What happens in Chapter 24 of To the Lighthouse?
The chapter centers on Mrs. McNab, an elderly caretaker, as she moves through the house, dusting, wiping, and caring for the rooms. She hums an old music-hall tune while she works—once lively on stage two decades ago, but now it feels empty and uninspired coming from her toothless, bonneted figure. Stopping to glance at her reflection in the long mirror, she grins and smiles without purpose. As she kneels creakily under the bed, she wonders how long this toil and sadness will last, then pulls herself up and carries on. The narration suggests she must have experienced moments of joy—perhaps at the washtub with her children (even if two were born out of wedlock and one had left her), or at the pub, searching through her drawers—and that some flicker of hope in her darkness keeps her moving forward. The chapter then briefly shifts to unnamed mystics and visionaries walking along the beach, pondering "What am I?" and "What is this?" and receiving a silent response that comforts them against the cold. In contrast, the chapter concludes with Mrs. McNab simply continuing to drink and gossip as she always has.
Analysis
The chapter contrasts two different ways of existing in the world. Mrs. McNab is depicted through vivid physical details — lurching, rolling, leering, creaking, hobbling — which build a picture of a body exhausted from years of hard work. The prose rhythm reflects her movements: lists of parallel gerunds ("dusting, wiping," "taking up mats, putting down china") create a repetitive motion that mirrors the endless cycle she describes, "getting up and going to bed again, and bringing things out and putting them away again."
The looking-glass serves as the chapter's key image. Mrs. McNab never looks directly at anything — her gaze is always "sidelong" — and even when she catches a glimpse of her own reflection, she turns away, "slipped and turned aside even from her own face." The glass reveals a swinging, grinning figure she hardly acknowledges as herself. This avoidance of direct self-awareness contrasts with the mystics on the beach, who pose the most straightforward questions, "What am I?" and "What is this?" Their answer, however, remains elusive: they receive it but "could not say" what it was.
The tone of the chapter is both comic and elegiac. The old music-hall song — once lively, now stripped of meaning — embodies both aspects, just like Mrs. McNab's aimless grinning. The narration bestows upon her "incorrigible hope" and "visions of joy," but each is immediately tempered with a hint of sorrow. The final sentence, which returns to Mrs. McNab's drinking and gossiping "as before," ends the chapter with a wry, deflating irony that leaves unresolved the tension between endurance and transcendence.
Key quotes from Chapter 24
“as she lurched, dusting, wiping, she seemed to say how it was one long sorrow and trouble, how it was getting up and going to bed again, and bringing things out and putting them away again.”
The narrator describes what Mrs. McNab's shuffling movements and old song seem to express as she cleans the rooms.
“so that they were warm in the frost and had comfort in the desert. But Mrs. McNab continued to drink and gossip as before.”
The closing sentences of the chapter, following the account of the mystics on the beach who receive a wordless answer to their questions.
“as if indeed there twined about her dirge some incorrigible hope.”
The narrator characterizes Mrs. McNab's attitude as she resumes her work after gazing into the looking-glass.
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Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Chapter 24
- incorrigible
- Impossible to correct or change; stubbornly persisting in a habit or feeling no matter how circumstances argue against it — here said of a hope that refuses to die.
- witlessness
- The state of lacking intelligence or sense; here used to describe speech emptied of any real meaning — words spoken out of habit rather than thought.