Back to Virginia Woolf Seminar Home PageCreated June 5, 2002 from material supplied by Srirupa Dhar.
"All the simple shapes of the book–the dome shape which Lily associates with Mrs. Ramsay and Nancy with Minta, the triangular shadow cast by Mrs. Ramsay, the wedge shape of her dark and secret self, the line drawn down the middle of Lily’s picture–give a sense of fulfillment and evoke the obscure, unapparent levels on which the personality works. In contrast with such simple shapes are found representing references to twists, knots, nets, meshes, and weaves: the shape of the active life of relationships in which people judge, worry, laugh at each other, give parties, and arrange things. Mrs. Ramsay at the window is continually stretched between her deep-sunk contemplative life and the external demands made on her in the scene. The invisibility of these two areas of experience is suggested by her knitting" (Lee 132-133).
Mrs. Ramsay’s knitting not only reflects her selfless nature (doing things for others), but, also an earthly counterpart to Lily’s painting. Mrs. Ramsay, however sensitive, is not the artist herself. Her knitting is the mundane exercise juxtaposed against painting.—Srirupa Dhar