Lily Briscoe's Artistic Solitude Anonymous College

In the eyes of the various lodgers of To the Lighthouse, the image of Mrs. Ramsay often evokes a sense of portraiture, art in movement. Mr. Bankes observes Lily painting Mrs. Ramsay reading to her son James, musing, “Mother and child then—objects of universal veneration, and in this case the mother was famous for her beauty” (52). This moment is one of the many times Mrs. Ramsay serves as a metonym for some greater theme, a blossoming forth of inspired thought: in this case the mise en scene of Mrs. Ramsay and James, mother and child, brings to mind the archetypes of this dynamic, perhaps conjuring the image of Jesus cradled at the breast of the Madonna. Mrs. Ramsay’s presence is so vivid that such images powerfully grip the mind of her observers. Her force of maternal energy perplexes and fascinates the odd painter Lily Briscoe, who positions herself at a distance from the values of caretaking that Mrs. Ramsay represents. As an artist, Lily is adamant about maintaining her solitude and withdrawing into herself as a means of preserving the impersonal spirit of creation fostered by extreme independence. By authoring the images of figures and scenes of the Ramsay household, Lily attempts to separate herself from their way of...