Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse focuses on the effects of light and dark on the relationships between her characters. Certain scenes are governed either by dark or light: darkness symbolizes an inner, isolated consciousness, while light brings people closer together. Twilight is a compromise between these extremes. Characters seem to be both distant from each other in their mental spaces, but connected in the shared environment. This transcends modern isolation while still retaining their individuality. In the twilight moment, Mr. Ramsay and Mrs. Ramsay symbolize an ideal marriage. Their figures are symbols of something bigger than their separate selves. However, their individual solidity is preserved by their use of light and shadow. Woolf admits to Woolf that balance between interior and exterior is possible in the moment of their twilight. This counterweights modernist concerns about the isolated, egocentric individual.
Woolf believes unity is based upon the ability for light to emphasize physicality. Characters can see their connections only through their physical environment. The light of the candles helps to bring the group together in the face of falling darkness. This illuminates the room’s physical characteristics and inhabitants. The candlelight brought together the whole table and the purple and yellow fruits. (96-97). This light allows people and objects to be seen, which makes it easier for characters to connect. Augustus and Mrs. Ramsay focus on the fruit dish, which is emphasized by its physicality, drawing them in more than its light. Mrs. Ramsay’s focus is on the “greatness, depth and beauty” of the dish. It is directly influenced by the effect of light upon it. Augustus “feasts”, eating the fruit and interfacing with it physically (but still within mental space) through plunging into and breaking open a blossom. They communicate with one another by connecting to the lighted, fleshy fruit. The external world illuminates them and mediates harmony between their inner consciousnesses.
Darkness, however, refers to the inner isolation of people and the total inaccessibility in one’s inner space. The darkness, contrary to light, doesn’t manifest itself in making physical objects visible. It obscures all senses and brings people down into their ineffable centres. Mrs. Ramsay is able to recall a rare moment when she was separated from her family.
She doesn’t need to think about anyone at all for now. She could be just herself. She could be herself, by herself. To be silent. All the beings and doings, large, glittering, and vocal, were gone. Then one felt a sense solemnity and was able to be oneself.
Mrs. Ramsay referred to her center’s “a wedge-shaped heart of darkness,” meaning that she is unable to think or feel. This support the idea that darkness can be described as the unseen, but perhaps unreachable, aspect of human consciousness. She loses her physicality and her identity. She then focuses solely on her core in darkness, without any human connections. Contrary to her unifying bowl, Mrs. Ramsay remains invisibly and dark. Although she experiences a greater sense of inner selfhood and interior consciousness, she is unable to connect with others.
Woolf’s representation of twilight combines light and shadow, giving rise to a sense both of physical unity and interior space. Twilight-Mr. Ramsay and Lily become silhouettes of marriage without losing any individual status. Lily watches the couple transform in the dimming light as “The Window” closes.
And suddenly, the meaning, which has no reason at all…descended on people, making these symbolical, representing, came upon Mr. Ramsay and Mrs. Ramsay, who were standing in the dark looking at the symbol of marriage, husband-wife. Then, after an instant, the symbolical outline which transcended the real figures sank down again…still, for one moment, there was a sense of things having been blown apart, of space, of irresponsibility…In the failing light they all looked sharp-edged and ethereal and divided by great distances. (72-3)
Mrs. Ramsay and her husband Mr. Ramsay have an obvious meaning. Their dimly lit surroundings create a symbolic outline that is like a silhouette against a setting sun. The couple is a symbol that transcends their individual consciousnesses when they combine light and darkness. Woolf chose marriage to express this feeling, because it is a union between two people. However, the Ramsays are seen as the dark center, similar to Mrs. Ramsays’ core of darkness, which gives the couple their halo. Lily’s thoughts also support the idea of the physical. Lily mentions things “blown away” to illustrate the apparent alteration in physicality to accommodate the transcendent moment where people become symbolic. The passage’s final sentence supports the notion of physical-immaterial overlap. Characters seem both “sharpened” and “ethereal”, a contradiction. Woolf might be questioning whether marriage can permanently preserve the balance of light, dark, and body.
