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Chapter 5
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
In college, Bernard desperately wants to know who he is. But he knows that he plays different roles in different situations, almost as if he were an ensemble cast on the stage of life. He envies people who make a singular impression (particularly a good one). He can’t, because he is self-conscious about his words and actions, always making choices with an eye to what some imagined biographer would say about them one day. When he tries to write a letter to his sweetheart, he gets stuck trying to imitate the extemporaneous, passionate flavor of Byron. Then he falls into a daydream about being invited to meet her family at their country house.
As he grows and matures, Bernard tries on alternate identities. He thus exemplifies the idea that identity is a fluid, changing concept. In contrast, most of his friends seem to have found their core selves early in life and have not deviated from them. Bernard’s experience thus feels more approachable as a model, since most people end up trying on various identities as they mature. Young and in love, Bernard adopts Lord Byron, an English poet of the Romantic Period known for his sex appeal, as a model.
Themes
Whereas Bernard is ever-shifting, Neville is single-minded. He observes his surroundings in loving detail and feels confident that he is a great poet, until he thinks about it too much and doubt sets in. He decides to ask Bernard’s opinion on his poems.
Bernard thinks that his friends are more self-assured than he is. When readers get to look into Neville’s mind, however, they see that he, too, is in the throes of defining himself—and he’s not always certain if he’s right or not. In ways they’re not always aware of—because they’re each trapped in their own consciousness—the protagonists are more alike than different even as they separate.
Themes
Whereas Neville is precise and perfectionistic, Bernard is exuberant and unkempt—it’s hard for him to stick to one thing when the world is so interesting. He is acutely aware that he observes “infinitely more than [he] can say” in words. Because he is sensitive to others, he immediately notices Neville’s insecurity and asks to read Neville’s poetry. Together they walk through the bustling streets (Neville doesn’t like having to share the world with others) to Bernard’s room. Neville knows he doesn’t want to be like Bernard, constantly imitating others and always on the verge of chaos. But he recognizes the conflict between his desire for perfection and his desire to be loved. He hands Bernard one of his poems, then immediately runs off rather than stay to hear Bernard’s immediate thoughts.
Bernard is a keen observer of his friends’ natures (and his own), even if he isn’t always right. In fact, the book suggests, it’s not so much about being right or wrong as it is about applying a frame—Bernard can only capture a small portion of what he experiences in words, and this selection will naturally bias his output in one direction or another. In this moment, the friends define themselves by contrast to one another in much the same way that Percival reflects and sharpens their self-images. This suggests that identity isn’t wholly the creation of one individual, but rather a negotiation between the self and the external world.
Themes
Neville’s abrupt departure inspires Bernard to think about the invisible lines of friendship that bind them together even when they’re physically apart. Alone, he feels the return of his other, clamorous selves. He becomes aware of the fleeting nature of life, an impermanence he wants to reject.
Bernard defines himself in the context of two choruses. The first is internal, consisting of the competing selves (desires, voices, inclinations) he feels in his own mind. The second is external: the group of friends and fellows whom he identifies as different from or similar to himself.
Themes
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Then Bernard thinks of Louis, for whom college was out of the question despite his intelligence. He knows that Louis judges him and Neville, and he fears that Louis will find them insufficient. Louis himself sits in a café, trying to eat a meal and read a book. But he’s all too self-conscious about the ways he differs from other people, the way his colonial accent and parentage don’t just set him apart but preclude him in some indefinable but meaningful way from participating in society. He wishes more than anything to belong. And he once again imagines himself as a plant, rooted in the earth. This reminds him of the day he stood in the bushes and Jinny kissed him—which, in turn, reminds him bitterly of the distance between his circumstances and his childhood friends’. Of those five friends, he only respects Susan.
Louis is, like Bernard and Neville, a keen observer. Yet he still feels himself to be an outsider. Because readers are trapped in Louis’s consciousness here, not the mind of society generally, they can't assess the truthfulness of his claims. Is he really discriminated against? Or does he just believe himself to be different and therefore looks only for evidence of his exclusion and thus misses his own successes? Either way, it’s clear here that what matters to Louis is belonging—to a people and to a place. That’s why he fantasizes about putting down roots.
Themes
Susan, Rhoda, and Jinny went to finishing school in Switzerland. Now they’re all done with schooling, and Susan is back at home in the countryside that she loves. She likes to wake up early in the morning and take long walks with her dog. The sights, smells, and sounds of the country are familiar. She looks forward to having and raising children here, to taking on the role of running a household just like her own mother does. Small, everyday things like making bread and watching the bees buzz around summer’s flowers and the cows happily munching on the grass—these please Susan. But at night, when she sits by lamplight with her handwork, she sometimes thinks of Rhoda and of Jinny dancing in London. She thinks of Jinny kissing Louis.
Susan has returned to the natural setting she loves the best and to a strong sense that she’s in the right place and doing the right things. Like Bernard and Neville, she asks herself who she is. Unlike them, she has a much clearer answer. In part, this points back to the black-and-white certainty she’s always had (and which Bernard—who flits about at the mercy of life and others’ opinions and examples—has always admired in her). For her the meaning of life lies in fertility—having children and sowing crops. Readers should note that even as her path takes her far away from the others, she still understands herself at least in part by comparing herself to them.
Themes
Jinny loves nothing better than attending grand parties. It is a mystery to her why anyone would prefer sleeping at night to dancing. She dresses and adorns herself with care, then glides into each party gracefully. She belongs to this world. She enjoys watching the men and being pursued first by one and then another. A handsome man, pale with dark hair, asks her to dance and for a little while, and Jinny’s world narrows down until it contains just her and him. They dance and then retire from the dance floor to sip wine and talk. For a moment, Jinny feels as if their souls are joined. But the moment passes, and she begins to feel indifferent, waiting for the next handsome man to approach her.
Jinny’s sense of self focuses almost entirely on her physical appearance. Her interest in the world is limited to the surfaces of things. And this seems to satisfy her, although the book hints that there is an emptiness to this way of existing. Jinny attracts plenty of men but cannot connect meaningfully with any of them. She merely moves from one to the next without any making a lasting impression.
Themes
Rhoda, too, attends parties and dances, although she doesn’t like them as much as Jinny does. Rhoda feels compelled to go through the motions of social engagement when she really wants to be alone in some cool and peaceful garden visited only by graceful songbirds. The pressure of social life feels like “a million arrows” stabbing into her flesh. She feels the scorn and ridicule of people who cannot understand her inner life and she doesn’t know how to fend off their attacks. She wishes she were back in the garden of her childhood, playing with petals in her basin. She wishes she had Susan or Jinny’s certainty. She feels certain that society will break her.
Rhoda’s social milieu is clearly the same as Jinny’s—in contrast to Susan’s country retirement, they’re both engaged in a vivacious social circle. But where this delights Jinny, it horrifies Rhoda. Like Louis, the more time she spends in society, the more keenly she seems to feel her difference from others. But unlike Louis, who manages his business affairs successfully (even if this doesn’t make him happy), Rhoda seems incapable of handling her adult life. If there is meaning, she finds it in the realm of images, not social interactions.
Themes
