What is ‘The Lighthouse’ About?
“For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.”
The nearly two hour film starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe has been dubbed a “horror film”. But it’s really not like any horror film I’ve ever seen. It certainly has horrific moments, however. But it’s such a complicated mess of a film for a story that’s about two guys alone on a light house. You would think that premise was pretty straightforward. But it’s anything but simple. But what is the Lighthouse really about, anyway?
Spoilers ahead.
The Literal Interpretation of the Lighthouse
From a very literal standpoint – not inferring magic or symbolism or anything of the kind – the Lighthouse is a movie about a crazy person. He goes to an island, is driven further mad by his ancient, seafaring partner, commits murder, and then dies.
However, a completely literal interpretation falls short of a movie as rich with symbolism as this one.
The Unreliable Narrator
If you’ve studied literature, you’ll be familiar with the term “unreliable narrator”. Basically, an unreliable narrator is what the name suggests – somebody you can’t trust. In books, this can be pulled off with great affect, given the entire story we are reading is being transmitted via words. We can’t see anything with our own eyes so we have to simply trust whoever it is that is telling us the story.
In movies, however, this works differently. We can actually see what’s going on, can’t we? So how can a narrator be unreliable.
Well, given there are only two people on the island with the Lighthouse for the entirety of the movie, we are put in the same position of the main character of the film, Ephraim “Thomas” Winslow, or Howard (played by Batman himself, Robert Pattinson) – just as he begins to not be able to trust what he sees, we also aren’t able to trust what we see.
After all, we are shown things through the film that are so fantastical that we really begin to not trust what we are seeing at all. This is made worse by the fact that the old man on the island, Thomas Wake, continually tells Ephraim that he is going mad, saying and doing things that we don’t see him saying and doing.
Is Thomas Wake a gaslighting, manipulative and evil old man who killed his previous second and will now kill this one? Or is Ephraim mad?
The Key to the Film is the Lighthouse
I do think that there is an answer to the riddle that is the Lighthouse. Ultimately the key to deciphering the symbolism within the movie lies within the Lighthouse.
But the Lighthouse itself is elusive throughout the entire film – something that is rather odd for it being the thing that two men are literally on this island to protect and nurture. However, Thomas Wake is dead set (no pun intended) on keeping Ephraim away from the light.
But why is this? What is the light, and what makes it special enough to kill for?
The Light Holds Some Charm
The reason Thomas gives for why he lost his last second in command was because he had gone mad – thinking the light within the Lighthouse was charmed. He had had visions of sea creatures, mermaids and the like, and thought that the Light within the Lighthouse had some sort of control over them.
However, as we see in one strange dream sequence, Ephraim stumbles upon the previous second, his predecessor. Only when he reaches down to examine his body, it is himself looking back up at him.
This could be interpreted in two ways. One, this is the visual representation that the dead man was the person who had been in Ephraim’s shoes only previously. Or, it could be pointing to something else. It could be suggesting that there was no “previous second”. That the man who went mad from his visions and Ephraim are one in the same.
Guilt, Conscience and Morality in “The Lighthouse”
Morality, believe it or not, plays a large role in this film about two crazy people getting drunk and acting like animals. Ephraim comes to the island looking for a fresh start. He says as much to Thomas, saying that there’s nothing wrong with a man looking for a fresh start. However, unbeknownst to us until near the end of the film, Ephraim is guilty of more than just a common laundry list of venial sins you might expect from a common day laborer. In fact, Ephraim has committed murder. He is coming to the island to hide from his sins, and make some money.
At first, he is bent on observing the letter of the law, as outlined in the manual. However, whatever manual he had read does not matter as much as the rules as his superior’s law. His own record book he declares as “Gospel” – superseding the old law of the manual.
In many ways, this symbolism brings to mind the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Jesus comes and gives the Gospel as the new way of life to live by, and says that it is HIS teachings that are to be followed, not the strict laws outlined by the Jews.
Similarly, on this island, the laws of Thomas Wake are the only laws that matter.
This also serves to give Thomas Wake disproportionate power over Ephraim. There is no one to contradict him, no third witness for Ephraim to turn to. He is entirely at the mercy of Thomas Wake.
In this way, too, Ephraim acts as the god on the island. In fact, in the same dream sequence that we see Eprhaim discover the dead body who is actually himself, we see Thomas Wake depicted as a godlike figure reminiscent of some Greek god like Poseidon – naked, with eyes shimmering with light.
Ephraim also seems to have a strange, all knowing ability when it comes to the island. As we find out eventually when Ephraim reads his log book, Thomas Wake knows about things Ephraim has been doing in the quiet that he really shouldn’t be able to know about.
Ephraim Must Adhere Blindly to the Laws Outlined by Thomas Wake
Although there is a symbolic relationship between the Gospel of Thomas Wake’s oral rules and the written law of the “Old Testament”, or manual, that Ephraim has read, Thomas Wake is much more akin to the God of the Jewish Old Testament than a figure of peace and love like Jesus.
Similar to the God of the Old Testament, Thomas Wake gives seemingly arbitrary rules for Ephraim to follow (Ephraim is also an Old Testament name). Although in this case, that law is to never kill a sea bird, whereas the rule in the old testament is to not eat a certain forbidden fruit from a certain tree.
In a symbolic way (or perhaps literal), the island is serving as a purgatory for Ephraim – a second chance to reform from his murderous past. In this way, we can see why this particular rule might apply to him – to not harm the sea birds. And given his murderous inclinations, it becomes more clear why he would murder the seagull that had been plaguing him in such a brutal way.
Most normal people wouldn’t beat a bird to death in that way. But someone with a penchant for violence, would.
However, there is one rule that seems even greater than the rule dictating one must not hurt sea birds. And that is the rule about the Lighthouse. That the light is not to be looked upon directly or cared for by anyone other than Thomas Wake.
So What is the Light in the ‘The Lighthouse’ and What is its Power?
Ultimately, given the ending of the movie, there can really be only one interpretation of the Lighthouse – it is the ultimate source of power within the world on the island. In other words, it is the source of morality and ultimate truth. In a way, the Lighthouse itself is the physical embodiment of morality.
Although the film’s director has pointed to the story of Zeus and Prometheus as inspiration for this story – the Greek myth about the trickster god who stole fire from the gods, the parallels here are much more similar to Judeo-Christian traditions than Greek mythology. After all, there is another forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden that mankind is forbidden to eat from. And the God of the old testament doesn’t want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree because then they will become aware, and no longer be able to live within the Garden. They will, effectively, descend.
The light within the lighthouse in the movie seems to have this similar power. Like some beatific vision, when man comes face to face with God, gazing upon the light within the Lighthouse proves to be far, far too much for Ephraim. His cries turn to screams of horror as he is faced with his guilt from his past over killing Ephraim Winslow (whose name he took), and now Thomas Wake.
He falls, plummets down the lighthouse steps, and is then doomed to the Promethean hell of having his innards picked at by birds.
Why is Thomas Wake Able to Look at the Light And Not Fall?
It’s worth noting that Thomas Wake spends much of the film standing before the light within the Lighthouse without it seeming to cause him any harm. On the contrary, he seems to draw strength from the light. We see him taking his clothes off and standing naked in front of the light, symbolically showing that he has nothing to hide from it.
This leads us to believe that unlike his second, Ephraim, he does not have a guilty conscience, or anything to hide. This also makes us believe that, perhaps, Thomas’s retelling of events surrounding Ephraim – the boat being chopped up, his sloppy work habits and the like – are actually the truth.
With this in mind, the bestial, harsh and crude old seafarer Thomas Wake could be seen as the hero of the story – he is attempting to shape the former murderer, Ephraim Winslow aka Thomas Howard into a new man, and keeping him away from the light at all costs, because he knows that once he gazes on it, it will be his undoing.
