When her daughter interrupts their reading, Mrs. Ramsay is somewhat annoyed. Woolf writes, “Mrs. Ramsay went on reading, relieved, for she and James shared the same tastes and were comfortable together.” This description recalls the Lacanian idea of the young child not being fully differentiated from his or her mother. The idea that this sense of unity allows the child to experience an imaginary sense of fulfillment that is impossible later is echoed by Mrs. Ramsay’s thought, in a subsequent scene, that James “will never be so happy again.” This scene becomes even more resonant with Lacan’s idea when Mrs. Ramsay remembers that her husband was angry when he heard her say this. Like the archetypal Lacanian father, Mr. Ramsay is responsible for disrupting the contented sense of unity between the mother and her child, so that the child can develop his ego and become independent.