When reading sections XI to XIV, it struck me that the text became a back and forth change of perspective between Mr. Ramsay and Mrs. Ramsay. Also, section IX is a back and forth between Lily Briscoe’s perspective and William Banks perspective. Virginia Woolf creates a sense of separation between the male and female gender in the way that these changes of perspectives allow for the reader to catch a glimpse into what both parties are thinking while the characters go on thinking about each other unknowingly. Mr. Ramsay comes in from his walk outside and is saddened by the distant look in his wife’s eye, “aloof from him now in her beauty” (65). Meanwhile, when they start to walk and talk together, Mrs. Ramsay comments to herself that “He [Mr. Ramsay] would sit at the table with them like a person in a dream (70). Both Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay are thinking in detail about each other and how their heads are in the clouds basically, but because the thoughts are kept to themselves, a loss of connection is felt by the reader between the couple. When discussing their son, the topic of scholarships comes up, something they “disagreed always about… but it did not matter. She liked him to believe in scholarships, and he liked her to be proud of Andrew whatever he did” (67). This compromising for the other person brings back a sense of union between the individuals that were before so separated in the passage. However, the connection is made based on lying and falsely agreeing to something that each character does not necessarily believe in order to please the opposite party.
This disconnect between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay is ironic because it gives a dismal look on married life while Mrs. Ramsay is constantly pushing marriage onto the young girls around her.
Words unheard and unspoken between two people but known by the reader allow for a better understanding of separateness. This separateness forced me to interpret that although Mrs. Ramsay is the stereotypical help-all wife and Mr. Ramsay is portrayed as the just one who is stern and right but not respected by his family, that how one is exposed or depicted in life (either by the author of the text, or broader as a human in existence) is not always how one is. Mr. Ramsay obviously cares a lot about his wife, as seen by the romantic descriptions of her in this passage, yet he is still described harshly in the novel. And, although Mrs. Ramsay is often rendered as the mother to all in the book, she has dark thoughts and is not perfect.
Regardless of the level of awkwardness in the relationship between the Ramsay’s, they are still viewed by other characters as the symbolic married couple. When Lily and William run into them on their stroll, Lily comments “so this is marriage” (72).
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You mention “thoughts (that) are kept to themselves” and “words unheard and unspoken” between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay. It is interesting that even though the thoughts are never verbalized, the thoughts themselves are distasteful to Mrs. Ramsay, as “she disliked anything that reminded her that she had been seen sitting thinking” (p. 68). She cannot even deal with her private thoughts, and perhaps the irony in this is that in order to sort out the inner self, one often needs some sort of external catharsis. Bottling things up often only complicates the emotions, while communicating with another human can help to sort things out. Mr. Ramsay also seems to think that he must keep emotions within as he liked the bay because “one could worry things out alone” (p. 69, emphasis mine). One very important sentence from Mrs. Ramsay’s thoughts is: “No, they could not share that; they could not say that” (p. 68). It is only about having read the book to James, but the repetition of within the sentence draws more attention to the thought as if Mrs. Ramsay were referring to something greater. The fact is that they cannot share or say.
This brings us to the next thought that they are separated. One line that I caught was when Mr. Ramsay tells Mrs. Ramsay, “You’re teaching your daughter to exaggerate” (p. 67, emphasis mine). This possessive pronoun shows that Mr. Ramsay feels a disconnect with both his wife and his children. This separateness is a problem because they are not content with it and it causes them both pain and a yearning for more. It is mentioned that “…her remoteness pained him” (p 64) and later on the walk that “…here he became uncomfortable, as if he were breaking into that solitude, that aloofness, that remoteness of hers…” (p. 67). Without the prior mentioned communication, they will remain separate and empty.
You also mentioned that any time that they actually did make a connection, it was “based on lying and falsely agreeing.” It seems that in this book much of the actually dialogue is nonsense. Mr. Tansley nails it on the head later in the dinner party when he thinks, “They (the Ramsays) did talk nonsense,” (p. 90). Any communication is mostly worthless. Mrs. Ramsay thinks to herself of her husband’s words, “All this phrase-making was a game, she thought, for if she had said half what he said, she would have blown her brains out by now” (p 69). Mr. Ramsay can only say unimportant things while Mrs. Ramsay can never say what she truly feels.
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