Clima, absentismo y rotación como claves del compromiso

ability for a greater art.

Mrs. Ramsay denies her own fulfilling impulses in attempting to fertilize the more sterile world around her, particularly the world of men. Submitting to the patriarchal sphere, she allows her inherent solitary self to be possessed by others, primarily by her husband.

Eventually, her entire conscious existence will rely upon her benevolence toward and relationship to men. Her

duties and ability to be needed alone provide her with

self worth: "she did not like, even for a second, to

feel finer than her husband; ... of the two he was infinitely the more important, and what she gave the

world, in comparison with what he gave, negligible" (TTL, 61-62). In her whole-hearted celebration of marriage and motherhood, Mrs. Ramsay finds very little room or energy

left for personal creativity. She exalts the position of

men and therefore continues, at all cost, to put their claims before her own virtue.

Indeed, she had the whole of the other sex under her protection; for reasons she could not explain, for their chivalry and valour, for the fact that they negotiated treaties, ruled India, controlled

finance; finally for an attitude towards herself which no woman could fail to feel or to find

agreeable, something trustful, childlike,

reverential; which an old woman could take from a young man without loss of dignity, and woe betide the girl -- pray Heaven it was none of her

daughters! — who did not feel the worth of it, and all that it implied, to the marrow of her bones!

(TTL, 13)

Mrs. Ramsay's femininity becomes fatal, for, instead of combining it with the masculine sphere, she remains absolute in her effort to provide.

Mrs. Ramsay's commitment to duty and responsibility becomes her primary sense of purpose, the scale upon which she measures her success and goodness as a person. This becomes her method of ordering, controlling,

combining: "at fifty, she thought, possibly she might have managed things better — her husband; money; his books. But for her own part she would never for a single second regret her decision, evade difficulties, or slur over duties" (TTL, 14). After the dinner party, her children suggest an evening's walk to the beach. Having

just put the younger children to sleep and softened her husband's influence, Mrs. Ramsay thrills at the idea of becoming young again, without burdens, without a forced identity.

"I

108

Instantly, for no reason at all, Mrs. Ramsay became like a girl of twenty, full of gaiety. A mood of revelry suddenly took possession of her. Of course they must go; of course they must go, she cried, laughing; and running down the last three or four steps quickly, she began turning from one to the other and laughing and drawing Minta's wrap round her and saying she only wished she could come too

'How I wish I could come with you!' she cried. But she was withheld by something so strong that she never even thought of asking herself what it was.

(TTL, 175-176) Mrs. Ramsay's commitment is assumed, utterly

unquestioned:

Of course it was impossible for her to go with them, But she would have liked to go, had it not been for the other thing, and ... she went with a smile on her lips into the other room, where her huband sat

reading. (TTL, 176)

But as she goes in to greet her husband, she becomes

aware of "the absurdity of her thought" (TTL, 176). Mrs. Ramsay becomes aware that "she wanted something more"

(TTL, 176), something larger, perhaps, more fulfilling: Of course ... she had come here to get something she wanted... But she wanted something more, though she did not know, could not think what it^was she

wanted. She looked at her husband

..1

he did not want to be interrupted — that was clear. He was reading something that moved him very much. He was half smiling and then she knew he was

controlling his emotion. (TTL, 176)

And dismissing all this, as one passes in diving now a weed, now a straw, now a bubble, she felt again, sinking deeper, as she had felt in the hall when the others were talking. There is something I want — something I have come to get, and she fell deeper and deeper without knowing quite what it was, with her eyes closed.

(TTL, 178)

It is during moments like this one that Mrs. Ramsay

begins to resemble the solitary, visionary artist; but, unlike Mrs. Dalloway and certainly unlike Lily Briscoe, she will be unable to express this developing, expansive identity.

Mark Hussey in The Singing of the Real World expresses Mrs. Ramsay's dilemma succinctly;

Her solitude is broken into by the effort of combining, leaving her depleted and dejected,

uncertain of her own being. Aware of this, she must still create, combine, and offer, making matches because she sees potential in the union of two people for something whole and lasting ...

Marriage still is an unsatisfactory compromise in which one person — invariably the woman — must sacrifice her own wishes to serve her partner's shortcomings ... she wishes upon herself his

draining demands...For anyone to see that he needed her would upset Mrs. Ramsay's idea of how the world is ... (Hussey, 51)

When Charles Tansley agrees with Mr. Ramsay that the trip to the lighthouse will most certainly be cancelled, Mrs. Ramsay feels a great deal of contempt and anger toward him. "Yes, he did say disagreeable things ... it was odious of him to rub this in, and make James still more disappointed" (TTL, 12). And yet, Mrs\ Ramsay,

familiar only with the consoling and cushioning of men, is unable to express her justifiable scorn. Instead, she

will pity him: "she would not let them laugh at him ...

she could not bear incivility to her guests, to young men in particular ..." (TTL, 12-13). Instead of honestly expressing her anger, Mrs. Ramsay uses her femininity and role as healer to soothe and raise Tansley's ego.

[Mr. Carmichael] should have been a great philosopher, said Mrs. Ramsay ...

It flattered him; snubbed as he had been, it

soothed him that Mrs. Ramsay should tell him this. Charles Tansley revived. Insinuating, too, as she did the greatness of man's intellect, even in its decay, the subjection of all wives ... she made him feel better pleased with himself than he had done yet, and he would have liked, had they taken a cab, for example, to have paid for it. As for her little bag, might he not carry that? ... He would like her to see him, gowned and hooded, walking in a

procession. A fellowship, a professorship, he felt capable of anything ...

(TTL, 19-20)