He examines how she came to write the novel, what her concerns were at the time, and how it is linked both in style and theme with her earlier, more accessible works. Rhoda resembles Virginia Woolf in some respects. Eric Warner places The Waves in the context of Virginia Woolf's career and of the 'modern' age in which it was written. She echoes Shelley's poem "The Question". Rhoda is riddled with self-doubt, anxiety and depression, always rejecting and indicting human compromise, always seeking out solitude. Some aspects of Susan recall Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell. Susan flees the city, preferring the countryside, where she grapples with the thrills and doubts of motherhood. There is evidence that she is based on Woolf's friend Mary Hutchinson. Jinny is a socialite whose world view corresponds to her physical, corporeal beauty. Neville, who may be partly based on another of Woolf's friends, Lytton Strachey, seeks out a series of men, each of whom becomes the present object of his transcendent love. Louis is an outsider who seeks acceptance and success. Woolf is concerned with the individual consciousness and the ways in which multiple consciousnesses can weave together.īernard is a story-teller, always seeking some elusive and apt phrase. The novel follows its six narrators from childhood through adulthood.
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