Response to Woolf

Mr. Ramsay lacks confidence and needs his wife’s support so he can feel like a great man. He reasons that human kinds' advancements are attained through the work of great men. He is concerned with his image and whether or not he will be considered one of these men or if he will even be remembered after he dies. Mr. Ramsay is in the middle of his mid-life crisis and is struggling to advance his thought process. Although he has some impressive achievements he still doubts his own intelligence. His struggle to reach the letter R has left him wondering whether people will admire his work for generations to come. "The very stone one kicks with one's boot will outlast Shakespeare. His own little light would shine, not very brightly, for a year or two, and then be merged into some bigger light, and that in a bigger still"(32). He is wrapped up in his own insignificance and his current struggle to surpass what he has already done.