Lilly's desire to penetrate the knowledge locked in Mrs. Ramsay, to merge with her, is an expression of the impossibility of reaching the maternal. Tansley's arguments with others and Mr. Ramsay's estrangement are signs of closure, a barrier between them and the others: "Then how, she asked, does one learn anything about people, when they are all so tightly closed, sealed within themselves?" (70). But if Mr. Ramsay and Tansley themselves make it impossible to communicate with them, then in relation to Mrs. Ramsay, the reason lies in Lilly's Victorian upbringing and the inability to relax to speak, to reveal her feelings (69;70). Lilly sinks into her dreams and questions, and Mrs. Ramsay suddenly stands up. It is not clear why he is standing up. Lilly stands up after her and the sweet moment ends to replay over and over in her memories. Certainly Mrs. Ramsay doesn't understand the real reason why Lilly presses herself so hard against her knees, not simply because Lilly doesn't tell her, but because that standing implies a break in something... And indeed, later in the novel, Mrs. Ramsay dies. Through this moment creeps a shade of some impossibility for Virginia to truly communicate with her mother, long before she lost her, for the impossibility of telling her (showing) that she loves her. The memory of this embrace provokes an image in the reader of V. Wоolf in the process of work, but in a moment carried away, unconsciously embracing the portrait of his mother, or the sheet on which he describes this moment.[xiv]
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