The Waves

In The Waves, the eponymous motif of waves is the most important motif, deeply linked with Woolf’s design of the novel. Both thematically and structurally, the concept of the wave runs through the flowing stream-of-consciousness style, the novel’s exploration of time, and the artistic conceptualization of human lived experience. The title informs the reader that the wave will be integral, and it becomes increasingly clear that its significance is largely conceptual and metaphorical in the novel (i.e., one of imagery, structure, and ideas rather than of setting or plot). The opening of the novel presents the first of the poetic interludes, in which the waves are most literally described as scenes. These wave-themes interludes, and their juxtaposition with the human-interest narratives of the full chapters, are essential to Woolf’s treatment of time, especially the parallel she creates of natural and human time. The waves represent natural time and create a philosophical, universal context for the lives of the characters. Waves are paradoxical as an image: they are beautiful and destructive, eternal and fleeting, emotive and impassive. They are also used in the novel to be expressive of tumultuous human emotion and/or the indifference of the universe: