Mr. Ramsey makes excuses for not becoming intellectually enlightened in the same vain that he makes excuses for not sailing to the Lighthouse.
Mrs. Ramsey is the ideal wife and mother. She uses her love to create and build, not in the physical sense, but more in the sense of relationship, community, and hope building. She is perhaps the most successful of the characters, in that her goals are she feels she has become her goal: one who helps people, brings them together, and to infuses them with hope and love. "She looked up over the knitting and met the third stroke [of the light at the Lighthouse] and it seemed to her like her own eyes meeting her own eyes (63)." Mrs. Ramsey always attempts to make connections between people, and to bring together parts into a whole. She is at the metaphorical Lighthouse, in terms of accomplishing her goals. She radiates inspiration and joy to those who notice her. "For him to gaze as Lily saw him gazing at Mrs. Ramsey was a rapture (47)." In the book, Mrs. Ramsey refers only to the journey to the Lighthouse in terms of helping those who are at its helm, bringing them and their family knitted socks and food and other things to show that she cares. .
James, as a young child, at the beginning of the book, does not understand his father's role, and thus cannot understand how his father loves. The Lighthouse also perplexes young James. "The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. (Woolf 186)." James harbors feelings of hatred for his father even when James and his sister, Cam, sailed out to the Lighthouse with him. .
James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks; the tower, stark and straight; he could see that it was barred with black and white; he could see the windows in it; he could even see washing spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it? (186).
