The Waves Study Guide

Virginia Stephen was born and raised in a large, blended family at the end of the Victorian Era. She had seven half- and full siblings, among which she was the second youngest. Virginia’s father was a writer and historian, and her mother was a philanthropist from a family with deep artistic roots. Educated largely at home and by her parents, in keeping with times, Virgina became involved in artistic pursuits early in her life. She experienced a string of traumas in her teens and early adulthood, including the death of her mother when Virginia was just 13; the death of her half-sister Stella two years later; sexual abuse at the hands of her half-brother George; and the death of her father when she was just 22. Soon after her father’s death, Virginia, her sister Vanessa, and her brothers Thoby and Adrian moved to the Bloomsbury neighborhood of London, where they became involved in an intellectual and artistic circle later dubbed the Bloomsbury Group. It was at this time she first met Leonard Woolf. Two years later, Virginia’s brother Thoby contracted typhoid fever on a trip to Greece and died. Leonard proposed in 1909, but Virginia did not accept until 1912. The couple shared a strong and enduring relationship even as Virginia engaged in a series of affairs with women including Vita Sackville-West. Woolf suffered periodic breakdowns of mental health beginning in her teens, following her mother’s death, and throughout the rest of her life. She published her first novel in 1915 and established the Hogarth Press with Leonard in 1917. Woolf considered one of the most important and influential modernist writers. She published eight novels, eight book-length essays, and other occasional pieces during her life. She took her own life, on the brink of yet another breakdown and in the midst of the second World War, at the age of 59.

The six characters at the heart of The Waves spend most of their childhoods in gender-segregated boarding schools. So-called “public schools” (because they are not-for-profit institutions and because they’re open to people from a broader swath of society, not just from one locality or class) and have a long history in England, with some tracing their roots back to the Middle Ages. Changing legislation in the Victorian Era led to the foundation of many new public schools. Due to their expense and their elite reputations, for much of their history—up until the beginning of the first World War, at least—public schools excluded pupils outside the ruling classes. The boys in The Waves mention in passing the kinds of abuse, bullying, and hazing that were common in boarding and public schools throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, which have been investigated and widely discussed in recent decades. Later, as a young adult, Percival goes to (and dies in) India on what appears to be some sort of British imperialist project. The British colonial exploitation of India began in the early 17th century under the auspices of the British East India Company. In 1857, a large and bloody uprising against their rule led the British Government to take over direct control of colony—which by then included modern-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The British maintained official control over India until 1947, although the Indigenous Indian people never stopped opposing British rule. During Virginia Woolf’s lifetime, she saw the foundation of the Indian National Congress (1885), which encouraged political reform and action, increasing tensions between Hindu and Muslim populations in parts of the subcontinent, and a shifting of power thanks to World War I.

In its themes—the cycles of life and death; the meaning of art; the value and limitations of relationships—and its focus on the interiority of its characters, The Waves (1931) bears more than a striking resemblance to two of Virginia Woolf’s other novels: To the Lighthouse (1927) and The Years (1937). All three feature Woolf’s characteristic, experimental, stream-of-consciousness style writing. All three explore the passage of time. All three shift between the consciousnesses of various characters—The Waves among the six friends; To the Lighthouse among the members and guests of the Ramsay family; The Years among members of the Partiger family over the course of decades. Although it was published many decades later, late 20th century Indian novelist Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain is a thematic and stylistic descendant of The Waves. This book also explores the interiority of its three characters in a series of inner monologues that explore the limitations of human relationships and explore the things that are most important in life, such as friendship, love, and autonomy.