"Plot" Guideline for The Waves

I. The sun rises.

Childhood. Bernard, Rhoda, Neville, Susan, Louis and Jinny awake and reveal, in a stream of conscience perceptive
mode, what they see and hear. Susan sees Jinny kiss Louis from behind the bush, beins to cry and is comforted by
Bernard.
II. Midmorning.
!arly adolescence. Bernard leaves for school, as do Louis and Neville. Susan, Rhoda and Jinny do the same. Louis and
Neville reveal character traits" in the chapel, Louis is willinly submissive to the minister#s authority, while Neville is
cynical and suspicious of authority. $ercival appears for the first time %&'(. )o Louis, $ercival inspires poetry %*+(.
Louis wishes for niht to come, while Jinny reveals her aversion to darkness, sleep and niht %'," '*(.
III. Late morning.
-dulthood. Bernard and Neville are at Cambride. Louis is a London office clerk. Susan has returned to her beloved
countryside. Jinny lives in her plastic world and never sees darkness. Rhoda is fearful of life.
IV. The sun approaches midday position.
)he roup reunites at .ampton Court to send $ercival of to /ndia. !ach appears alone. Neville arrives first and awaits
$ercival#s arrival with 0morbid pleasure0 %112(. Louis enters. Susan enters with 0stealthy, yet assured movements . . . of
a wild beast0 %113(. Rhoda appears hesitant and timid. Jinny enters. )o Susan, Jinny seems to 0center everythin0 while
brinin in new tides of sensation0 %1,+4,1(. Susan compares her course hands to Jinny#s manicured ones and hides
them under the tablecloth. Bernard, who is now enaed, enters. $ercival finally enters. Bernard refers to $ercival as a
hero. $ercival sits down ne5t to Susan, whom he loves. )he atmosphere, previously tense and discordant, is now
harmoni6ed by $ercival#s presence" he is the silent force around which the roup ravitates and rotates. -t last they can
issue from the 0darkness of solitude0 %1,&(. -t end of the episode $ercival departs7 0.e is one0 %1*8(.
V. Noon: The sun lies straight aboe casting no shado!s.
$ercival is dead. Neville e5presses his rief throuh physical sufferin7 0Come pain feed on me. Bury your fans in my
flesh. )ear me asunder0 %1',(. )he now married Bernard is torn between the 9oy of his son#s birth and the death of
$ercival7 0 . . . but which is sorrow, which is 9oy:0 %1'&(. $ercival#s death has liberated Rhoda, who soon becomes
Louis# lover.
VI. The sun"s rays are slanted.
Life is monotonous and beins to have no meanin. Louis beins the section7 0/ have sined my name twenty times . . .
/, and aain /, and aain /0 %181(. Susan finds her days mechanical7 0Summer comes and winter, the seasons pass0
%181(. Neville observes the clock tickin on the mantelpiece %188(.
VII. Late afternoon.
Bernard reveals he must submit to solitude in order to reali6e his creative art and that this submission is an 0altoether
unidentified and terrifyin act0 %123(. Susan is not altoether sated with her farm life. Jinny has aed and reali6es that
she is 0no loner part of the procession0 %13&(. She does, however, continue to live on ever powdered and roomed.
Neville decides that life can be lived with the pleasures of poetry instead of needin a firelit room and intimacy.
.owever, he still yearns for the company of a male companion. Louis keeps a cockney mistress since Rhoda left him.
)houh successful, he feels empty. Louis wonders if death will provide the stability he lons for, but fears7 0perhaps /
shall never die, shall never attain even that continuity and permanence . . .0%,+&(. Rhoda is in Spain and increasinly
parts with the real world since $ercival#s death7 0)here is only a thin sheet between me now and the infinite depths0
%,+'(. Rhoda approaches her death.
VIII. #ening.
;roup reunites for the second and final time. Neville, a famed poet, reali6es fame is not a panacea. Susan is unfulfilled.
Bernard thinks solitude is his undoin %,18(. Louis is still unsure" he is ambivalent. Like his childhood days, Louis
prefers to cloister himself in his attic in order to protect himself from ridicule. .e is 0marmoreal0 on the outside, but
intrinsically weak %,13(. Jinny is the couraeous one. )houh she suffers the same as the others, she finds affirmation
in the smallest encounters7 0Sometimes only by the touch of a finer under the tablecloth as we sit dinin0 %,,1(. Rhoda
comments on the wave4like motion of life, how it breaks down only to build back up aain %,&,(. Bernard concludes by
affirmin the continuity of life, the 0happy concatenation of one event followin another0 %&&*(.
I$. Night.
Bernard is last to speak. Spends the remainder the te5t summin up his life and those of the others. Bernard takes on
<eath and the waves crash on the shore.
S!L!C)!< =>?)!S
%ernard
1. ,@ 0Aater pours down the runnel of my spine. Briht arrows of sensation shoot on either side. / am covered with
warm flesh. By dry crannies are wetted" my cold body is warmed" it is sluiced and leamin. Aater descends and
sheets me like an eel. . . . Rich and heavy sensations form on the roof of my mind" down showers the day 444 the woods"
and !lvedon" Susan and the pieon. $ourin down the walls of my mind, runnin toether, the day falls copious,
resplendent.0
,. ,&3 4 ,*+ 0. . . out shot, riht, left, all down the spine, arrows of sensation. -nd so, as lon as we draw breath, for the
rest of time, if we knock aainst a chair, a table, or a woman, we are pierced with arrows of sensation 444 if we walk in a
arden, if we drink this wine. . . . )hen, there was the arden and the canopy of the currant leaves which seemed to
enclose everythin" flowers, burnin like sparks upon the depths of reen" a rat wreathin with maots under a
rhubarb leaf" the fly oin bu66, bu66, bu66 upon the nursery ceilin, and plates upon plates of innocent bread and
butter. -ll these thins happen in one second and last forever.0
&. &@ 0Ahen / am rown up / shall carry a notebook 444 a fat book with many paes, methodically lettered. / shall enter
my phrases.0
*. @8 0Louis and Nevell,0 said Bernard, 0both sit silent. . . . Both feel the presence of other people as a separatin wall.
But if / find myself in company with other people, words at once make smoke rins . . . . / do not believe in separation.
Ae are not sinle.0
'. @2 0)he human voice has a disarmin Cuality 444 %we are not sinle, we are one(.0
@. @2 0/ have little aptitude for reflection. / reCuire the concrete in everythin. /t is so only that / lay hands upon the
world. - ood phrase, however, seems to me to have an independent e5istence. Det / think it is likely that the best are
made in solitude.0
8. @3 0/ look in all my pockets. )hese are the thins that for ever interrupt the process upon which / am eternally
enaed of findin some perfect phrase that fits this very moment e5actly.0
2. 8@ 0. . . it becomes clear that / am not one and simple, but comple5 and many. Bernard in public, bubbles" in private,
is secretive. . . . )hey do not understand that / have to effect different transitions" have to cover the entrances and e5its
of several different men who alternately act their parts of Bernard.0
3. 2+ 0)he truth is that / need the stimulus of other people.0
1+. 2* 0/ am astonished, as / draw the veil off thins with words, how much, how infinitely more than / can say / have
observed. Bore and more bubbles into my mind as / talk, imaes and imaes.0
11. 11, 4 11& 0. . . / am at liberty now to sink down, deep, into what passes, this omnipresent, eneral life. . . . / have no
ambition. / will let myself be carried on by the eneral impulse. )he surface of my mind slips alon like a pale4rey
stream reflectin what passes. . . . Ae insist, it seems on livin. )hen aain, indifference descends. . . . -nd, what is this
moment of time, this particular day in which / have found my self cauht: )he rowl of traffic miht be any uproar 444
forest trees or the roar of wild beasts. . . . beneath these pavements are shells, bones and silence.0
1,. 11* 0But / am aware of our ephemeral passae.0
1&. 11@ 0)o be myself %/ note( / need the illumination of other people#s eyes, and therefore cannot be entirely sure what
is myself.0
1*. 11@ 0/ think of people to whom / cold say thins" Louis" Neville" Susan" Jinny and Rhoda. Aith them / am many4
sided. )hey retrieve me from darkness.0
1'. 1,, 4 1,& 0.ere is $ercival . . . . .e is a hero. . . . Ae who yelped like 9ackals bitin at each other#s heels now
assume the sober and confident air of soldiers in the presence of their captain.0
1@. 1&, 0.ad / been born,0 said Bernard, Enot knowin that one word follows another / miht have been, who knows,
perhaps anythin. -s it is, findin seCuences everywhere, / cannot bear the pressure of solitude. Ahen / cannot see
words curlin like rins of smoke round me / am in darkness 444 / am nothin.0
18. 1&& 0. . . my character is in part made of the stimulus which other people provide, and is not mine, as yours are.0
12. 1&* 0But / shall have contributed more to the passin moment than any of you" / shall o into more rooms, more
different rooms, than any of you. But because there is somethin that comes form outside and not from within / shall be
forotten" when my voice is silent you will not remember me, save as the echo of a voice that once wreathed the fruit
into phrases.0
13. 1', 4 1'& 0Such is the incomprehensible combination,0 said Bernard, 0such is the comple5ity of thins, that as /
descend the staircase / do not know which is sorrow, which 9oy. By son is born" $ercival is dead. / am upheld by
pillars, shored up on either side by stark emotions" but which is sorrow, which is 9oy: / ask, and do not know, only that
/ need silence, and to be alone and to o out, and to save one hour to consider what has happened to my world, what
death has done to my world.0
,+. 1'@ 0Now, throuh my own infirmity / recover what he was to me7 my opposite. Bein naturally truthful, he did not
see the point of these e5aerations, and was borne on by a natural sense of the fittin, was indeed a reat master of the
art of livin so that he seems to have lived lon, and to have spread calm round him, indifference one miht almost say,
certainly to his own advancement, save that he had also reat compassion. . . . By own infirmities oppress me. )here is
no loner him to oppose them.0
,1. 12* 0-nd time,0 said Bernard, 0lets fall its drop. the drop that has formed on the roof of the soul falls. ?n the roof
of my mind time, formin, lets fall its drop. Last week, as / stood shavin, the drop fell. . . . Shave, shave, shave, / said.
;o on shavin. )he drop fell. -ll throuh the day#s work, at intervals, my mind went to an empty place, sayin, EAhat
is lost: Ahat is over:# . . . . / said . . . E/ have lost my youth.#0
,,. 12* 0)his drop fallin has nothin to do with losin my youth. )his drop fallin is time taperin to a point. )ime,
which is a sunny pasture covered with a dancin liht, time, which is widespread as a field at midday, becomes
pendent. )ime tapers to a point. -s a drop falls from a lass heavy with some sediment, time falls. )hese are the true
cycles, these are the true events. )hen as if all the luminosity of the atmosphere were withdrawn / see to the bare
bottom.0
,&. 12' 0)he truth is that / am not one of those who find their satisfaction in one person, or in infinity. . . . By bein
only litters when all its facets are e5posed to many people.0
,*. 128 0/ have filled innumerable notebooks with phrases to be used when / have found the true story, the one story to
which all these phrases refer. But / have never yet found that story. -nd / bein to ask, -re there stories:0
,'. 123 0Leanin over his parapet / see far out a waste of water. - fin turns. )his bare visual impression is unattached
to any line of reason, it sprins up as one miht see the fin of a porpoise on the hori6on. Fisual impressions often
communicate thus briefly statements that we shall in time to come uncover and coa5 into words.0
,@. ,1@ 0/ have sons and dauhters. / am weded into my place in the pu66le.0
,8. ,12 0. . . / do not clin to life. / shall be brushed like a bee from a sunflower.0
,2. ,,* 0<rop upon drop,0 said Bernard, 0silence falls. /t forms on the roof of the mind and falls into pools beneath.
Gor ever alone, alone, alone, 444 hear silence fall and sweep its rins to the farthest edes. ;ored and replete, solid with
middle4aed content, /, whom loneliness destroys, let silence fall, drop by drop. . . . -s silence falls / am dissolved
utterly and become featureless and scarcely to be distinuished from another. /t does not matter. Ahat matters:0
,3. ,,' 0/ reflect now that the earth is only a pebble flicked off accidentally from the face of the sun and that there is no
life anywhere in the abysses of space.0
&+. ,,8 0-nd we ourselves, walkin si5 abreast, what do we oppose, with this random flicker of liht in us that we call
brain and feelin, how can we do battle aainst this flood" what has permanence: ?r lives too stream away, down the
unlihted avenues, past the strip of time, unidentified.0
&1. ,,3 0)he flower,0 said Bernard, 0the red carnation that stood in the vase on the table of the restaurant when we
dined toether with $ercival is become a si54sided flower" made of si5 lives.0
&,. ,&* 0Listen. )here is a sound like the knockin of railway trucks in a sidin. )hat is the happy concatenation of one
event followin another in our lives. Hnock, knock, knock. Bust, must, must. Bust o, must sleep, must wake, must
et up 444 sober, merciful word which we pretend to revile, which we press tiht to our hearts, without which we should
be undone. .ow we worship that sound like the knockin toether of trucks in a sidinI0
&inny
1. *1 0/ hate the small lookin4lass on the stairs,0 said Jinny. 0/t shows our heads only" it cuts off our heads. -nd my
lips are too wide, and my eyes are too close toether" / show my ums too much when / lauh.0
,. *, 0Ahen / read, a purple rim runs round the black ede of the te5tbook. Det / cannot follow any word throuh its
chanes. / cannot follow any thouht from present to past. . . . / do not dream.0
&. @& 0Now we roar and swin into a tunnel. )he entleman pulls up the window. / see reflections on the shinin lass
which lines the tunnel. / see him lower his paper. .e smiles at my reflection in the tunnel. By body instantly of its own
accord puts forth a frill under his a6e. By body lives a life of its own.0
*. 1+1 0)his is the prelude, this is the beinnin. / lance, / peep, / powder. -ll is e5act, prepared. By hair is swept in
one curve. By lips are precisely red. / am ready now to 9oin men and women on the stairs, my peers. / pass them,
e5posed to their a6e, as they are to mine. Like lihtnin we look but do not soften or show sins of reconition. ?ur
bodies communicate. )his is my callin. )his is my world. -ll is decided and ready" the servants, standin here, and
aain here, take my name, my fresh, my unknown name, and toss it before me. / enter.0
'. 1+, 0/ feel a thousand capacities sprin up in me. / am arch, ay, lanuid, melancholy by turns. / am rooted, but /
flow. . . . ?ne breaks off from his station under the lass cabinet. .e approaches. .e makes towards me. )his is the
most e5citin moment / have ever known. / flutter. / ripple. / stream like a plant in the river, flowin this way, flowin
that way, but rooted, so that he may come to me.0
@. 1+& 0/ do not care for anythin in this world. / do not care for anybody save this man whose name / do not know. . . .
By peers may look at me now. / look straiht back at you, men and women. / am one of you. )his is my world.0
8. 1+* 0/t does not matter what / say. Crowdin, like a flutterin bird, one sentence crosses the empty space between us.
/t settles on his lips. . . . )he veils drop between us. / am admitted to the warmth and privacy of another soul.0
2. 1,2 0But / hide nothin. / am prepared. !very time the door opens / cry EBoreI# But my imaination is the bodies. /
can imaine nothin beyond the circle cast by my body. By body oes before me, like a lantern down a dark lane,
brinin one thin after another out of darkness into a rin of liht. / da66le you" / make you believe that this is all.0
3. 1*1 0!mered from the tentative ways, the obscurities and da66le of youth, we look straiht in front of us, ready for
what may come %the door opens, the door keeps on openin(. -ll is real" all is firm without shadow or illusion. . . . <ays
and days are to come" winter days, summer days" we have scarcely broken into our hoard.0
1+. 1*' 0Let us hold it for one moment,0 said Jinny" 0love, hatred, by whatever name we call it, this lobe whose walls
are made of $ercival, of youth and beauty, and somethin so deep sunk within us that we shall perhaps never make this
moment out of one man aain.0
11. 18* 0%/ have lived my life / must tell you all these years and / am now past thirty, perilously, like a mountain oat
leapin from cra to cra" / do not settle lon anywhere" / do not attach myself to one person in particular" but you will
find that if / raise my arm, some fiure at once breaks off and will come.(0
1,. 18' 0)hus, in a few seconds, deftly, adroitly, we decipher the hierolyphs written on other people#s faces. .ere, in
this room, are the abraded and battered shells cast on the shore. )he door oes on openin. )he room fills and fills with
knowlede, anuish, many kinds of ambition, much indifference, some despair.0
1&. 18@ 0But we who live in the body see with the body#s imaination thins in outline. / see rocks in briht sunshine. /
cannot take these facts into some cave and, shadin my eyes, rade their yellows, blues, umbers into one substance. /
cannot remain seated for lon. / must 9ump up and o. . . . / cannot tell you if life is this or that. / am oin to push out
into the heteroeneous crowd. / am oin to be buffeted" to be flun up, and flun down, amon men, like a ship on the
sea.0
1*. 13& 0But look 444 there is my body in that lookin lass. .ow solitary, how shrunk, how aedI / am no loner
youn. / am no loner part of the procession. Billions descend those stairs in a terrible descent. ;reat wheels churn
ine5orably urin them downwards. Billions have died. $ercival died. / still move. / still live. But who will come if /
sinal:0
1'. 13& 0Little animal that / am, suckin my flanks in and out with fear, / stand here, palpitatin, tremblin. But / will
not be afraid. / will brin the whip down on my flanks. / am not a whimperin little animal makin for the shadow. /t
was only for a moment, catchin siht of myself before / had time to prepare myself as / always prepare myself for the
siht of myself, that / Cuailed.0
1@. 13* 0But now / swear, makin deliberately in front of the lass those sliht preparations that eCuip me, / will not be
afraid.0
18. 13' 4 13@ 0Lifts rise and fall" trains stop, trains start as reularly as the waves of the sea. )his is what has my
adhesion. / am a native of this world, / follow its banners. .ow could / run for shelter when they are so manificently
adventurous, darin curious, too, and stron enouh in the midst of effort to pause and scrawl with a free hand a 9oke
upon the wall: )herefore / will powder my face and redden my lips. . . . Gor / still e5cite eaerness. / still feel the
bowin of men in the street like the silent stoop of the corn when the liht wind blows, rufflin it red. . . . Let the silent
army of the dead descend. / march forward.0
12. ,,+ 0/ like what one touches, what one tastes. . . . By imaination is the body#s. /ts visions are not fine spun and
white with purity. . . .%/ note clothes always(. . . .0
13. ,,1 4 ,,, 0/ have sat before a lookin4lass as you sit writin, addin up fiures at desks. So, before the lookin4
lass in the temple of my bedroom, / have 9uded my nose, and my chin" my lips that open too wide and show too
much um. / have looked. / have noted. . . . Now / turn rey" sittin in front of the lookin4lass in broad dayliht, and
note precisely my nose, my chin, my lips that open woo wide and show too much um. But / am not afraid.0
,+. ,,2 0)he iron ates have rolled back,0 said Jinny. 0)ime#s fans have ceased their devourin. Ae have triumphed
over the abysses of space, with roue, with powder, with flimsy pocket4handkerchiefs.0
Louis
1. 3 0/ hear somethin stampin,0 said Louis. 0- reat beast#s foot is chained. /t stamps, and stamps, and stamps.0
,. 1141, 0. . . / hold a stalk in my hand. / am the stalk. By roots o down to the depths of the world, throuh earth dry
with brick, and damp earth, throuh veins of lead and silver. / am all fibre. -ll tremors shake me, and the weiht of the
earth is pressed to my ribs. >p here my eyes are reen leaves, unseein. / am a boy in rey flannels with a belt fastened
by a brass snake up here. <own there my eyes are lidless eyes of a stone fiure in a desert by the Nile. / see women
passin with red pitchers to the river" / see camels swayin and men in turbans. / hear tramplins, tremblins, stirrins
round me.
&. 134,+ 0/ will not con9uate the verb,0 said Louis, 0until Bernard has said it. By father is a banker in Brisbane and /
speak with an -ustralian accent. / will wait and copy Bernard. .e is !nlish. )hey are all !nlish. . . . But / am pale" /
am neat, and my knickerbockers are drawn toether by a belt with a brass snake. / know the lesson by heart. / know
more than they will ever know. / know my cases and my enders" / could know everythin in the world if / wished. But
/ do not wish to come to the top and say my lesson. . . .0
*. &' 0. . . / become a fiure in the procession, a spoke in the hue wheel that turnin, at last erects me, here and now. /
have been in the dark" / have been hidden" but when the wheel turns %as he reads( / rise into this dim liht where / 9ust
perceive, but scarcely, kneelin boys, pillars and memorial brasses. )here is no crudity here, no sudden kisses.0
'. &8 0. . . .is J$ercival#sK manificence is that of some medieval commander. - wake of liht to lie on the rass behind
him. Look at us troopin after him, his faithful servants, to be shot like sheep, for he will certainly attempt some forlorn
enterprise and die in battle. By heart turns rouh" it abrades my side like a file with two edes" one, that / adore his
manificence" the other / despise his slovenly accentsL/ who am so much his superiorLand am 9ealous.0
@. &3 0. . . )his will endure. Grom discord, from hatred %/ despise dabblers in imaeryL/ resent the power of $ercival
intensely( my shattered mind is pieced toether by some sudden perception. / take the trees, the clouds, to be witnesses
of my complete interation. /, Louis, /, who shall walk the earth these seventy years, am born entire, out of hatred, out
of discord. . . .0
8. '& 0. . . / will achieve in my lifeL.eaven rant that it be not lonLsome iantic amalamation between the two
discrepancies so hideously apparent to me. ?ut of my sufferin / will do it. / will knock. / will enter.0
2. 3143, 0/ JBernardK think of Louis now. Ahat malevolent yet searchin liht would Louis throw upon this dwindlin
autumn evenin . . . .is thin lips are pursed, his cheeks are pale" he pores in an office over some obscure commercial
document. EBy father, a banker at Brisbane#Lbein ashamed of him he always talks of himLfailed. So he sits in an
office, Louis the best scholar in the school. But / seekin contrasts often feel his eye on us, his lauhin eye, his wild
eye, addin us up like insinificant items in some rand total which he is forever pursuin, in his office. -nd one day,
takin a fine pen and dippin it in red ink, the addition will be complete" our total would be known" but it will not be
enouh.0
3. 3& 0. . . / repeat, E/ am an averae !nlishman" / am an averae clerk,# yet / look at the little men at the ne5t table to
be sure that / do what they do. . . .0
1+. 1,+ 0. . . )o be loved by Susan would be to be impaled by a bird#s sharp beak, to be nailed to a barnyard door. Det
there are moments when / could wish to be speared by a beak, to be nailed to a barnyard door, positively, once and for
all.0
11. 1,' 0Ae chaned, we became unreconisable,0 said Louis. 0!5posed to all these different lihts, what we had in us
%for we are all so different( came intermittently, in violent patches, spaced by blank voids, to the surface as if some acid
had dropped uneCually on the plate. / was this, Neville that, Rhoda different aain, and Bernard too.0
1,. 1,8 0. . . / smoothed my hair when / came in, hopin to look like the rest of you. But / cannot, for / am not sinle
and entire as you are. / have lived a thousand lives already. !very day / unburyL/ di up. / find relics of myself in the
sand that women made thousands of years ao, when / heard sons by the Nile and the chained beast stampin. . . .0
1&. 1,2 0. . . / am the little ape who chatters over a nut, and you are the dowdy women with shiny bas of stale buns" /
am also the caed tier, and you are the keepers of the red4hot bars. )hat is, / am fiercer and stroner than you are . . .0
1*. 1@3 0. . . )he weiht of the world is on our shoulders" its vision is throuh our eyes" if we blink or look aside, or
turn back to finer what $lato said or remember Napoleon and his conCuests, we inflict on the world the in9ury of some
obliCuity. )his is life" Br. $rentice at four" Br. !yres at four4thirty.0
1'. 18+ 0$ercival has died" %he died in !ypt" he died in ;reece" all deaths are one death(. Susan has children" Neville
mounts rapidly to the conspicuous heihts. Life passes. )he clouds chane perpetually over our houses.0
1@. ,+1 0By task, my burden, has always been reater than other peopleMs. - pyramid has been set on my shoulders. /
have tried to do a colossal labour. / have driven a violent, an unruly, a vicious team.0
18. ,+, 0. . . / am not a sinle and passin bein. By life is not a momentMs briht spark like that on the surface of a
diamond. / o beneath the round tortuously, as if a warder carried a lamp from cell to cell. By destiny has been that /
remember and must weave toether, must plait into one cable the many threads, the thin, the thick, the broken, the
endurin of our lon history, of our tumultuous and varied day.0
12. ,12 0/t breaks,0 said Louis, 0the thread / try to spin" your lauhter breaks it, your indifference, also your beauty.
Jinny broke the thread when she kissed me in the arden years ao. )he boastin boys mocked me at school for my
-ustralian accent and broke it. M)his is the meanin,M / say" and then start with a pan44vanity.0
13. ,13 0. . . Gor / am always the younest" the most naively surprised" the one who runs in advance in apprehension
and sympathy with discomfort or ridicule44should there be a smut on a nose, or a button undone. / suffer for all
humiliations. Det / am also ruthless, marmoreal.0
,+. ,&+ 0- bird flies homeward,0 said Louis. 0!venin opens her eyes and ives one Cuick lance amon the bushes
before she sleeps. .ow shall we put it toether, the confused and composite messae, that they send back to us, and not
they only, but many dead, boys and irls, rown men and women, who have wandered here, under one kin or
another:0
Neille
1. 1+ 0Stones are cold to my feet,0 said Neville. 0/ feel each one, round or pointed, separately.0
,. ,* 0)he apple4tree leaves became fi5ed in the sky" the moon lared" / was unable to lift my foot up the stair. .e was
found in the utter. .is blood urled down the utter. .is 9owl was white as a dead codfish. / shall call this stricture,
this riidity, Edeath amon the apple trees# for ever. )here were the floatin pale4rey clouds" and the immitiable tree"
the implacable tree with its reaved silver bark. )he ripple of my life was unavailin. / was unable to pass by.0
&. &1 0)hose are laboratories perhaps" and that the library, where / shall e5plore the e5actitude of the Latin lanuae,
and step firmly upon the well4laid sentences, and pronounce the e5plicit, the sonorous he5ameters of Firil" of
Lucretius" and chant with a passion that is never obscure or formless the loves of Catullus, readin from a bi book, a
Cuarto with marins.0
*. 8+ 0Let me at least be honest. Let me denounce this pifflin, triflin, self4satisfied world" these horse4hair seats"
these coloured photoraphs of piers and parades. / could shriek aloud at the smu self4satisfaction, at the mediocrity of
this world, which breeds horse4dealers with coral ornaments hanin from their watch4chains. )here is that in me
which will consume them entirely.0
'. 2@ 0Ahen there are buildins like these,0 said Neville, 0/ cannot endure that there should be shop irls. )heir titter,
their ossip, offends me" breaks into my stillness, and nudes me, in moments of purest e5ultation, to remember our
deradation.0
@. 1,+ 0)he door opens, the door oes on openin,0 said Neville, 0yet he does not come.0
8. 1', 0/ will not lift my foot to climb the stair. / will stand for one moment beneath the immitiable tree, alone with
the man whose throat is cut, while downstairs the cook shoves in and out the dampers. / will not climb the stair. Ae are
doomed, all of us. Aomen shuffle past with shoppin4bas. $eople keep on passin. Det you shall not destroy me. Gor
this moment, this one moment, we are toether. / press you to me. Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fans in my
flesh. tear me asunder. / sob, / sob.0
2. 188 0Ahy, look,0 said Neville, 0at the clock tickin on the mantelpiece: )ime passes, yes. -nd we row old. But to
sit with you, alone with you, here, in London in this firelit room, you there, / here, is all.0
3. 13@433 0/ no loner need a room now,0 said Neville, 0or walls and fireliht. / am no loner youn . . . )hen / hear the
one sound / wait for. >p and up it comes, approaches, hesitates, stops at my door. / cry, ECome in. Sit by me. Sit on the
ede of the chair.# Swept away by the old hallucination, / cry, ECome closer, closer.#0
1+. ,&& 0Ae are in that passive and e5hausted frame of mind when we only wish to re9oin the body of our mother from
whom we have been severed. all else is distasteful, forced and fatiuin.0
'hoda
1. 1+ 0)he birds san in chorus first,0 said Rhoda. 0Now the scullery door is unbarred. ?ff they fly. ?ff they fly like a
flin of seed. But one sins by the bedroom window alone.0
,. 12413 0-ll my ships are white,0 said Rhoda. 0/ do not want red petals of hollyhocks or eranium. / want white petals
that float when / tip the basin up. / have a fleet now swimmin from shore to shore. . . . -nd / will rock the brown basin
from side to side so that my ships may ride the waves. Some will founder. Some will dash themselves aainst the cliffs.
?ne sails alone. )hat is my ship. . . . )hey have scattered, they have foundered, all e5cept my ship which mounts the
wave and sweeps before the ale and reaches the islands where the parrots chatter and the creepers . . .0
&. ,14,, 0. . . Now the terror is beinnin. . . . Ahat is the answer: . . . / see only fiures. )he others are handin in
their answers, one by one. Now it is my turn. But / have no answer. . . . / am left alone to find an answer. )he fiures
mean nothin to me. Beanin has one. . . . Look, the loop of the fiure is beinnin to fill with time" it holds the
world in it. / bein to draw a fiure and the world is looped in it, and / myself am outside the loop" which / now 9oin N
so N and seal up, and make entire. )he world is entire, and / am outside of it, cryin, E?h, save me, from bein blown
for ever outside the loop of timeI#0
*. ,8 0so / put off my hopeless desire to be Susan, to be Jinny. But / will stretch my toes so that they touch the rail at
the end of the bed" / will assure myself, touchin the rail, of somethin hard. Now / cannot sink" cannot altoether fall
throuh the thin sheet now. . . .0
'. && 0. . . But here / am nobody. / have no face. )his reat company, all dressed in brown sere, has robbed me of my
identity. Ae are callous, unfriended. / will seek out a face, a monumental face, and will endow it, with omniscience,
and wear it under my dress like a talisman and then %/ promise this( / will find some dinle in a wood where / can
display my assortment of curious treasures. / promise myself this. So / will not cry.0
@. *& 0)hat is my face,0 said Rhoda, 0in the lookin4lass behind Susan#s shoulderLthat face is my face. But / will
duck behind her to hide it, for / am not here. / have no face. ?ther people have faces" . . .0
8. 1+' 0. . . / am thrust back to stand burnin in this clumsy, this ill4fittin body, to receive the shafts of his indifference,
and his scorn, / who lon for marble columns and pools on the other side of the world where the swallow dips her
wins.0
2. 1+'41+@ 0. . . -n immense pressure is on me. / cannot move without dislodin the weiht of the centuries. - million
arrows pierce me. Scorn and ridicule pierce me. /, who could beat my breast aainst the storm and let the hail choke me
9oyfully, am pinned down here" am e5posed. . . .0
3. 1+@ 0-lone / rock my basins" / am mistress of my fleet of ships. But here, . . . / am broken into separate pieces" / am
no loner one. Ahat then is the knowlede that Jinny has as she dances" the assurance that Susan has as, stoopin
Cuietly beneath the lampliht, she draws the white cotton throuh the eye of her needle: )hey say Des" the say, No"
they brin their fists down with a ban on the table. But / doubt" / tremble" / see the wild thorn tree shake its shadow in
the desert.0
1+. 1+8 0. . . )he wave breaks. / am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness" / am
also a irl, here in this room.0
11. 118 0. . . Rhoda the nymph of the fountain always wet. . . .0
1,. 1,, 0. . . Ae cannot sink down, we cannot foret our faces. !ven / who have no face, who make no difference when
/ come in %Susan and Jinny chane bodies and faces(, flutter unattached, without anchorae anywhere, unconsolidated,
incapable of composin any blankness or continuity or wall aainst which their bodies move. . . .0
1&. 1&+ 0. . . / am afraid of you all. / am afraid of the shock of sensation that leaps upon me, because / cannot deal with
it as you doL/ cannot make one moment mere in the ne5t. )o me they are all violent, all separate" if / fall under the
shock of the moment you will be on me, tearin me to pieces. . . .0
1*. 1*1 0. . . Ae who are conspirators, withdrawn toether to lean over some cold urn, note how the purple flame flows
downwards.0
1'. 1'241'3 0)here is a puddle,0 said Rhoda, 0and / cannot cross it. / hear the rush of the reat rindstone within an
inch of my head. /ts wind roars in my face. -ll palpable forms of life have failed me >nless / can stretch and touch
somethin hard, / shall be blown down the eternal corridors forever. Ahat then can / touch: Ahat brick, what stone:
and so draw myself across the enormous ulf into my body safely.0
1@. 1'3 0. . . ?n the bare round / will pick violets and bind them toether and offer them to $ercival, somethin iven
him by me. Look now at what $ercival has iven me. Look at the street now that $ercival is dead. . . . )he human face
is hideous. )his is to my likin. / want publicity and violence and to be dashed like a stone on the rocks. . . .0
18. 1@* 0. . . /nto the wave that dashes upon the shore, into the wave that flins its white foam to the uttermost corners
of the earth / throw my violets, my offerin to $ercival.0
12. ,+& 0Life, how / have dreaded you,0 said Rhoda, 0oh, human beins, how / have hated youI .ow you have nuded,
how you have interrupted, how hideous you have looked in ?5ford Street, how sCualid sittin opposite each other
starin in the )ubeI0
13. ,+' 0. . . )he wave has broken" the bunch is withered. / seldom think of $ercival now.0
,+. ,+'4,+@ 0. . . / have sliced the waters of beauty in the evenin when the hills close themselves like birdsM wins
folded. / have picked sometimes a red carnation, and wisps of hay. / have sunk alone on the turf and finered some old
bone and thouht7 Ahen the wind stoops to brush this heiht, may there be nothin found but a pinch of dust.0
,1. ,+@ 0/ see nothin. Ae may sink and settle on the waves. )he sea will drum in my ears. )he white petals will be
darkened with sea water. )hey will float for a moment and then sink. Rollin over the waves will shoulder me under.
!verythin falls in a tremendous shower, dissolvin me.0
,,. ,,, 0. . . /nwardly / am not tauht" / fear, / hate, / love, / envy and despise you, but / never 9oin you happily.0
,&. ,,* 0. . . But / am not included. -fter all these callins hither and tither, these pluckins and searchins, / shall fall
alone throuh this thin sheet into ulfs of fire. -nd you will not help me. Bore cruel than the old torturers you will let
me fall, and will tear me to pieces when / am fallen. Det there are moments when the walls of the mind row thin" when
nothin is unabsorbed, and / could fancy we miht blow so vast a bubble that the sun miht set and rise in it and we
miht take the blue of midday and the black of midniht and be cast off and escape from here and now.0
(usan
1. 1+ 0Birds are sinin up and down and in an out of all around us,0 said Susan.
,. 1& 0)hrouh the chink in the hede,0 said Susan, 0/ saw her kiss him. / raised my head from my flower4 pot and
looked throuh a chink in the hede. / saw her kiss him. / saw them, Jinny and Louis, kissin. Now / will wrap my
aony inside my pocket4handkerchief. /t shall be screwed tiht into a ball. / will o to the beech wood alone, before
lessons. / will not sit at a table, doin sums. / will not sit ne5t Jinny and ne5t Louis. / will take my anuish and lay it
upon the roots under the beech trees. / will e5amine it and take it between my finers. )hey will not find me. / shall eat
nuts and peer for es throuh the brambles and my hair will be matted and / shall sleep under hedes and drink water
from ditches and die there.0
&. 1' 0/ love,0 said Susan, Eand / hate. / desire one thin only. By eyes are hard. Jinny#s eyes break into a thousand
sand lihts. Rhoda#s are like those pale flowers to which moths come in evenin. Dours row full and brim and never
break. But / am already set on my pursuit. / see insects in the rass. )houh my mother still knits white socks for me
and hems pinafores and / am a child, / love and / hate.0
*. @1 0/ will not send my children to school nor spend a niht all my life in London. .ere in this vast station everythin
echoes and booms hollowly. )he liht is like the yellow liht under an awnin. Jinny lives here.0
'. 32 0But who am /, who lean on this ate and watch my setter nose in a circle: / think sometimes %/ am not twenty
yet( / am not a woman, but the liht that falls on this ate, on this round. / am the seasons, / think sometimes, January,
Bay, November" the mud, the mist, the dawn. / cannot be tossed about, or float ently, or mi5 with other people . . . /
shall have children" / shall have maids in aprons" men with pitchforks" a kitchen where they brin the ailin lamb to
warm in baskets, where the hams han and the onions listen. / shall be like my mother, silent in a blue apron lockin
up the cupboards.0
@. 1&1 0Ahen / came into the room toniht,0 said Susan, 0/ stopped, / peered about like an animal with its eyes near to
the round. )he smell of carpets and furniture and scent disusts me. / like to walk throuh wet fields alone, or to stop
at a ate and watch my setter nose in a circle, and to ask, Ahere is the hare: . . . )he only sayins / understand are cries
of love, hate, rae and pain. . . / shall never have anythin but natural happiness. /t will almost content me. / shall o to
bed tired. / shall lie like a field bearin crops in rotation" in the summer heat will dance over me" in the winter / shall be
cracked with the cold. . . By children will carry me on" their cryin, their oin to school and comin back will be like
the waves of the sea under me. . . / love with such ferocity that it kills me when the ob9ect of my love shows by a
phrase that he can escape. .e escapes, and / am left clutchin at a strin that slips in and out amon the leaves on the
tree4tops. / do not understand phrases.0
8. 181 0Summer comes, and winter,0 said Susan. 0)he seasons pass. )he pear fills itself and drops from the tree. )he
dead leaf rests on its ede. But steam has obscured the window. / sit by the fire watchin the kettle boil. / see the pear
tree throuh the streaked steam on the window4pane. . . / have lost my indifference, my blank eyes, my pear4shaped
eyes that saw to the root. / am no loner January, Bay or any other season, but am all spun to s fine thread round the
cradle, wrappin in a cocoon made of my own blood the delicate limbs of my baby.0
2. 13+ 0/ am fenced in, planted here like one of my own trees.0
3. ,1' 0But / have seen life in blocks, substantial, hue" its battlements and towers, factories and asometers" a
dwellin place made from time immemorial after an hereditary pattern. )hese thins remain sCuare, prominent,
undissolved in my mind. / am not sinuous or suave" / sit amon you abradin your softness with my hardness,
Cuenchin the silver4rey flickerin moth4win Cuiver of words with the reen spurt of my clear eyes.0
1+. ,,2 0/ rasp, / hold fast,0 said Susan. E/ hold firmly to this hand, any one#s, with love, with hatred" it does not
matter which.0
%ernard)s (umming*+p
1. ,*1 0-nd bein in love for the first time, / made a phrase, for a hole had been knocked in my mind, one of those
sudden transparences throuh which one sees everythin.0
,. ,*1 0)he wa5 444 the virinal wa5 that coats the spine melted in different patches for each of us. . . . Louis was
disusted by the nature of human flesh" Rhoda by our cruelty" Susan could not share" Neville wanted order" Jinny love"
and so on. Ae suffered terribly as we became separate bodies.0
&. ,*' 0Nothin, nothin, nothin broke with its fin that leaden waste of waters. Nothin would happen to lift that
weiht of intolerable boredom. . . . Ae rew" we chaned" for, of course, we are animals. . . . Ae e5ist not only
separately but in undifferentiated blobs of matter.0
*. ,'1 0Let us aain pretend that life is a solid substance, shaped like a lobe, which we turn about in our finers. Let
us pretend that we can make out a plain and loical story, so that when one matter is despatched 444 love for instance 444
we o on, in an orderly manner, to the ne5t.0
'. ,', 0Rhoda come wanderin vauely. . . . )he willow as she saw it rew on the vere of a rey desert where no bird
san. )he leaves shriveled as she looked at them, tossed in aony as she passed them.0
@. ,', 0)hen Jinny came. . . . She was like a crinkled poppy, febrile, thirsty with the desire to drink dry dust. . . . So
little flames 6i6a over the cracks in the dry earth. She made the willows dance, but not with illusion" for she saw
nothin that was not there.0
8. ,'& 0Louis, when he let himself down on the rass, cautiously spreadin %/ do not e5aerate( a mackintosh sCuare,
made one acknowlede his presence. /t was formidable. . . . .is rim and caustic tonue reproved my indolence. .e
fascinated me with his sordid imaination.0
2. ,'@ 0)he crystal, the lobe of life as one calls it, far from bein hard and cold to the touch, has walls of thinnest air.
/f / press them all will burst.0
3. ,'8 0Nevertheless, life is pleasant, life is tolerable. )uesday follows Bonday" then comes Aednesday. )he mind
rows rins" the identity becomes robust" pain is absorbed in rowth. ?penin and shuttin, shuttin and openin, with
an increasin hum and sturdiness, the haste and fever of youth are drawn into service until the whole bein seems to
e5pand in and out like the mainsprin of a clock. .ow fast the stream flows from January to <ecemberI Ae are swept
on by the torrent of thins rown so familiar that they cast no shadow. Ae float, we float. . . .0
1+. ,@+ 0)here are many rooms 444 many Bernards. )here was the charmin, but weak" the stron, but supercilious" the
brilliant, but remorseless" the very ood fellow, but, / make no doubt, the awful bore" the sympathetic, but cold" the
shabby, but 444 o into the ne5t room 444 the foppish, worldly, and too well dressed. Ahat / was to myself was different"
was none of these.0
11. ,@1 0Life is pleasant. Life is ood. )he mere process of life is satisfactory. . . . Somethin always has to be done
ne5t. )uesday follows Bonday" Aednesday )uesday. !ach spreads the same ripple of well4bein, repeats the same
curve of rhythm" covers fresh sand with a chill or ebbs a little slackly without. So the bein rows rins" identity
becomes robust.0
1,. ,@' 0. . . we compared $ercival to a lily 444 $ercival whom / wanted to lose his hair, to shock the authorities, to
row old with me" he was already covered over with the lilies.0
1&. ,@@ 0Aas there no sword, nothin with which to batter down these walls, this protection, this beettin of children
and livin behind curtains, and becomin daily more involved and committed, with books and pictures: Better burn
one#s life out like Louis, desirin perfection" or like Rhoda leave us, flyin past us, to the desert" or choose one out of
millions and one only like Neville" better be like Susan and love and hate the heat of the sun or the frost4bitten rass" or
be like Jinny, honest, an animal. -ll had their rapture" their common feelin with death" somethin that stood them in
stead.0
1*. ,@3 0/ 9umped up, / said, EGiht.# EGiht.,# / repeated. /t is the effort and the strule, it is the perpetual warfare, it is
the shatterin and piecin toether 444 this is the daily battle, defeat or victory, the absorbin pursuit.0
1'. ,8' 0?ur friends 444 how distant, how mute, how seldom visited and little known. -nd /, too, am dim to my friends
and unknown" a phantom, sometimes seen, often not. Life is a dream surely. ?ur flame, the will4o#4the4wisp that dances
in a few eyes is soon to be blown out and all will fade.0
1@. ,8@ 0. . . what / call Emy life,# it is not one life that / look back upon" / am not one person" / am many people" / do
not altoether know who / am 444 Jinny, Susan, Neville, Rhoda, or Louis7 or how to distinuish my life from theirs.0
18. ,2* 0)his self . . . made no answer. .e threw up no opposition. .e attempted no phrase. .is fist did not form. /
waited. / listened. Nothin came, nothin. / cried then with a sudden conviction of complete desertion, Now there is
nothin. No fin breaks the waste of this immeasurable sea. Life has destroyed me. No echo comes when / speak, no
varied words. )his is more truly death than the death of friends, than the death of youth.0
12. ,22 0-nd now / ask, EAho am /:# / have been talkin of Bernard, Neville, Jinny, Susan, Rhoda and Louis. -m / all
of them: -m / one and distinct: / do not know. Ae sat here toether. But now $ercival is dead, and Rhoda is dead" we
are divided" we are not here. Det / cannot find any obstacle separatin us. )here is no division between me and them.
-s / talked / felt, E/ am you.# )his difference we make so much of, this identity we so feverishly cherish, was
overcome.0
13. ,3' 0/ have done with phrases. .ow much better is silence . . . . Let me sit here for ever with bare thins . . . myself
bein myself. . . . . let me sit on and on, silent, alone.0
,+. ,38 0Des, this is the eternal renewal, the incessant rise and fall and fall and rise aain. -nd in me too the wave rises.
/t swells" it arches its back. . . . Ahat enemy do we now perceive advancin aainst us: . . . . <eath is the enemy. /t is
death aainst whom / ride with my spear couched and my hair flyin back like a youn man#s, like $ercival#s, when he
alloped into /ndia. . . . -ainst you / will flin myself, unvanCuished and unyieldin, ? <eathI0
G-=
,hat !ere the circumstances of !riting The Waves?
Aoolf bean thinkin of her 0play4poem,0 The Waves, and accumulatin notes which she saw as 0like a lunatics dream0
at least three years before she bean writin it %<& ,8'(. ?n November ,&, 13,@, she wrote, 0Det / am now and then
haunted by some semi4mystic very profound life of a woman, which shall all be told on one occasion" and time shall be
utterly obliterated" future shall somehow blossom out of the past. ?ne incident 44 say the fall of a flower 44 miht
contain it. By theory bein that the actual event practically does not e5ist 44 nor time either0 %<& 123(. )his
e5perimental novel may have evolved from a mystical e5perience of depression she encountered at Bonk#s .ouse in
13,@ %.ussey &'1(. Buch of the novel, as we learn from Aoolf#s diary, was composed as the author listened to
classical music, mostly Beethoven#s late sonatas. Aoolf documented the evolution of this novel carefully in her diary,
relayin her e5citement over her new 0mystical0 work, but then later e5plainin her doubts and frustration alon with
an overwhelmin sense of failure.
,hat is the publication history of The Waves-
Aoolf bean The Waves shortly after finishin To the Lighthouse in 13,3. The Waves bean as 0)he Boths0 or 0)he
Story of the Boths.0 Aoolf had kept notes for appro5imately three years %13,@413,3( before she actually wrote the
first draft in -pril 13&+. .owever, bein dissatisfied, by Bay 13&+ she had already beun to rewrite the entire book.
Ginally, on ?ctober 2, 13&1, the novel was published by the .oarth $ress in !nland and on ?ctober ,,, of the same
year, by .arcourt Brace O Company in the >nited States. Both dust 9ackets were desined by Fanessa Bell %Firinia#s
sister(. Aoolf herself said the book would probably not sell ,+++ copies. .owever, in the first year of publication The
Waves sold 1,,+++ copies in !nland and 1,,+++ in -merica, to the reat surprise of the author %Brewster 1*+(.
'eception
.o! did readers respond to The Waves upon publication-
Aoolf#s admirers accepted The Waves as an e5tension of her earlier works, relatin them mostly to To the Lighthouse,
Orlando, and A Room of Ones Own but reflectin her other works as well. Bost hihly rearded the book as a work of
art and perhaps the best of Aoolf#s work, especially Aoolf#s husband, Leonard. Aoolf perhaps was her most critical
critic, callin the book 9erky and unreadable. .owever the book probably received far more positive criticism than
neative from critics as well as the eneral public and the book was declared a success by the number of copies sold.
Modern and /ontemporary 'eie!ers
%Ctd. from .ussey &'@4'8(
P 0near unanimity supports Leonard Aoolf#s contention that The Waves is Firinia Aoolf#s masterpiece0 %Baria
<iBattista(.
P 0!5Cuisitely written, supremely comple5, almost incomprehensible0 %Bitchell Leaska(.
P 0a metaphysical poet who has chosen prose4fiction for her medium0 %;erald Bullett(
?ne other modern critic worth Cuotin7
P 0Firinia Aoolf#s analysis of human feelins and relationships in The Waves is unusually fine, her sensitive
understandin of man#s attempts to find a way out of his loneliness and his confusion is superb. )hus, as sinificant a
modernist milestone as this work is, it is not only because of its e5perimental nature or its successful interplay of form
and meanin that The Waves is amon Firinia Aoolf#s most important novels, but also its penetratin Cuality0 %Susan
;orsky 112(.
,hat is the setting of The Waves-
)he settin of )he Aaves may have come about from the summers Aoolf spent at St. /ves, 0witnessin the tranCuil
beauty of the ocean world. . . seein Jalso itsK monstrous incarnations0 %Lee ***(. The Waves is also shaped by the death
of )hoby, AoolfMs older brother, as seen in the character $ercival.
/n The Waves, Aoolf traces the lives of a roup of si5 friends from childhood to late middle ae. Ae hear from each of
them, in soliloCuies, with the sea and roarin waves as the backdrop. Aoolf also writes a set of interludes that details to
the reader the descriptions of one day N from dawn to nihtfall.
0oes ,oolf base any characters in The Waves on real people-
%ernard7 Since childhood, Bernard is a storyteller" however, he never seems to finish anythin he writes. .e speaks
more than the others, and in the final episode attempts to sum up the meanin of his life Na synthesis of the other
characters and the interludes. Gor many readers, Bernard is Aoolf#s alter eo. /n several passaes in The Waves, he
describes a fin passin out in the waters, 9ust as Aoolf describes a fin in her diaries %.ussey ,'(. Goel asserts that
Bernard is a clear surroate for Firinia Aoolf herself %1'8(. Leonard Aoolf suests that <esmond BacCarthy may
have been used as a model for Bernard N a connection made also by -ileen $ippett and Bitchell Leaska. Roer Gry has
also been suested.
<esmond BacCarthy,
portrait head
by =uentin Bell
Roer Gry,
self4portrait
&inny7 Jinny is characteri6ed as sensual, alert to vivid color and to the power of her own body to attract men. -s a
school irl, Jinny says 0/ never cease to move and to dance0 %Waves *,(. Aoolf#s father called his dauhter 0Jinny,0 and
.oward .arper has written that Sir Leslie 0would have been se5ually attracted toward, and morally disapprovin of a
woman like 0Jinny0 %.ussey 1&1(. Firinia was Leslie#s favorite child. . . 0a mutual admiration plainly seen on the
evenin when the two youn sisters were 9umpin about naked in the bathroom. . . Firinia e5plains why she likes her
father better. Leslie fondly recollected, , year old Firinia once delayed him departure for his study, ELittle ;inia is
already an accomplished flirt. . . she nestled herself down in the sofa by me . . . as said don#t o $apa0 %Lee &&4&*(.
Firinia Aoolf herself may have been a model for Jinny. James .aule suests that Bary .utchinson is also a possible
source for the characteri6ation of Jinny.
Louis: Louis is different from the others in The Waves because he is not !nlish. .e is
-ustralian. .is life is defined by the need to overcome the sense of inferiority his
-ustralian accent ives him. .e eventually becomes successful, but the sense never
leaves him %.ussey 1*3(. Both <oris !der and Lyndall ;ordon suests that there is a
probable connection between Louis and ).S. !liot because Aoolf uses the same
ad9ectives to describe them7 pale and marmoreal %;ordon ,'+(. -lso accordin to
;ordon, some e5ternal details of Louis may also be derived from Sa5on Sydney4)urner,
a brilliant classics scholar %.ussey ,21(, and Leonard Aoolf.
%).S. !liot, drawin by Ayndham Lewis, 13&2(
Neille7 Neville, a homose5ual scholar, is described by Louis as the son of a entleman. .e is
also the only one of the three writers in The Waves who publishes and wins some fame for his
writin %.ussey 12,(. .e decides as a child to have one lover and is a seeker of order. John
Baynard Heynes, economist and prolific writer on economics %.ussey 1&8(, and Lytton
Strachey, hailed as an intellectual and know as a homose5ual, have been suested as sources
for Neville#s character. %Left, photo of Baynard Heynes, by Fanessa Bell. Riht, caricature of
Lytton Strachey.(
'hoda: Rhoda is described by Louis as havin 0no body as the others have0 %The Waves
,,(. Rhoda spends most of her life avoidin others and afraid of life itself. Rhoda has no
father and falls in love with the irls at school and her teacher %.ussey ,,2(. <iane
;illespie has asserted that there may be a possible link between Rhoda and the faceless
portraits of Fanessa Bell. -lso Rhoda is associated with $ercy Bysshe Shelley, drawin on
her Cuestion, 0oh, to whom: %.ussey ,,2(.
(usan: )he adult Susan is a representation of
the maternal 0instinct.0 )hrouhout life, she is
closely associated with the natural world7
marryin a farmer, livin in the country and
protective of her children. Several critics
identify traits of Aoolf#s sister Fanessa Bell in
the characteri6ation of Susan. Fanessa was
0e5alted, in the most traic way, to a strane position, full of power and
responsibility. !veryone turned to her, and she moved, like some youn
=ueen, all weihed down with pomp of her ceremonial robes0 %Moments of
Being '&(. )his e5altation was iven to Fanessa after the death of Stella"
she becomes the maternal and wifely one to Leslie Stephen. %Self4portrait
by Fanessa Bell(
/urrent /ritical (tatus
,hat is the current critical status of The Waves?
)he BL- biblioraphy lists *3 hits about Firinia AoolfMs The Waves from 13@& until 132+, with 112 hits in the years
since 132+, suestin that interest has increased in the past few years.
Bodern critics view The Waves in terms of either its political conte5t as a heroic myth J%-le5ander 1*8" ;orsky *8"
;raham , 0Banuscript0 &1*" Barcus 0Britannia0 1&8" $oresky !lusive ,1141," Ruotolo /nterrupted 181(K, or an identity
Cuest that e5ists both outside and within a social order %this would include feminism( J%Binow4$inkney 11'" )ransue
1,2(K. !arlier criticism focused more on the techniCues used and their relations to other modernists works in art and
literature J%;ordon ,+&" ;raham 0$oint of Fiew0 13@" .arper ,+*" Boore, 0Nature0 ,,&" Raitt 1'8" Rantavarra '8"
Ricouer 38" Stewart 0Spatial Gorm0 22(K.
Ahat Aoolf herself oriinally intended was for it be 0about life in eneral0 and her final conclusions were that the si5
characters were to be parts of a sinle character, in an effort to show that we are all one and not as separate as we miht
think %Aoolf L* &38(. Contemporary readers of The Waves either identified with it, findin it an instant classic or
re9ected it %;reor ',(, dismissin it as 0a hihly artificial trick0 %Ba9umdar and BcLaurin ,2&(. )hese two dissentin
viewpoints still e5ist %;reor ',(.
/n comparison with her other works, The Waves is most often thouht of as AoolfMs masterpiece, and as a kind of
continuation of To The Lighthouse %particularly the 0)ime $asses0 sement( J%Cauhie *8" .ussey Sinin 2,"
BcConnell 1,@(K.
By the bookMs very nature, as an 0anti4novel0, it is very hard to pin down and critici6e, and earlier criticism is not
plentiful. /t is in recent years that interest in The Waves has increased dramatically, tendin to focus on what makes the
book particularly Bodern %;raham .oloraph 1&" .ussey Singing **" Lee 1@*" Lorsch 1&,(.
1ey /ritical Issues
,hat are some 2ey critical issues for studying The Waves?
)he si5 voices are seen as aspects of a sinle character accordin to Naremore and Gerrer %cited in .ussey &'2( .
.arper disarees, because of how the voices are differentiated, and Beer arues that it only has to do with the se5ual
life of one woman.
;uiet describes the interludes and their relationship to the episodes as an overture to an ?pera. /n 1338 the <utch
composer <eFries was inspired to write his opera A King, Riding from readin The Waves.
/t is viewed as either 0a hihly artificial trick0 %Ba9umdar and BcLaurin ,2&( or as 0an authentic and uniCue
masterpiece.04 %Ba9umdar and BcLaurin ,3*(.
;raham suest that as a representative of modernism, its very difficulty and straneness places it at the heart of
B?<!RN/SBMS e5perimental tradition.
;reor points out that readers either identify with it or re9ect it intensely.
-le5ander and $oresky point out that it conveys thins symbolically in order to transcend the literal. )he form is a
mythic or reliious one, that transcends the details of mundane life.
Lorsch disarees with -le5ander and $oresky because $ercival doesnMt solve the problems posed by the metaphysical.
.enke says the book should be understood as a phenomenoloical e5perience instead of as a mystical one.
)ransue arues that it is the development of a form to convey AoolfMs vision in a feminist vein.
/t is about the imaination, creative consciousness, and not about what is created, but the drama of the creation
accordin to .arper, Rantavarra, Stewart, and -scher. /t is an amalation of impressionistic and e5pressionistic devices
accordin to Rantavarra .
/t is about the feminine creative consciousness suests Binow4$inkney
Qwerdlin and ;orsky say it is about alienation.
Boore says it is about 0spirit0 and 0society.0
Ruotolo and Boore suest that there are similarities between AoolfMs vision and .eideer#s philosophy.
;ordon suests that it is an attempt to see all relationships as one, as part of Nature.
/t is a polyphonic novel, usin multiple voices as one voice, accordin to Ricouer .
)he odd choice of tenses is pointed out by ;raham, )ransue, Stewart, and Raitt.
3n 3rt 3ctiity for 0iscussing The Waves
Firinia AoolfMs The Waves is full of colorful visuals, and in its structure in how it deals with the perceptions of
different character, is very much like a Cubist paintin.
)o understand one of cubism#s basic principles, et at least two other people to draw with you %more would be better(.
$lace an ob9ect in the center of the table. <raw a simple contour outline of it44it doesnMt matter if itMs realistic or not. )he
process of seein it is whatMs important. )ake about five to ten minutes for this activity.
Now e5chane your drawin with the person opposite you, and switch seats with the person to the left of you. <raw the
ob9ect aain, over the drawin thatMs already on the pae. )ake about five minutes for this.
Repeat the above step and take about two minutes for this. ?bserve the drawins and discuss how this shiftin of
viewpoint is similar to AoolfMs techniCue in The Waves.
Ahat role does art play in AoolfMs other works %e.. LilyMs paintin in To The Lighthouse(:
3rt images used in a discussion of ,oolf4 cubism4 and modern art :
Bicycle Aheel %131&(
Hlee7 Red and Ahite <omes %131*(
Batisse
Le Bonheur de Fivre %13+'4+@(
Red Room in .armony %13+3(
Stella7 ?ld Brooklyn Bride %131*(
Study Questions for The Waves
.eather Cross, Charlotte )eaue, and )ama Carstensen
The Waves ;roup $resentation
reated November 1, ,+++
1. AoolfMs first title for the novel was The Moths. Ahy do you think she chaned it to The Waves!
,. )he chapters are divided by /nterludes, italici6ed sections relatin to the time of day. )hink about emotional and
physical enery at different times of day. .ow does the sinificance of time shape the novel: -lso consider the
!pisodes %the plot and characters( and the overall rhythm of the novel %one, two, one, two(.
&. $ay attention to the choice of tenses throuhout the book. Ahat does Aoolf convey with these choices:
*. $ercival comes into the picture in the second chapter. Ahat makes him the stabili6in influence in the othersM lives:
'. Several critics noted that The Waves is about one person, but is shown throuh si5 different people %some suest
that this person is Aoolf(. <o you aree: /f so, how do the characters represent one" how do they represent Aoolf" how
do they differ: Gor e5ample7
<iscuss JinnyMs fascination with and AoolfMs re9ection of the mirror.
-fter $ercival died, Rhoda felt liberated. .owever, his death caused her to radually slip away from reality to the
point of suicide. Ahat are your thouhts on RhodaMs conflictin feelins: .ow does $ercival and RhodaMs relationship
compare to )hoby and FiriniaMs relationship:
@. $ay attention to the senses that are invoked, noticed, and inored at various times and by various characters. .ow
does this influence your impression of the character, the settin, the time of day:
8. .ow is The Waves an e5tension of the other novels that weMve read in class:
<o the characters in The Waves attain the androynous mind that Aoolf wishes for in A Room of One"s Own:
<oes Rachel %in A #o$age Out( remind you of any Waves characters: Ahy or why not: Compare Jinny and Brs.
<alloway.
The 5eminist 3esthetics of Virginia ,oolf
by
&ane Goldman
Jane ;oldman offers a revisionary, feminist readin of AoolfMs work. Gocusin on AoolfMs enaement
with the artistic theories of her time, ;oldman traces the feminist implication of her aesthetics by
reclaimin for the everyday world of history and politics what seem to be private mystical moments.
;oldman analyses AoolfMs fascination with the $ost4impressionist e5hibition of 13,+ and the solar
eclipse of 13,8 by linkin her response to a much wider literary and cultural conte5t. She arues that
Aoolf evolves a kind of Mfeminist prismaticsM throuh which she is able to e5press and develop both the
challene and pessimism of her feminist vision. Lavishly illustrated with colour pictures, this book will
appeal not only to scholars workin on Aoolf, but also to students of modernism, art history, and
womenMs studies.
VI'GINI3 ,66L5: "MIN0" 3N0 "M3TT#'" 6N T.# PL3N# 65 3
LIT#'3'7 /6NT'6V#'(7
by ,yndham Le!is
0Ae must reconcile ourselves to a season of failures and framents.0 44 Firinia Aoolf
But with such a challenin capitulation as that of Bod$ and Soul, or Mind and Matter, a misunderstandin is to be
anticipated, and its action must now be forestalled. /t has not been courted by me, but / have allowed the issue which
miht be responsible for it to remain dormant, in the marin, possibly doin my proress, in order to deal with it at
the conclusion of this phase of my arument.
)he effect of what / have said so far miht be to throw the reader into one camp or the other44and he miht certainly
have ot the idea that only two, clearly defined, enerally reconi6ed, positions were involved7 and he miht in the end
find himself in what, even from his own standpoint, was the wron camp.
But Bod$ and Mind, / need not remind the reader of such a book as this, are, philosophically, two very shadowy
counters. )here are, on the market today, patterns of belief e5tendin from the e5treme position, on the one hand, that
there is in fact no traceable psyche, but only one stuff, out of which our world is composed, properly neither 0matter0
nor 0mind0" to the e5treme position on the other, which, as a matter of fact, is much the same as the former, only with a
more stronly marked sub9ective flavourin. )he sinle basic stuff is more soulful at that end that it is at the other, the
deterministic end, that is all.
Ahat, then, in the course of such an arument as this, one is compelled to anticipate, is a confusion arisin from the
eCuivocal nature of the popular counters one is bound to employ. Gor between the e5treme positions / have indicated
above there lie all the more orthodo5 concepts7 it is in that stronly %la&' and white, half4way reion, in between, that
the contests of the 0materialists0 and the 0idealists0 are fouht out. Gor instance, the old battle of the Aoolfs and the
Bennetts had very little meanin outside of, or beyond, that orthodo5 plane.
Now there is one obvious division or opposition starin you in the face 44 and invitin you, on one side and the other, to
drop into its pieon4hole and be at peace 44 that is the &lassifi&ation %$ gender7 the Basculine and the Geminine
departments of the universe. /s it necessary for us to repeat here for the thousand and first time how illusory this
division is found to be, upon inspection7 to point out that many women are far more renadiers or cave4men than they
are little balls of fluff" and that, on the other hand, many men are much more fluffy and 0irlish0 than are their sisters7
that a veneer of habit, and a little bit of hair on the chin and chest, is about all that fundamentally separates one se5
from the other:44But this is not an account of the matter that would be found acceptable by militant feminism. / am
afraid that a reat deal of what miht be termed se()nationalism is to be met with, thouh certainly there are some very
enlihtened women, 9ust as there are a handful of enlihtened men, who frown on, and smile at, such workin4up of hot
party4feelins.R /n the present chapter / am compelled, however, to traverse the thorny reion of feminism, or of
militant feminine feelin. / have chosen the back of Brs. Aoolf44if / can put it in this ineleant way44to transport me
across it. / am sure that certain critics will instantly ob9ect that Brs. Aoolf is e5tremely insinificant44that she is a
purely feminist phenomenon44that she is taken seriously by no one any loner today, e5cept perhaps by Br. and Brs.
Leavis44and that, anyway, feminism is a dead issue. But that will not deter me, any more than the other thorny
obstacles, from my purpose7 for while / am ready to aree that the intrinsic importance of Brs. Aoolf may be
e5aerated by her friends, / cannot aree that as a symbolic landmark44a sort of party4lihthouse44she has not a very
real sinificance. -nd she has crystalli6ed for us, in her critical essays, what is in fact the feminine 44 as distinuished
from the feminist 44 standpoint. She is especially valuable in her 0clash0 with what is today, in fact and in deed, a dead
issue, namely nineteenth4century scientific 0realism,0 which is the e5act counterpart, of course, in letters, of Grench
/mpressionism in art %<eas, Banet, Bonet(.
But the photoraphic <eas, he is literally the end of the world, luckily44 he is more than off the map" and followin
forty years behind the Grench mid4nineteenth century realists, the late Br. Bennett was such a dead horse %drain
such a dead issue( that Brs. Aoolf was merely enaed in an underraduate e5ercise in her pamphlet about him, it
miht be asserted. /n spite of that, so lon as prose4fiction continues to be written, the school of 0realism0 will always
have its followers, in one deree or another. Br. .eminway is a case in point, and so is Br. Gaulkner. But in any work
at all of prose4fiction, however disem%odied in theory, there is, as an important, and indeed essential component, a reat
deal of the techniCue of 0realism07 further than that, it could Cuite well be contended that most of its techniCue was the
realistic techniCue, put into the service of the depictin of the 0disembodied.0 -nd, in any event, satire is a very live
issue today, about that there can be little mistake. )he most brilliant and interestin of the younest poets, of the 0new
sinatures,0 -uden, is above all a satirist. Br. Roy Campbell, in his *eorgiad has produced a masterpiece of the satiric
art, which may be placed beside the eihteenth4century pieces without its sufferin by that pro5imity. -nd what oes
for prosody, oes for prose too. Ae are probably on the threshold, accordin to all the sins and portents, of a reat
period of imainative satire44the times are propitious. -nd, establishin as / am here the theoretic foundations for such
work, / have found that the criticism of 0realism0 is of very reat use for a full illumination of my sub9ect. -nd that is
why / have considered it worth while to dissect in detail the Aoolf4versus4the4realists controversy7 and this course is, as
/ have said, especially indicated, owin to the part that the feminine principle plays in this debate.
!Cuipped with this e5planation, / think we may now proceed. Aell then, when Brs. Aoolf, the orthodo5 0idealist,0
tremulously sCuares up to the bi beefy brute, Bennett,M plainly the very embodiment of commonplace matter 44 it is, in
fact, a rather childish, that is to say an over4simple, en4counter. /t is a cat and do match, riht enouh7 but such
0spiritual0 values as those invoked upon Brs. AoolfMs side of the arument, are of a spiritualism which only e5ists upon
that popular plane, as the complement of hard4and4fast matter. )he one value is as tanible, popular and readily
understood by the 0plain reader0 as the other. / doubt if, at bottom, it is very much more than a boy and irl Cuarrel %to
chane the metaphor from do4and4cat(. / believe it is 9ust the old incompatability of the eternal feminine, on the one
hand, and the rouh foot ballin 0he0 principle44the eternal masculine44on the other. )here is nothin more
metaphysical about it than that.
0/f we tried to formulate our meanin in one word we should say that these three writers JAells, Bennett, ;alsworthyK
are materialists. lt is because they are concerned not with the spirit but with the body that they have disappointed us,0
writes Brs. Aoolf. /s it so simple: ?r rather, were we compelled to decide upon the respective merits of a person, of
the same calibre as, say, Bennett, but who was as delicately mental as he was rossly material, and of Bennett himself,
should we not have to say, that in their respective ways, their masculine and feminine ways, they were much of a
muchness44indeed, a good mat&h: )he preoccupations of Brs. <alloway are after all not so far removed from the
interests of Br. BennettMs characters. ?ne is somewhat nearer to 0the $alace,0 the other to the 0$ub.0 But does not that
even suest a subtle kinship, rather than an irreconcilable foreinness:
)he Cuestion, indeed problem, of James is far more complicated. But still, even with him, we can / believe resolve the
diffficulty, in part, by makin use of %without at all abusin( the cateories of se5. )here is a ood deal of meanin in
the statement that his was a 0feminine0 art. Before he had spent his first full year in $aris, in close contact with all the
devils of 0realism0 in the flesh, we have surprised James sufferin, at a distance, the first impact of that masculine
doctrine7 and, invested with that 0famous realistic system which has asserted itself so larely in the fictitious writin of
the last few years,0we have discovered him sihin 0for a novel with a dramatis personae of disembodied spirits07 and
what he subseCuently did in that direction himself has become a monument, to which to refer the impatient world
%which will not, even in !nland, Cuite take the shadow for the substance and which insists, barbarian that it is, upon its
daily lump of bloodshot beef(. !ntrenched in the merely select reions of 0difficult0 authorship, we encounter many a
talent which does not dispose of the necessary strenth to brave the liht of common day.
-ain it must be remembered that even .enry James is a phenomenon e5clusively of -nlo4Sa5on letters. .e has no
such standin outside -nlo4 Sa5ony as he has in it. .e is a good e5ample, it is true, of that class of non4universal
intelliences, so spiritually idiomatic as to be at the best a mere curiosity for the outside world. /f any meanin can be
found for the term 0classical,0 it certainly would be found to describe what James was not. But the sort of !nlish
writers for whom his prestie has been found useful, are e5ceedinly delicate plants449ust as un4universal as himself
and much more frail. /f James proved himself unable 0to stomach these ferocious companions0 %namely the Glauberts,
de Baupassants, de ;oncourts and the rest, when he entered their vociferous circle in $aris( and if even the amiable
)urenev found that JamesMs writin 0had on the surface too many little flowers and knots of ribbon,0 that it was not
0Cuite meat for men,0 how much more would that have been the case with these small, often portentously advertised,
0misunderstood0 intellientsia, thrown up by our intellectually corrupt and dilettante society in !nland today:
-ccepted as -nlo4Sa5on oddities d"outre Man&he %with the prestie of the British bankin system, rather than of
British art(, they would have been, in the e5clusive circles of Grench literary craftsmanship of the )hird !mpire7 never
as fellow4artists.
/n our island4controversies between the hihbrows and the lowbrows, the typical British lowbrow can stand, as is to be
e5pected, for the 0creepin Sa5on0 riht enouh, or the imperial 0sCuatter,0 who has dulled and deraded any part of
the lobe where he has 0sCuatted044stakin out his claim to import and propaate a civili6ed vularity unheard of before
the coloni6in of the -nlo4Sa5on bean. But that is really not the point. )he snobbish colonial offficial44the -nlo4
lndian as the worst offender44is Cuite as vular as the antipodean sCuatter44he only looks rander and mi5es yoi with
his Scotch and baby 0polly.0 But he is of the same indelibly materialist stock, and the yoiness does not alter that fact.
/ must assume that you do not know, or / must recall to your mind, the parable of Brs. Brown and Br. Bennett. Brs.
Aoolf tells us, in a skilful little sketch, how she enters the carriae of a suburban train, and in so doin intrudes
unwittinly upon a rather passionate conversation of two people 44 one, ver$ large, a blusterin, thick4set, middle4aed
bully of a man7 the other, ver$ small, a very pathetic, poor little old lady %not +uite a lady440/ should doubt if she was an
educated woman,0 says Brs. Aoolf44 but none the less to be pitied for thatI(. )he bi bully had obviously been bullyin
the weaker vessel7 and Brs. Aoolf calls the former Br. Smith, the latter Brs. Brown. -s to make conversation before
the inCuisitive straner in the other corner, or else dreamin aloud, the little old woman asks her vis)a)vis if he could
tell her whether, after bein the host for two years runnin of caterpillars, an oak4tree dies. -nd while Br. Smith %who
is a shamefaced coward, as are all bi bullies come to that( is eaerly replyin to this impersonal Cuestion, lad to be
able to mask beneath an irrelevant stream of words his blackuardly desins upon the defenceless old lady, Brs. Brown
beins, without movin, to let fall tear after tear into her lap. !nraed at this e5hibition of weakness on the part of Brs.
Brown %which he probably would refer to as 0water works0 or somethin brutal of that sort( the bi bully, inorin the
presence of a third party, leans forward and asks Brs. Brown point blank if she will do, yes or no, what he asked her to
do 9ust now, and poor Brs. Brown says yes, she will. -t that moment Clapham Junction presents itself, the train stops,
and the bi bully %probably 9olly lad to escape from the eye of public opinion, as represented by Brs. Aoolf we are
told44for he had little streaks of decency left perhaps( hurriedly leaves the train.
Now the point of the story is, we are told, that Brs. Aoolf, bein born a novelist of course, and this episode occurrin
apparently before she had written any novels %131+ is the date implied( is in a Cuandary as to what to do. She would
have li'ed to write a novel about Brs. Brown, she tells us. But how was she to do it: Gor after all Aells, ;alsworthy
and Bennett %the only novelists apparently that, true child of her time, she knew about( had not tauht her how to do it7
the only tools %she apoloi6es for this professional word( available were those out of the tool4bo5 of this trio. -nd alasI
they were not suitable for the portrayal of Brs. Brown. So what was poor little she to do:
She then enlares upon her dilemma44which she tells us was also the dilemma of <. .. Lawrence, of !. B. Gorster and
the rest of the people she reconi6es as the makers and shakers of the new4ae %all, to a man, ruined by the wicked,
inappropriate trio44/ need not repeat the names(. Gindin himself in the same compartment with Brs. Brown, Aells
would have looked out the window, with a blissful faraway >topian smile on his face. .e would have taken no interest
in Brs. Brown. ;als worthy would have written a tract round her7 and Bennett would have nelected her 0soul0 for her
patched loves and stockins.
)his was really a terrible situation for a novelist to be in, in 131+7 and everythin that has happened since, or to be
more accurate, that has not happened since, is due to the shortcomins of this diabolical trio %but especially, we are led
to understand, to the defective pen of the eminent Givetowner(.
-nd what this has meant for the novelist, it has meant also for the poet, essayist, historian and playwriht. The sins of
the fathers shall %e visited 44 it is the old old story7 it is the instinctive outcry of the war4time Sitwells and Sassoons,
that is was their fathers and randfathers who had caused the war44which, as / have been at pains to point out elsewhere
%The *reat Blan' of the Missing *eneration( is very much nelectin the fact that there were many other and more
formidable persons in the world at the same time as the amiable and probably inoffensive old entlemen who were
responsible for this recriminatin offsprin7 and that probably those proenitors of a 0sacrificed0 eneration were 9ust
as powerless as their sons, or fathers, to cope with the forces, visible and invisible, which precipitated the Aorld4Aar 44
althouh they no doubt deserve a curse or two, 9ust as we do ourselves, for bein so short4sihted, and so ill4eCuipped
for defence, aainst all the daners that beset a modern democracy.
Ahat Brs. Aoolf says about the three villains of this hihly artificial little piece is perfectly true, as far as it oes7 0the
difference perhaps is,0 she writes, 0that both Sterne and Jane -usten were interested in thins in themselves" in
character in itself7 in the book in itself.0 ?f course, of courseI who would not e5claim7 it is not 0perhaps0 the
difference44is as plain as the nose was on .odeMs face. ?f course Sterne and Jane -usten were a different kettle of fish,
both to Brs. AoolfMs three sparrin partners or -unt Sallies, and to Brs. Aoolf herself.
-nd then Brs. Aoolf oes on to tell us that we must not e5pect too much of Bessrs. !liot, Joyce, Lawrence, Gorster, or
Strachey either. Gor they all, in their way, were in the same unenviable position. -ll were bo5ed up with some Brs.
Brown or other, lonin to 0ba0 the old irl, and yet completely impotent to do so, because no one was there on the
spot to show them how, and they could not, poor dears, be e5pected to do it themselvesI <o not complain of us, then,
she implores her public. Show some pity for such a set of people, born to such a forlorn destinyI Dou will never et
anythin out of us e5cept a little ood stuff by fits and starts, a sketch or a frament. Br. !liot, for instance, ives you a
pretty line 44 a solitary line. But you have to hold your breath and wait a lon time for the ne5t. )here are no 0$assion
flowers at the ate droppin a splendid tear0 %cf. A Room of One"s Own( 44 not in our time. )here are 9ust dis9ointed
odds and endsI
0Ae must reconcile ourselves to a season of failures and framents. Ae must reflect that where so much strenth is
spent on findin a way of tellin the truth the truth itself is bound to reach us in rather an e5hausted and chaotic
condition. >lysses, =ueen Fictoria, Br. $rufrock44to ive Brs. Brown some of the names she has made famous lately44
is a little pale and dishevel led by the time her rescuers reach her.0M
)here you have a typical contemporary statement of the position of letters today. /ts artificiality is self4evident, if you
do no more than consider the words7 for ,l$sses however else it may have arrived at its destination was at least not
pale. But here, doubtless, Brs. Aoolf is merely confusin the becomin pallor, and certain untidiness of some of her
own pretty salon pieces with that of JoyceMs masterpiece %indeed that masterpiece is implicated and confused with her
own pieces in more ways than one, and more palpable than this, but into that it is not necessary to enter here(. -s to the
0strenth spent in findin a way,0 that takes us back to the fable of Brs. Brown, and the fearful disadvantae under
which Brs. Aoolf laboured. -nyone would suppose from what she says that at the time in Cuestion )rollope, Jane
-usten, Glaubert, Baupassant, <ostoievsky, )urenev, )olstoy, etc., etc., etc., etc., were entirely inaccessible to this
poor lost 0;eorian0 would4be novelist7 it is as thouh she, Bennett, Aells and ;alsworthy had been the only people in
the world at the time, and as if there had been no books but their books, and no land but !nland.R )he further
assumption is that, prior to -rufro&', ,l$sses and Br. Lytton StracheyMs bioraphies, there had been either %1( no
renderin of anythinso e5clusive and remote as the 0soul0 of a person7 or else %,( that the fact that there was not much
0soul0 in the work of Br. Bennett made it very very difficult for Br. Joyce to write ,l$sses7 and that by the time he had
succeeded in some way in banishin Br. Bennett, he had only strenth enouh left to concoct a 0pale0 little 0frament,0
namely ,l$sses.
But, aain, it is obviously the personal problems of Brs. Aoolf ettin mi5ed up with the problems of Br. Joyce above
all peopleI Gor it is Cuite credible that Clayhaner, astride the island scene44alon with his iantic colleaues, Gorsyte
and Britlin44was a very real problem for the ambitious buddin pre4war novelist %especially as she was a little woman,
and they were reat bi burly men44reat 0bullies0 all three, like all the men, confound themI(.
But let us at once repudiate, as false and artificial, this account of the contemporary situation in the 0Brs. Brown0 fable.
JoyceMs ,l$sses may be 0a disaster044a failure44as Brs. Aoolf calls it in her $lain Reader. But it is not a frament. /t is,
of its kind, somewhat more robustly 0complete0 than most of the classical e5amples of the novel, in our tonue
certainly. /t is not the half4work in short, 0pale0 and 0disheveled,0 of a crippled interrenum. Nor is there anythin half4
there about <. .. LawrenceMs books. Gar from bein 0pale,0 they are much too much the reverse.
/f you ask7 <o you mean then that there is nothin in this view at all, of ours bein a period of Sturm und .rang, in
which new methods are bein tried out, and in which the artistic production is in conseCuence tentative: / reply7 )here
is nothin new in the idea at all, if you mean that the present time differs from any other in bein e5perimental and in
seekin new forms7 or if you seek to use that arument to account for mediocrity, or smallness of output, or any of the
other individual 0failures0 that occur as a result of the natural ineCuality of men, and the certain precariousness of the
creative instinct44sub9ect, in the case of those over4susceptible to nervous shock, to intermittency of output, and, in
e5treme cases, to e5tinction.
)hen why, you may enCuire, is it an opinion that is so widely held:44 Because44/ aain make answer44the people who
have been most influential in literary criticism, for a number of years now, have been interested in the propaation of
this account of thins449ust as the orthodo5 economists have, consciously or not, from interested motives, maintained in
its place the traditional picture44that of superhuman diffi&ult$ 44 of some a%solute obstructin the free circulation of the
ood thins of life.
)hose most influential in the literary world, as far as the 0hihbrow0 side of the racket was concerned, have mostly
been minor personalities, who were impelled to arrane a sort of bous 0time0 to take the place of the real 0time044to
brin into bein an imainary 0time,0 small enouh and 0pale0 enouh to accommodate their not very robust talents.
)hat has, consistently, been the so4called 0Blooms bury0 techniCue, both in the field of writin and of paintin, as /
think is now becomin enerally reconi6ed. -nd, needless to say, it has been very much to the disadvantae of any
viorous manifestation in the arts" for anythin above the salon scale is what this sort of person most dislikes and is at
some pains to stifle. -nd also, necessarily, it brins into bein a Cuite false picture of the true aspect of our scene.R So
we have been invited, all of us, to instal ourselves in a very dim Fenusber indeed7 but Fenus has become an
introverted matriarch, broodin over a subterraneous 0stream of consciousness044a feminine phenomenon after all44and
we are a pretty sorry set of knihts too, it must be confessed,44at least in Brs. AoolfMs particular version of the affair.
/ saw pale kins, and princes too,
$ale warriors, death4pale were they all . . .
/t is a myopic humanity, that threads its way in and out of this 0unreal city,0 whose ob9ective obstacles are in theory
unsubstantial, but in prac4 tice reCuire a delicate neotiation. /n our local e5ponents of this method there is none of the
realistic viour of Br. Joyce, thouh often the incidents in the local 0masterpieces0 are e5act and puerile copies of the
scenes in his <ublin drama %cf. the FiceroyMs proress throuh <ublin in ,l$sses with the =ueenMs proress throuh
London in Mrs/ .allowa$ 44 the latter is a sort of underraduate imitation of the former, windin up with a smoke4
writin in the sky, a pathetic 0crib0 of the fire work display and the rocket that is the culmination of Br. BloomMs beach4
ecstasy(. But to appreciate the sort of fashionable dimness to which / am referrin, let us turn for a moment to Brs.
Aoolf, where she is a peepin in the half4liht7.
0She had reached the park ates. She stood for a moment, lookin at the omnibuses in $iccadilly.0 She should really
have written peepin at the omnibuses in $iccadillyI44for 0She would not say of anyone in the world now that they
were this or were that. She felt very youn7 at the same time unspeakably aed. She sliced like a knife throuh
everythin7 at the same time was outside, lookin on. She had a perpetual sense as she watched the ta5icabs, of bein
out, out, far out to sea and alone" she always had the feelin that it was very, very danerous to live even one day.0 )o
live outside, of course that means. ?utside it is terribly dangerous44in that reat and coarse Aithout, where all the he4
men and he4irls 0live4danerously0 with a brutal insensibility to all the risks that they run, forever in the public places.
But this dangerousness does, after all, make it all very thrilling, when peeped4out at, from the security of the private
mind7 0and yet to her it was absolutely absorbin" all this, the cabs passin.0
)hose are the half4lihted places of the mind44in which, Cuiverin with a timid e5citement, this sort of intellience
shrinks, thrilled to the marrow, at all the wild oins4onI - little old4maidish, are the $rousts and sub4$rousts / think.
-nd when two old maids44or a company of old maids44shrink and cluster toether, they titter in each otherMs ears and
delicately tee4hee, pointin out to each other the red4blood antics of thisor that upstandin fiure, treadin the perilous
Aithout. )hat was the manner in which the late Lytton Strachey lived44peepin more into the past than into the present,
it is true, and it is that of most of those associated with him. -nd 44 minus the shrinkin and titterin, and with a
commendable habit of standin, half4concealed, but alone 44 it was the way of life of Barcel $roust.
But it has also, in one deree or another, been the way of life of many a recent fiure in our literature44as in the case of
Barius the !picurean, 0made easy by his natural !picureanism . . . promptin him to conceive of himself as but the
passive spectator of the world around him.0 Some, not content with retreatin into the ambulatories of their inner
consciousness, will instal there a sort of private oratory. Grom this fate 0the fleshly school0 of the last century was
saved, not much to its credit certainly, by the paan impulses which still linered in !urope. -nd it became ultimately
the 0art4for4artMs4sake0 cult of the Nauhty Nineties. Aalter $ater was, of course, the fountain4head of that cult. -nd he
shows us his hero, Barius 44 escapin from that particular trap, waitin upon the introverted 44 in the followin passae7
-t this time, by his poetic and inward temper, he miht have fallen a prey to the enervatin mysticism,
then in wait for ardent souls in many a melodramatic revival of old reliion or theosophy. Grom all this,
fascinatin as it miht actually be to one side of his character, he was kept by a enuine virility there,
effective in him, amon other results, as a hatred of what was theatrical, and the instinctive reconition
that in viorous intellience, after all, divinity was mostly likely to be found a resident.
)hat is, from the horseMs mouth, the rationale of the non4reliious, un4theosophic, pleasure4cult, of which 44 in that
ninetyish pocket at the end of the nineteenth century, in full, more than Stracheyish, reaction aainst Fictorian manners
44 ?scar Ailde was the hih4priest. -nd there is, of course, a very much closer connection than people suppose between
the aesthetic movement presided over by ?scar Ailde, and that presided over in the first post4war decade bv Brs.
Aoolf and Biss Sitwell. %Biss Sitwell has recently been rather overshadowed by Brs. Aoolf, but she once played an
eCually important part 44 if it can be called important 44 in these events.( /t has been with considerable shakin in my
shoes, and a feelin of treadin upon a carpet of es, that / have taken the cow by the horns in this chapter, and
broached the sub9ect of the part that the feminine mind has played 44 and minds as well, deeply femini6ed, not
technically on the distaff side 44 in the erection of our present criteria. Gor fifteen years / have subsisted in this to me
suffocatin atmosphere. / have felt very much a fish out of water, very alien to all the standards that / saw bein built
up around me. / have defended myself as best / could aainst the influences of what / felt to be a tyrannical inverted
orthodo5y4in4the4makin. Aith the minimum of duplicity / have held my own7 / have constantly assailed the swarms of
infatuated builders. So, havin found myself in a peculiarly isolated position, / had beun to take for ranted that these
habits of mind had come to stay, in those about me, and that / must et used to the life of the outlaw, for there was
nothin else to do. But it seems that / was perhaps mistaken. )here is, to 9ude from all the sins, a ood chance that a
reversal of these values 44 the values of decay 44 is at hand. So in my ne5t chapter / make, with more likelihood of a
certain, not unpowerful, support than is customary, an e5pedition into the %ad)lands.
THE MEASURE OF LIFE
Virginia Woolf's Last Years
Herbert Marder
Cornell University Press ($35)
by Carolyn Huebler
n his 0$relude0 to The Measure of Life, .erbert Barder tells a story about his 0somewhat offbeat0 decision, as a raduate student at Columbia
in the M@+s, to write his thesis on Firinia AoolfMs novels. Aoolf, who wasnMt yet part of the standard collee syllabus, was also out of political
favor at the time, known mainly as an upper4middle4class 0lady0 who wrote beautiful, e5perimental novels. But e5plainin to his advisor that
0there are subversive, radical ideas all over her books,0 Barder won his approval and bean an important chapter in his own writin life. .is
first book, 0eminism and Art1 A Stud$ of #irginia Woolf, was published in 13@2" now, thirty years older himself, he presents a picture of Aoolf
in her fifties. 0/ felt that the enlihtened Firinia of the 13&+s, who displayed reat sanity and courae under fire %her decision to choose the
time and manner of her death did not diminish that(, reCuired a bioraphy of her own.0
<espite her hihly chared, standard4syllabus feminist essays, A Room of One"s Own and Three *uineas, Aoolf is better known for her radical
style than her subversive political ideas. She broke many rules, and did so beautifully, but her characters %and she herself( were mostly polite
and well4behaved society people, much of the outrae and rebellion takin place under the surface. Barder doesnMt deny AoolfMs poetic
capabilities and achievements, nor does he arue in favor of her lesser4known novels, those she wrote durin her last ten years. Ahat he shows
us is how AoolfMs always4powerful sense of aner at political and social in9ustices rew more and more urent as she rew older, and how she
rew increasinly desperate to manifest this rae in her work.
BarderMs interest in AoolfMs subversive ideas is well4served by a close look at these final years. -s !urope was e5plodin all around her, Aoolf
found it nearly impossible to maintain her belief in the sinificance of her art, and as !nland prepared for war, she felt she was losin her
audience. She wanted desperately to have some kind of impact on the world. -s Barder remarks, 0Ahen reviewers praised the beauty of her
writin, inorin its substance, she protested that she would rather be known as an uly writer but an honest one.0 She even broke with her own
writerly impulses in an attempt always to try somethin new, somethin that miht take her work beyond literature itself and into the realm of
real4life influence.
<espite BarderMs obvious interest in the political side of thins, The Measure of Life does not serve a sinle theme, theory, or aenda. Clearly
the authorMs devotion to Aoolf arose from the novels themselves, from her manificent sentences, and then rew to include the authorMs lifelon
strule and the way each book fit into her livin and breathin beyond the pae. Barder pieces toether the letters, diaries, and publications
into a chronoloical narrative, resistin the temptation to surmise and editoriali6e. -t the same time, he creates a personal tone that reckons
with its own biases and self4interest. .e takes care to e5plain this at the beinnin of the book, statin his purpose and intent7 0/ vowed to
respect the otherness of my sub9ect, to listen to what Firinia Aoolf actually said rather than what one e5pected her to say. /n short, to believe
her . . . to rely on her own testimony and to trace the self4creatin motifs, the core of identity, defined by her own words.0
Barder analy6es of each book from this period44The Waves, The 2ears, The 2ears, Three *uineas, and Between the A&ts44apart from the conte5t
of the bioraphy, thouh always surrounded by it. .e provides a sort of Cliffs4Notes description of each book, followed by his own
assessments" here is where he allows his opinion to come into play most obviously. )hese moments of sub9ectivity are well4deserved and often
interestin and astute in their particular observations.
The Measure of Life offers a fascinatin look at how a writerMs raw ideas and her art mere, and also how they fail to. Aoolf struled doedly
in these last years, her work becomin drudery at times, and her sense of failure increasin. But there was also a lot of deliht in her letters
and diary entries from these years, and the enery pours forth to her friends, in particular the robust composer !thel Smyth. 0M?nly in myself, /
say, forever bubbles this impetuous torrent. . . . / am more full of shape O colour than ever,M0 she wrote in 13,3. Ahile she may have left behind
the imae of a thin, cold suicidal intellience, Aoolf was actually very passionate, witty, and enaed in the world around her.
?nce an author is canoni6ed and beloved as Aoolf is, itMs hard to imaine her bein susceptible to critics, to bad days, to fear of failure. But
Aoolf was plaued by all these thins, completely shaken by neative reviews, or even careless ones, and she was convinced, from time to
time, that all of her work was a failure. Ahen it was most devastatin was, of course, when she was still in the midst of it, and The 2ears, which
took five years to write, may have been the biest strule of all. She wanted to make it different from anythin else she had ever written,
mostly because she wanted to continue to challene herself and to have more impact on social reality. .er writin of The 2ears is the most
harrowin sement of this period of her life, up until her suicide. )his book, more than any other, wore her out, and in the end she didnMt believe
in it the way she believed in her more poetic masterpieces, The Waves and To the Lighthouse.
/tMs also surprisin to hear of her less4enviable attributes. )houh she was aware that her bein a dauhter of a famous man of letters and her
connections to the powers that be ave her special privilees, even if not a lot of money, she remained an incurable snob. She looked down on
poor people, servants, and anyone without the education she had. Some of her remarks, thouh enerally meant only for her diary or for private
letters, are disturbinly classist. She may have been active with the Labor $arty and written on behalf of less4privileed in Three *uineas and A
Room of One"s Own, but she had a tenacious sense of pride in her class that bordered on the kind of 0barbarism0 she herself so hated.
Firinia AoolfMs breakdowns, her marriae to the austere Leonard, her connections to the colorful Bloomsbury circle44all of this is well4
documented and even mytholoi6ed in the hundreds of books on Aoolf that have been published since BarderMs raduate school days. But
BarderMs approach, based as it is on her voice rather than on any 0thesis,0 allows the reader to see AoolfMs enius, her failures and her passions,
as the comple5, varieated days of a life. Aoolf comes off as a hard4workin writer who never rested on her popularity and praise. /n this book,
Barder moves the last ten years of her life out from under the shadow of her suicide, and respectfully and lovinly puts this productive time
into conte5t. .ousehold chatter, visits to the doctor, Cuibbles with servants, and blossomin friendships may not chane Firinia AoolfMs
literary output or her influence" they do, however, make a ood story of artistic strule, a story worthy of its many retellins.