In At the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf portrays Mrs. Ramsay as the “model” mother. Loved by her children, dependent on her husband, and admired by her neighbors Mr. Bankes and Lily Briscoe, Woolf creates a seemingly amorphous character composed of a collection of descriptions of the people around her. Through this fluid character, Woolf systematically synthesizes the identity of the “model” mother. With structured precision, Woolf divides her synthesis into. three parts. She poses her question about the identity of the "model" mother in "The Window" through the philosophical work of Mr. Ramsay, presents an example of the mother in "Time Passes" by creating the parallel of a house and of a mother, and reaches a conclusion about the true identity of the “model” mother in “The Lighthouse” through the completed painting of Lily Briscoe. Say No to Plagiarism Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Before you delve into the subject. In her synthesis, Woolf presents her study subject, Mrs. Ramsay, through the eyes of her son who sees her optimism and kind spirit as a source of “extraordinary joy” (The Window, Part 1). She cements Mrs. Ramsay's nurturing position by juxtaposing her optimism with Mr. Ramsay's harsh realism, which leaves James calling for a gun to "put a hole in his father's chest" (At the Window, Part 1). Having established the dichotomy between Mrs. and Mr. Ramsay, Woolf integrates the central question of its synthesis into Mr. Ramsay's philosophical work. Like Mr. Ramsay, Woolf attempts to study “subject and object and the nature of reality” (The Window, Part 4). By placing Mrs. Ramsay in the role of object and the Ramsay family in the role of subject, she effectively challenges the reader to "think about a kitchen table [...] when you're not there" (The Window , part 4). In other words, she asks the reader to consider the identity of the “model” mother when her family is not around. Woolf plays with the notion of identity in "The Window," paying disproportionate attention to other characters' ideas about Mrs. Ramsay's character, rather than Mrs. Ramsay's ideas about her own character. She places Mrs. Ramsay's ideas sparingly in "The Window" to emphasize how Mrs. Ramsay perceives her personal thoughts as insignificant compared to the thoughts of those who admire her. Woolf gives the audience a brief glimpse into Mrs. Ramsay's self-analysis when she explains how she "often felt like she was nothing but a sponge filled with human emotions" (The Window, Part 4). However, her analysis is immediately interrupted by her thoughts on her husband's genius, when Woolf writes that "she revered no one so much." She wasn't good enough to tie her shoelaces” (The Window, Part 4), reducing her previously poignant self-centered outlook to a seemingly afterthought. After asking the question of the identity of the “model” mother outside of her family in “The Window,” Woolf explores the concept of the “familyless” mother by drawing the parallel of a home as a mother. Through this parallel, Woolf in fact suggests that the role of the mother, just like that of a house, is to provide shelter for other people and to be inhabited by them. She then offers an example of what a “familyless” mother looks like through the emptiness of the Ramsay home in “Time Passes.” In her description of the empty house, Woolf uses words such as "bare", "tarnished" and "cracked" (Time Passes, part 4) to comment on the state of disarray that resulted from the Ramsay affair, which represents the family of the house, abandonment of the house. Woolf's use of these verbs suggests an interesting relationship between a house and itsinhabitants, or a mother and her family, a necessary need. While the inhabitants of a house rely on the foundation of the house for shelter, the house depends on its inhabitants for maintenance. Furthermore, it situates the house as barren and unused, essentially worthless, with no one to shelter it. Woolf continues her description of the house through the objects left behind, “what people had lost and left […] these alone retained the human form and indicated how they were once filled and animated” (Time Passes, Part 4). Woolf personifies the wind, calling it "beauty and stillness", as well as the objects it "rubs" by asking the question "Do you want to disappear?" Are you going to perish?' » To which the elements respond: “we stay” (Time Passes, Part 4). By describing the house through the objects left behind, Woolf further draws the parallel between the house and the mother in that a house is described by the things that inhabit it, because these things represent people, and these people give a sense of home. Just as the “model” mother is described by her family, whose husband she sympathizes with, and whose children she cares for and feeds, these descriptions of the mother are what “remains.” In essence, Woolf states that the sole purpose of the “model” mother is to be inhabited. In “The Lighthouse,” Woolf comes to accept the identity of the “model” mother with the completion of the painting of Lily Briscoe. The audience discovers Lily's painting of Mrs. Ramsay and James in the living room of "The Window". Woolf describes Lily's obsession with perfectly capturing the essence of the scene: “beneath the color there was form. She saw it so clearly […] it was when she took her brush in hand that everything changed” (The Window, Part 4). Lily's obsession with perfectly capturing the essence of Mrs. Ramsay is echoed by many of the characters in "The Window", such as Mr. Bankes and Mr. Tansley. Woolf emphasizes this concern in order to highlight the fluid nature of Mrs. Ramsay's character. As each character reflects on what makes Mrs. Ramsay such a wonderful woman, they project onto her all the characteristics they wish to find in the "model" mother, whether she actually possesses those characteristics or not. This forgetting of the real Mrs. Ramsay prevents Lily from completing her painting because she never feels like anything she does will capture the essence of Mrs. Ramsay. Ten years later, when Lily returns to her painting, she encounters many of the same problems she had encountered earlier. . Once again, she describes her desire to "get hold of something that eluded her […] when she thought of Mrs. Ramsay", to go beyond the "beautiful pictures" and "beautiful sentences" and to capturing “this real burst of nerves” (The Lighthouse, part 11). Woolf challenges the reader to follow Lily on her journey to discover the real Mrs. Ramsay by separating thoughts about Mrs. Ramsay from her actions. Lily does this through Mr. Carmichael, the only character who actually seems to see Mrs. Ramsay. Only by examining Mrs. Ramsay's dislike of Mr. Carmichael is Lily able to overcome the mental block that has kept her blind to the real Mrs. Ramsay. She eventually realizes that Mrs. Ramsay was unable to woo Mr. Carmichael like the rest of her admirers because "he didn't want anything" (The Lighthouse, Part 11). Mrs. Ramsay could not take the form of Mr. Carmichael's desires because he desired nothing and so challenged Mrs. Ramsay to assume her own form, breaking the convention of the "model" mother whom Woolf describes as someone 'one who gives without shame. Through this discovery, Lily begins to notice the cracks in Mrs. Ramsay's seemingly perfect veneer, she states that ".