, a column of spray, this delicious fecondity, this fountain and spray of life”); so Mrs Ramsay is a positive figure. After that the narrator describes Mr Ramsay as an insicure and a failured man ((“he wanted sympathy, he was a failure”).

In the second part the narrator speaks from their son's point of view: James; he is only 9 months and he speaks like an adult, so the narrator's figure is present with the use of adjectives and adverbs (“mercilessly”). He underlines again the characteristics of his parents and he would want her mother only for him.

Here there is also a recall to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land with the contrapposition between fertility and sterility; besides the Mrs Ramsay's strenght and Mr Ramsay's insecurity represent the alternation between light and darkness, that they remind to the reader the lighthouse.

In the third part the narrator speaks from Mr Ramsay's point of view and he expresses how he feels after his speech with his wife: happyness and reassure and this underlines his dependence from her.

In the last part the narrator speaks from Mr Ramsay's point of view and the reader can notice how she feels tired and empty after their speech. She has also anxieties, because she is afraid to seem superior than him and she is worry that people see that her husband depends on her. So Mrs Ramsay is the lighthouse of the house.