Ramsay becomes a character that represents change in Virginia Woolf"s novel, To the Lighthouse. With the changes his character experiences, Woolf is able to express the movement away from traditional patriarchal ideals that were in place in Victorian England. In many respects, he is the antagonist in the novel. Through his character, Woolf probes how men and women approach life during a patriarchal society. For instance, Mr. Ramsay thinks in abstract, linear terms. His forte is philosophy, which allows him to consider life in terms of subjects and objects and how they affect reality. He is a rational creature depending upon his education for answers and the metaphor of the alphabet represents how he perceives the world. However, his is a rather fixed style of thinking and it does not leave room for growth. His journey to the lighthouse represents how is able to move away from his restrictive way of thinking and realize there is more to life.

             A close analysis of Mr. Ramsay illustrates how he represents the male-dominated world that Woolf experienced. He tends to take a more intellectual approach to life. Like his wife, he is aware that the world and everything in it is temporary. This fact plagues him because it is his desire to publish a piece of work that demonstrates his genius and immortalizes him as well. His knowledge that all of life is transient causes him to feel inadequate. This is best represented in Mr. Ramsay"s mental exercise of running thought the alphabet. If thought were likened to a set of piano keys, "his splendid mind had no sort of difficulty in running over those letters one by one" (Woolf 23). When he fails to reach the letter Z, he goes to his wife for consolation and support. We read that it was "sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his genius, first of all, and then to be taken within the circle of life, warmed and soothed, to have his senses restored to him, his barrenness made fertile, and all the rooms of the house made full of life" (59).