“We perish each alone”

“No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.”

“The Castaway” by William Cowper
——

Is it true what many Christians say, that we see the light of heaven as we undergo our last rites? Or are we buried in the depths of Sheol that the Hebrews believed in? Humans are never so eloquent as when we are describing death—and our fear of it. I have listened to many hearthside tales about what to expect, but none are so convincing as the spiritual one that Virginia Woolf portrays in her early short novel, To The Lighthouse. Curiously, there is no outspoken moral about death or dying in this novel, nor does it contain any myths about the afterlife. But although I cannot say for sure where and how death will take me, Woolf tells me exactly who will be there when it does.

Virginia Woolf, née Stephen, models the protagonist of this novel, James Ramsay, after her own brother. He was the English luminary Thoby Stephen, known to be strongly embittered by their late father’s treatment of their family. This was a feeling that Woolf not only strove to express, but to expel through her work. Like Thoby, Virginia held grievances against their father in so far she grieved for him—as Mr. Stephen, a renowned man of letters, held a tantalizing education just beyond Woolf’s grasp until she sprung to the highest literary honors after his death. In her writing, she disentombs and pays tribute to him as Mr. Ramsay, the father of James.

One can only speculate how much of the novel was patterned after her own family, or how true the portrait was. Woolf is said to have inherited her mother’s tremendous beauty, her strength to make light of family oppression, and her tenacity for work—only her mother never became an artist. She transforms into Mrs. Ramsay in the novel. Her sister Vanessa, upon receiving the copy of Virginia’s manuscript, wrote back to her: “Anyhow, it seemed to me in the first part of the book you have given a portrait of mother which is more like her to me than anything I could ever have conceived of as possible. It is almost painful to have her so raised from the dead” (Virginia Woolf: A Biography).

Growing up in a separated family, I remember upon first reading this novel how much my heart poured forth to James. I was brought back to the years when my parents were negotiating a divorce, and how I felt about the final settlement. It is easy to strike a duality in a house divided against itself. One parent is always justified; the other is guilty on all charges. On the same course, James sees his mother as a perfect Madonna, his father by contrast a tyrant whose mercy was only a bid for power. From Mr. Ramsay’s domestic grumbling to his public almsgiving, James’ life is only a symptom of his father’s.

When Mr. Ramsay invites the painter Lily Briscoe to lodge and dine with their family at their summer house, James sees through his charity. As a child, he sits darkly in the window, clipping out items of life from a catalog, tracing with his blade that reality, or the scarce rations of life he would receive during the First World War. He is promised a voyage to the lighthouse, but his father defers each passing day: “Perhaps it will rain tomorrow” (28). From one chapter on to the next, James’ pain grows as he matures. To his impoverished soul, “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” (Job 1:21). Thus spurned and neglected, James resolves to finally kill his father and declare victory over his lifelong oppressor.

I find myself thinking of James Ramsay often, now living in a dorm hall named after his namesake. When I push my key into the mouth of the lock, I see his name as a sign. I keep this as a daily, much disguised ritual. As James’s father had forsaken him in his early childhood, so had mine—for reasons I could not perceive. I step over the threshold into an empty dorm room. What is forgiveness?—I ask myself,—when all I want is to restore justice? I think of the Passover lamb, how its blood smattered doorways like one my eyes had just fallen upon , and then my mind is brought to Christ and his sermon on the mount: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:7-8).

In the end, James’ father makes good on his word, but James’ hope is drawn out for so many years he loses sight of it. Now the lighthouse is a puny reward for his patience, and his mother (who had first planned the outing) is long dead. In the boat to the lighthouse, Mr. Ramsay takes up reading a pocketbook and recites a ballad to James and his sister Cam, who joins them for the day trip—young Lily is left behind to watch from the family garden, left to work the scene onto her canvas. In it, the poet begins as if to eulogize a drowned sailor, until he recognizes his own face in the briny waters where the bones lie. It becomes a reflection on the slippery nature of death, by turns universal and overwhelmingly individual:

“Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,
Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.

I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.”

James listens abstractedly, steering the family on course to the lighthouse. He carries on until Mr. Ramsay shouts “Well done!” as they land on shore. Like a particle of faith, this affirmation lights the soft touchpaper of James’ heart. He is exhilarated. His father’s promise, which James had long driven from his mind, is now perfectly fulfilled. James realizes that he sought not to bring about his father’s death, but renewed life in the father he could not help but adore, like how Christ seeks to redeem us. James locks eyes with Cam as his own well with tears. His sister understands his intent as if she had prophesied it. But her own reservations challenge this expectation: “He sat there and looked at the island and he might be thinking, We perished, each alone, or he might be thinking, I have reached it. I have found it” (182). On the shore was an inarticulate redemption—Mr. Ramsay will live on. James forgave as Christ forgave.

As our Father announced in Matthew 3:7 “This is my son, in whom I am well pleased”; Mr. Ramsay spoke his benediction of affirmation over James. But James was then afflicted by the weight of his love. It was this desire that he first tried to persecute and crucify, then at last beheld with fear and awe. Lily Briscoe, taking in the family’s voyage from her garden on the Isle, unsuspectingly paints the story of humanity’s relationship with our Creator. But like the poet that Mr. Ramsay admires, she is fully convinced of her isolation in the world.

Amid her creative struggle, Lily time and again develops a landscape of inkblots:. Here she paints the mystical quality of contrast between herself and everyone else. The Ramsays setting sail are blessed, whereas she and the poet are left in the garden, wretched and rejected. It was the conclusion of many of the characters in Woolf’s novel: eager to ascertain the meaning of their lives alone, they swim out of their depth and “drown” like the fabled sailor. We may see this then as a miracle of forgiveness. What had Mr. Ramsay done to win his son’s love—was it in any way just?

In my reading of To The Lighthouse, I imagined Mr. Ramsay’s tattered little book of poetry was the Gospel. Beneath Mr. Ramsay’s words of caution (“He long survives, who lives an hour / In ocean, self-upheld”), I heard a strain in another register (“For then, by toil subdued, he drank / The stifling wave, and then he sank”). The lighthouse, our sanctuary, cannot be found out without reminding ourselves of the eternity of God’s love. In our prayers, we are invited to lay down our arms, relax our clenched fists, and incline our ears to His voice. Most often, it is precisely our fear of isolation that encourages us to act like James, rattling murdersome knives in our pockets, even before the one who gave us life and breath. I hope, for my readers as well as myself, that they know that God’s love is not bought or bid for, nor is it our lonely cross to hold against the mockers. Otherwise, we spell out for ourselves a spiritual death. Our hearts burn to love God—for he loved us first. We may wrestle and try to provoke his wrath, but He is with us—today, tomorrow, and for all time.

James makes peace with his father as the artist collects her paints: “He has landed,” Lily says, “It is finished” (182).