Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in To the Lighthouse, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Time
The Meaning of Life
The Nature of Interior Life
Art and Beauty
Gender
Summary
Analysis
“Immense darkness” falls over the still house. The dark is so complete that neither objects nor humans can be distinguished in it. “Certain airs, detached from the body of the wind,” blow about the house “questioning,” “wondering,” “nosing,” “rubbing,” finally “desisting.” Inside a parenthesis, Mr. Carmichael puts Virgil aside and blows out the candle.
Night upends the daytime hierarchies of human meaning by making people and their possessions disappear. In their absence, little fleeting bits of the wind take center stage and are personified by verbs usually used to describe animate beings.
Themes
Literary Devices
Quiz
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