To the Lighthouse

A lighthouse is a mystical place. Lighthouses are among the most striking and captivating historical buildings we have. They represent a range of emotions and ideas: beauty, isolation, romance, danger, security, fear, home, sacrifice. Lighthouse stories characterise some of the classic themes used by storytellers since centuries.

Mukilteo Lighthouse Park, Washington state

Why do lighthouses move our romantic core? Tall, unsmiling towers are reassuring as they are there to help mariners in treacherous waters reach a safe harbour. A tower holds dual symbolism: on the one hand, it’s mighty, phallic, and erect, denoting strength. On the other hand, it is feminine - suggestive of an enclosed space, a fenced sanctuary, and a safe haven.   

Philosophically, a lighthouse symbolises individual consciousness.  It’s like ‘a light in the darkness of mere being’, in the words of legendary psychiatrist Carl Jung. Lighthouses remind us of the link we all have to each other, and show us how we can aid each other in a time of urgency.

‘Lighthouses may have come to be seen as brilliant beacons but they are also cenotaphs, marking deathtraps that for centuries devoured mariners along the continent’s coasts,’ wrote Nathaniel Rich, an American novelist and essayist, in a 2016 article in the New York Review of Books.     

A ferry departing the Mukilteo Light on the Puget Sound

Technological advancement means lighthouses are not rather as important for sea navigation as they were in the past. (However, the US Coast Guard still considers lighthouses aids to navigation. According to an estimate, up to seventy per cent of the United States' 800 or so lighthouses are still operational today.) There is still something about lighthouses that inspires both fascination and awe.

Even though we have been slowly extinguishing our lighthouses, and most of which are seldom operational these days, they remain culturally and symbolically commanding, and retain a strong hold on our imagination.