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William Bankes, a widower and botanist, is an old friend of Mr. Ramsay. Unlike many of the men in the novel, Bankes has a kind of self-possession and inner confidence that allows for him to develop a deep friendship with Lily Briscoe, proving that men and women can relate platonically and with mutual respect. As someone part of Mr. Ramsay’s generation, Bankes’s ability to be friends with Lily doesn’t stem from having radical or modern beliefs. Lily remembers him horrified by Minta Doyle running around with a hole in her stocking, considering it a sign of social deterioration. He also initially mistakes Lily’s abstract painting of Mrs. Ramsay and James as disrespectful to the beauty of motherhood, signifying that he believes in the traditional social order. However, instead of responding with anger when he encounters something that challenges him, he asks questions and listens. In the case of Lily’s painting, he allows her expertise on art and listens without anger or dismissal. Lily attributes his ability to listen to his “scientific mind,” a mind that is inquisitive and wants to learn more instead of asserting itself and its ideas.
Throughout Part I, Mrs. Ramsay has a secret agenda for William Bankes, hoping to make him soften to the idea of domesticity and marriage. She treats him with open pity because he lives alone and tries to give him a particularly nice piece of beef to show him what he’s missing by not remarrying. Despite her efforts, Bankes’s thought stream in Part I shows him completely disinterested in marriage, considering it weakening and even degrading when he looks at Mr. Ramsay. Bankes doesn’t understand how Mr. Ramsay, whom he considers intelligent, “could depend so much as he [does] upon people's praise,” as if marriage has taken away any inner self-confidence. Indeed, Bankes’s disinterest in marriage means he must become self-possessed instead of relying on women to boost his ego. While Mr. Ramsay needs his ego coddled by Mrs. Ramsay, Bankes is happy to be challenged by Lily. While Charles Tansley insults Lily’s artistic endeavors to make himself feel better, Bankes asks her questions. Because he doesn’t require women for strength, he, perhaps paradoxically, can relate to them better, treating them as other human beings.
