Clemson University
Spring 2000
Structural Outline
of The Waves
by Virginia Woolf
(Page
numbers are beginning of sections in Harcourt ANNOTATED edition)
Episode One : CHILDHOOD
3 Before
sunrise ; everything undistinguishable. Sea: Garden: house. Woman raises lamp
4
Impressions at dawn; various
geometrical figures, ring, slab, globe, Sounds
6 Louis
alone before breakfast; Jinny kisses Louis;
7 Susan
gets depressed and runs off;
9 Bernard
comforts her with fantasy of Elvedon;
11 Rhoda
wi petals in bowl; lessons wi Miss Hudson; reactions to words;
12 Louis—roots
13 Rhoda
outside loop of time B & J under currant bushes; Miss Curry takes them for
a walk;
15 Neville
left behind;
16
Susan sees servants kissing; dinner; baths; Rhoda going to sleep
Episode Two : SCHOOL DAYS (IDENTITY, AUTHORITY, TRADITION)
19 Sun
rising; bud opening; amorphousness
20 Bernard
leaving for school first time; Louis alienated; Neville fits in, Headmaster,
old Crane
22 Girls at school react to Miss Lambert: Susan
Homesick; R no face; Jinnyt dancing
23 Boys
at chapel : L like order; N sees corruption, love P; B notebook
25 Boys
& cricket: L describes P; N
describes B;; L ring of steel
27 Girls
getting ready to play tennis: S thinking of country, describes J; J looking
glass comp self to S and R; R no face; S
bury things; R Mrs L; J frock billows
32 Cricket
match: various reactions to masculinity: L boasting boys—want to be like; N on
P; B makes up story abt Dr. Crane; N on B & L, no solace in nature; L
entering party
37 Girls--day
before vacation, longing for future: S imaging country home; J dancing hope for
man; R waiting for night, to dream, to offer flowers—to whom?
40 Boys--day
before vacation: Louis great books; B distracted by bee; N mummery
43 Girls--first
day of holidays, on the train: S
snelling fields; J frill; R humiliation attached to monster
46 Boys
on train: L not to college; B making up
stories abt passengers; N mediocrity—horror of don or suburbs
Episode Three : COLLEGE & SOCIALS
52 sun risen; girl creating jewels; detritus on
beach; birds now sing in chorus; focus on one object; look into unlit world;
purulence; sun inside; waves like warriors
54 men:
Bernard at college, writing love letter like Byron, fantasy of visit to country
house;
58 Neville
also at college, on river; in love wi Percival, wants to be a poet; Bernard
reacting to N;
63 N
reacting to B, doomed always in love; B meditating on friends;
66 Louis
in eating shop, feels alien and vulnerable
68--rootd
69 Women:
Susan in early morning, imagining lover, hungry;
72 Jinny
going to party wi gilt chairs, unfurls, rooted but flowing; talking freely;
75 Rhoda
terrified at party., tongues cut like knives, wave breaks.
Episode Four : DINNER PARTY (lots abt separation and unity of group; 89
remorseless egotism of the young)
78 risen sun; thud of waves--assegais; rivers
move inland; in garden birds sing alone, now and then songs run together, then
sever; birds crack shell of snail; sun in room makes object on table sharply
defined
80 ARRIVALS:
Bernard on train, momentum; happiness at being engaged makes him feel connected
to other passengers, but then splits off; needs others 83 L and R are
authentics; going to farewell dinner for P /
85
Neville arrives early/
86 Louis
sees Susan (to be loved by her, pierced by beak)/ 87 Susan sees Jinny/ Nev sees
Bernard/ 88 Rhoda no face
88 PERCEVAL
ARRIVES: Neville, P restores order;
89 DINNER PARTY: everyone contributes short
sharp memories; review life stages
91 IDENTITY
STATEMENTS: Bernard's flower speech;
92 Louis: re-incarnation speech, seeking a pattern;
93 Jinny
sees social pattern but only in terms of own body; rapidity and change of Neville's
mental life; 94 Rhoda, lacks all connection; 95 Susan natural happiness only; 96
B cannot bear solitude
97 SENSORY REACTIONS: R, mystic light; Jinny
membranes; L roar of London;
98 REACTIONS
TO PERCIVAL: B thinks of India, 99 R sees him as a round stone; for Louis he is
the touchstone that makes falseness clear; S love hate;
100 DRIFTING
INTO FANTASIES AS DINNER ENDS: N overfed, fall into cavern; R white statues,
fountain, grove...
101 N
lover who does not come; Louis and Rhoda imagine a festival dance that turns
into a funeral procession
103 ESTABLISHING
THE CIRCLE BEFORE IT IS BROKEN: Susan senses circle as chain; Louis feels it
break in flow; R sees circle destroyed; 104 B sees moment of ravenous identity
is over; 105 Louis feels circle close again; J globe whose walls are P; S M or
T
106 B
we are creators; N horror of P’s absence
Episode Five : PERCIVAL;S DEATH (shift
to past perfect)
107 Sun at full height; burns, uncompromising,
exact, level. Starts out reds, goes to
grey. Roams over other countries, mosque, southern hills, boat (passage to
India)but then as comes back to England turns green and purple. One green
mound. Birds singing to each other,
building nests. In the house a zone of
shadow. Waves make sound of beast
stamping.
109 REACTIONS
TO P’S DEATH: Neville cannot pass by the tree, loses sense of reality;
110 Bernard's
son just born, sense of sequence, goes to art gallery, tires to be alone;
115 R
cannot cross puddle, walking thru town, violets; sense of death, ugly faces, hanging
meat, goes to concert; 118 oblong in square (we have madea dwelling place);
fantasy of dark pools, pillars stand entire; offering to P
Episode Six : THE LIFE OF WORK &
LOVE
120 Sun past mid-point. Birds, dragonfly, reeds, still. Red blinds.
Light driving darkness before it in mounds.
Rising tide but fish stranded.
122 Louis
in office--commerce; attic room. He and
Rhoda lovers. Make one of his many
selves; hatchet falls. (Hilarious parody
od various TSE works)
124 Susan
at home with baby; has become her mother. -->Glutted
wi natural happiness, but no longer aware of season
126 Jinny
at a party, making up stories about people; lover--jug jug
129 Neville
in rooms wi lover, remembering journey of the day; descent into tube. Fears
unfaithfulness relationship. Hates
pomposity. How we build a relationship
by noticing things together
Episode Seven : MIDDLE
AGE (What is lost)
132 Sun lower, clouds and shadows draining
color; tide at ebb. Birds flying in formation except for one, solitary in
marsh. Wind among flowers causes them to
bend and flash like a FIN cutting through water; petals fall and heads droop.
Fields of corn varnished wi red and gold.
Brown tinge in house, shadow of moth.
134 Bernard--drop
falls: awareness of loss. Goes to Rome. State of detachment; accepts
limits. Collects phrases but no story to
connect them. Why select detail? But then he begins to move again, caught up
in the general sequence. FIN in waste of
waters.
138 Susan--
in field wi son, summit of desire; I possess all I see. round of country life. Makes
wreaths for dead.But sometimes sick of natural happiness. Memories of childhood
140 Jinny-- Tube in London. No longer part of procession. But takes
solace in Empire
142 Neville--
says he doesn’t need anything anymore; we are not responsible for others.
Thinks of L and R; goes to his room where he reads and goes down into self to
write poetry; sits by fire, lover comes
146 Louis--back
from office, divested of authority; reads one poem (Shelley, West Wind);
pyramid; destiny trying to weave history together. P and R left him
149 Rhoda--coming back from tube, hates crowds. House we made sq upon oblong. On a hill in Spain, thinking abt jumping off
cliff
Episode Eight : REUNION DINNER AT
HAMPTON COURT
152 sun
sinking: red and gold turn to grey. Tree
loses its uniformity, cut corn, pool no longer reflects, one bone, heat and
color have gone out. But black turns to
blue as shadows lengthen, foam leaves pearl rim behind.
154 Difficulty
of Meeting Again: Bernard, slight discomfort; Neville sorrow over loss of P,
feels challenged by Susan but also discuss his various loves; Susan aware of
discrediting N because she has chosen monogamy;
158 Rhoda
green knife; obscene lovers
159 Reflections
on separateness: Bernard cannot bear solitude; Louis feels thread is broken but
relies on job and ironic distance;
160 Jinny
focuses on the present surface, surround by people although she knows she is
growing older.
163 Rhoda
can talk to others but still has no real face, knows she will fall alone but
still imagines blowing bubble that will surround them all
165 Meditations
in silence after dinner: Bernard egotism blunted by food; j miracle of life
staying in present but R end of life and L sense of being dissolved in history
166 Fight
against the Chaos: Nev love, R sees them getting ready to leave;
167 WALK
After Dinner: Bernard holds forth about history, N also evokes belonging to
history L walking with hands clasped WI others, remembers singing as child; J
feels triumph, B 6-sided flower, J flower too
169 R
and L watch others walk on as they stop by urn... see the other approaching as
fish from sea.
171 Others
return: B comments on destroying a world; B sense of tolerable of life--lights
of shopkeepers . making up another story.
Episode Nine : BERNARD's
SUMMING UP
174 Sun
has set; can’t distinguish sea and sky, black and grey. Things melt into obscurity. Waves of darkness
176 B:
sees globe of life but needs words.
Recounts narrative: the nursery; the garden (moment of first awareness
of self as separate), Elvedon; the things that made them all different (N and
dead man), school and Percival, memories of Louis and Neville; discovery of
girls (*184: what is beyond the individual, what is perhaps permanent, is the
symbolic); first love;
186 willow
tree by the river: shares N's vision, Rhoda sees tree in wasteland; Jinny’s
willow is in the moment; Louis in city landscape... 187 Moment when B’s I.d.
solidifies, sense of being inheritor of civilization
188 move
into the house, complexity of life, 189--shell form, period of precision and
completeness when we become very competent, but still there are moments (*189--globe
is a bubble , cauldron with six little fish)
191 B’s
leap--marriage, (192 biographer) tendency to domesticity; sense of completeness
in life and sufficiency of language 193
195 interrupted
by P’s death, no language for pain; ability to be detached but guilt at not
having gone to Hampton court wi P. Talk
wi Jinny about P, but make him into a lily; goes to each friend.
198 Is
this the end of the story?? But wave
rises again in him and he goes on, but now with some hesitation. Visit wi Susan
makes him see surrender to stupidity of nature; Elvedon but sense of
inescapability of death—
199 lowest
curve of being, and yet fights, 200--nets leaves of tree into order with words.
200 Back
to city on train, pleasure in pageant of existence.
201 Another
drop falls; seeks Nev. who thinks in unlimited time of the mind, but focuses in
on one person, moment;
204 then
visits L and R but no answer; thinks of S and J
205 Remembers
Hampton Court--sense of rivalry yet together they make complete body
207 Barber
shop, sense of dissolution, cut in swathes, but then collects identity. Pretends to be with R though she has killed
herself.
209 Goes
to St. Paul’s, which he does not respect as Louis
210 Rhythm
stopped for one day, leaning over gate—companion self
211 nothingness,
eclipse of sun, life as a dance of dust.
212 But
sun and color return--though to a world now wiout self
213 for
a moment had seen house—this is the truth
.Meets “you” in the cloak room.
214 Doubts
fixities; has lost shell which grows in youth—can’t separate self from others;
try to tell story of life but all those figures of the unconscious: old brute,
hairy man
215 body
like temple (merging wi other’s sensations-- doves, Rhoda; forks, Nev) in
freedom from desire, and identity. (Shock of wave which wakes him to see golden
loop--back to beginning)
216 now
merges with images of interludes (birds, tunnels among flowers, house.
217
return to awareness of reader, seeing him--walks into pillar box. Sense of how disgusting life is. Pain
inflicted by others. But then again,
gradual acceleration and unification.
218 Praise
of solitude (book drops to the floor).
219 Reiterates
need for a little language; bare things
220 waiter
comes, end of meal. Outside, is a
kindling in sky--not yet dawn. Eternal
renewal, wave rises again. Death is the
enemy.
