Thomas Wake is the main protagonist/antagonist of The Lighthouse.
Biography[]
Wake was an elderly keeper who was supervising Ephriam WInslow during his month-long contract job as a wickie on an isolated island off the coast of New England that Wake owned.
Wake immediately proves to be very demanding, assigning Winslow increasingly taxing jobs such as emptying their chamber pots, painting the lighthouse, and carrying heavy kerosene containers up the stairs, and also being insistant on shairng booze with Winslow, despite it apparently being "against the rules" to cheat on the job. All the while, Wake forbids Winslow for obtaining access to the lantern room, and yet, as Winslow observes that every evening, Wake secretly ascends the lighthouse and disrobes before the light.
During his stay on the island, Winslow begins to hallucinate sea monsters and logs floating in the sea, and masturbates to the mermaid on the scrimshaw. He also continues to observe Wake's strange ritual and is bothered by a one-eyed gull that Wake tells him not to kill, as he is superstitious that gulls are reincarnated sailors. One evening while dining, Wake reveals to Winslow that his previous wickie died after losing his sanity, while Winslow reveals that he is a former timberman from Canada seeking a new trade. That night, Winslow secretly witnesses as Wake once again ascends to the lantern room, and begins masturbating, before Winslow is scared off by a tentacle in the rafters.
The day before his scheduled departure, Winslow discovers a dead gull inside the cistern, which has caused their water supply to be contaminated. Winslow is again attacked by the one-eyed gull and he brutally kills it in anger. After this, the wind drastically changes direction and a violent storm hits the island. Winslow and Wake spend the night getting drunk, and the storm rages through the next morning, preventing the relief ferry meant to pick up Winslow from arriving. As Winslow empties the chamber pots, he notices a body washed up on the shore and discovers that it is a mermaid, which awakens and howls at him. He flees back to the cottage, where Wake informs him that the storm has spoiled their rations, and that new ones will not arrive for weeks.
The pair unearth a crate at the lighthouse's base that supposedly contains reserve rations, but contains only bottles of gin. In the following days, as the storm continues to rage, Winslow and Wake drink most of the gin, alternating between moments of intimacy and hostility, including an arguement over Wake's cooking that results in him yelling out demands for Winslow to have his soul banished and "become the sea". One night, Winslow tries unsuccessfully to steal the lantern room keys from Wake as he sleeps and contemplates stabbing him. He later encounters a lobster trap containing the one-eyed head of Wake's previous wickie. Winslow confesses to Wake that his real name is Thomas Howard and that he assumed the identity of the real Ephraim Winslow, his foreman who died in an accident Howard purposely neglected to stop. Wake chases Howard down, accusing him of "spilling his beans" before destroying their only dory with an axe. Once incapacitated, however, Wake claims that it was Howard who chased him and destroyed the dory.
With no alcohol left, the two begin drinking a concoction of turpentine and honey, while the storm worsens and starts flooding the cottage. The next morning, Howard finds Wake's logbook, in which Wake has written a critical report of Howard's performance and recommended he be sacked without pay. Upon Howard's confrontation, Wake berates Howard, and Howard attacks Wake while hallucinating the mermaid, the real Winslow, and Wake as a Proteus-like figure.
Death[]
Wake's body in the foreground.
Howard beats Wake into submission and takes him to the hole at the base of the lighthouse to bury him alive. Wake curses Howard as he is buried, wishing him a "Promethean fate." Howard steals Wake's keys to the lantern room and leaves go use them, but Wake frees himself and strikes Howard with the axe. Howard fights back in retaliation, and kills Wake by striking him down with a kettle, before swinging the axe into his head.
Trivia[]
- Wake is played by the legendary Willem Dafoe, who also plays Donald Kimball in American Psycho and the Green Goblin in Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy and Spider-Man: No Way Home.