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Chapter 11
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Waves, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity
The Meaning of Life
Facing Loss and Death
The Power and Limitations of Storytelling
Colonialism and Conquest
Summary
Analysis
Louis is now a successful businessman. Every day at noon, his assistant brings him letters to sign. He loves the telephone and the typewriter that allow him to make changes halfway across the world from his cozy London office, and he feels strongly his power as he and other men of commerce impose order on far-flung and “chaotic” parts of the world. He almost feels as if his success outweighs the humiliations of his past, of his working-class and colonial heritage. At night, he eats by himself in restaurants, reading poetry. He does everything with practicality and certainty. He has very little time to spare, especially if he wishes to retire comfortably to the countryside like other merchants of his status.
Louis finds meaning in the world through his business affairs. There’s a certain cyclical feeling to the routine of his days that recalls the waves and the book’s other symbols of the natural patterns of life. But there’s also an implied violence in the imperialist attitudes he demonstrates. He divides the world into categories of “civilized” (England) and “chaotic” (by implication, non-Western countries). And he considers himself heroic for imposing order on chaos. Accustomed to thinking less of himself as a colonial subject, he now recreates the cycle by denigrating other colonial subjects.
Themes
But Louis is still drawn to the mysterious part of life, too. He and Rhoda have become lovers. He sometimes feels that the tasks and impressions of his day lack weight and substance and that he isn’t making a real impression on the world. When he doubts himself, he doubles down on the actions and rhythms of his days, reminding himself that it is humanity’s duty to impose order on the world.
Yet, imperial conquest through business is an empty affair and it leaves Louis dissatisfied. Although the book doesn’t go so far as to criticize British colonialism, it does suggest a moral emptiness at its heart. And it reminds readers of how Louis—like everybody else—defines himself in relationship to others, whether they’re faraway colonial subjects or as close as his lover, Rhoda.
Themes
Susan, now married and raising her children, no longer tracks the changing of the seasons as once she did. Her entire existence has become wrapped up in the form of her baby, whom she rocks in the cradle and to whom she continually murmurs, “Sleep, sleep.” She imagines herself as a cocoon, wishes she could turn body into a cradle itself in which to continually shelter her babies. She lives her life by the rhythms of the domestic day, cooking and dusting and sewing clothing in the evenings. She feels overstuffed with “natural happiness” and sometimes wishes for the weight of it to fall from her shoulders, to fly to London where Jinny beckons people to parties.
Earlier, Susan imagined herself as the seasons and the cycles of life. Now that she’s living out that role—which she has always wanted to play—she finds the peace that Louis cannot. Susan’s life on the farm and as a mother forces her to confront the cycles of life and death more intimately than any of her friends, and she thus lives in sync with them to a far greater degree. Her sense of inner peace corresponds to this alignment, even as she has flashes of regret over how her life has diverged from the others’.
Themes
Even past 30, Jinny remains deeply attractive. Her life is an endless series of parties at which she meets a never-ending stream of people. Each has his or her own story, full of tragedies and triumphs, and Jinny knows many of them. But in the end, she cannot fix them in her mind or care too much about them. She never rests in one place or with one person for long, instead leaping from thing to thing. At parties, she still draws the attention of men. For a short while she can get wrapped up in that experience of near-union. But then the spell breaks, and she’s on to her next conquest.
Susan might be jealous of Jinny, but Jinny’s narration here suggests an ultimately lonely existence. The book doesn’t go so far as to criticize her for emotional or moral emptiness, but her love of the superficial and her desire for novelty leave her unable to put down roots, unlike the others. Especially in contrast to Susan, whose soliloquy directly precedes Jinny’s, this vision of life seems impoverished.
Themes
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Neville, “neat as a cat in [his] habits” longs to have someone to share the most intimate parts of his life and his soul with. His life only seems to have meaning when he has a lover. And he measures everyone against Percival. In the perfection he imagines his latest lover to have, he finds a balm for what he feels is his own deformity, his failure to live up to the severe ideals of classical virtue. Romantic relationships make him feel complete, but then when they end, he’s utterly heartbroken and bereft. So, he wishes to hold tight to each one in defiance of the passage of time.
Neville is the only other character who comes close to the same sense of driftlessness as Jinny is Neville—he cannot find the one person who he believes will complete him. Still, although he exchanges lovers with regularity he pours his soul into a relationship when he’s in one. In a way, Neville’s plight seems even sadder than Jinny’s, because she doesn’t want more than a fleeting sense of contact.
Themes
