One Line

"'I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling
of feet on the pavement'" (238).

Points for Reflection

The Waves, pp.207-97

1. In what ways have our six characters changed in the intervening years, and what remains unchanged about each?
2. Do these characters make accurate assessments of one another?
3. Given that Bernard arranged his old friends' meeting, why is he reluctant to actually step up to them (210)?
4. What are the papers, the credentials which Neville has in his pocket and ponders bringing into the open (211-12)?
5. Are the others as affected as Neville by the absence of Percival?
6. With the bit about the clashing antlers (215), is Woolf suggesting that aggression must necessarily precede intimacy?
7. What does Louis hope to link by creating "one line" (219)?
8. What is the "charging bull" which haunts life, according to Louis (220)?
9. Why are our moments inside Jinny's head the shortest and most lucid (least abstract) of the bunch (220-22)?
10. What does Rhoda mean by the claim that she has “no face” (223)?
11. What percentage of the time shared among these characters is characterized by silence?
12. Do Woolf's characters briefly lose their distinctiveness and merge into one united chorus at any point?
13. Neville appears conflicted about sexual desire (226). Why?
14. Does the friends' shared, intense moment of intimacy constitute a victory over Time (228)?
15. Do our six characters dive deeper the the rest of humanity into the layers of realiity?
16. What kind of story is Bernard now most comfortable telling?
17. Does the enigmatic figure of Percival come into greater relief as Bernard reminisces about him (242-43)?
18. Are Bernard's appraisals of his friends accurate?
19. How confident is Bernard about the validity of his own assessments?
20. Are the stages of Bernard's (remembered) grieving process familiar--are they realistic?
21. Does Jinny's (past) reaction to Percival's death earn the reader's respect (265)?
22. What is your own response to Bernard's question of whether "the story" should end at the top of p.267?
23. Why has Bernard lost his impulse to write, and how does he regain it?
24. Trace the back and forth of Bernard's optimism and pessimism concerning life, shifts often signaled by such coordinating conjunctions as "but" and "yet" (267-71). Does Bernard ultimately land on a high or low note?
25. What does the recurring image of a fin in the water symbolize for Bernard?
26. Does Bernard's claim that he knows his friends but "little," and that he too is "dim" and "unknown" to them (275), hold water?
27. To what purpose does Bernard put the memory of Rhoda as he walks down the Strand (281)? Why, and what happened to her?
28. Why might Woolf have chosen Bernard's voice to be the only voice heard in the novel's last section?
29. Can you sense intimations of Woolf's own, eventual suicide in this novel?
30. Why does Bernard feel the rhythm of his life has stopped, and what emotion accompanies this realization (283-86)?
31. How completely does Bernard reverse his downward spiral?  Does he find a viable answer to his question of how to proceed now “without a self, weightless and visionless, through a world weightless without illusion?” (285)?
32. Who is the “you” to whom Bernard speaks in the final pages?  Is it a single entity?
33. Does the novel end on a tragic note?

Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (1888)
Vincent van Gogh

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu