The Waves

The final chapters of The Waves explore the introspections, losses, and insights of increasing age, as the novel moves into the last stages of the human lifespan. The section leans increasingly into the novel’s exploration of The Existential Human Condition: Identity and Meaning and The Passing of Time, with the final chapter bringing all three themes together in an extended soliloquy, which is a departure from the structure of the previous chapters and overtly addresses The Role of Language in Shaping Reality.

Chapter 7 shows the characters considering their successes with increasing self-knowledge and the benefit of hindsight: They can appreciate how their lives have been manifestations of their personalities and desires. Each of them also considers the future, now that the multiple choice possibilities of youth have passed; the narratives collectives show a sense that the characters’ identities and lifestyles are increasingly fixed, but also the paradox that the onset of old age will be one of the most significant life changes they will experience. The novel’s creation of an existential turning point is closely explored through the character of Jinny, especially as she contemplates herself aging. As a woman who has relied on her beauty and sought physical pleasure as an expression of herself and her relationship to the external world, physical aging might reasonably prove a crisis for Jinny. Perhaps unexpectedly, Woolf shows Jinny adapting in the face of time’s passage with an optimistic expression of positivity and courage: “Now I turn grey; now I turn gaunt. I look at my face at midday sitting in front of the looking-glass in broad daylight. But I am not afraid” (170). Here the novel rejects the idea that a woman needs to be defined by her looks and her sexual power (or her loss of these), even a woman like Jinny whose life has made these aspects of herself central to her identity. Jinny instead expresses fulfillment in her life choices and the intensity of her lived experience, and a confidence in her deeper value as a person.

Jinny’s optimism is directly juxtaposed by the despair of Rhoda’s narrative immediately after, when Rhoda says “I have nothing. I have no face” (171). This language is symbolic of Rhoda’s feeling of missing selfhood, and the dislocation she feels from the world and herself. The nature of happiness important concept throughout The Waves, especially in the final chapters, as the narratives self-reflect on the lives of the characters. Woolf doesn’t define what happiness is in a fixed way; rather, the stream-of-consciousness narration of the six different voices shows that happiness is subjective to the individual. What makes Jinny happy wouldn’t make Susan happy, and vice versa. Woolf’s treatment seems to make it clear that happiness is reliant on self-knowledge, and on the individual’s ability to make choices that reflect the inner person, and to be at peace with the necessity of these choices. The availability of these choices is easier for some characters than for others: Neville, for example, is hindered in his self-expression by the social stigma attached to his identity as a gay man, which is connected to his life-long unrequited love for Percival. Rhoda, the novel suggests, is prevented from finding happiness by continual self-doubt and criticism and by a sense of deep alienation from herself.

In Chapter 8, the friends reunite over another symbolic dinner, which mirrors the dinner for Percival earlier. The characters are also reminded of this previous dinner, and these associations create a focus for their narratives’ reflection of the passing of time and life’s changes. It is also revealing of the novel’s exploration of the tensions between individuality and community The friends are at first awkward with one another. They are self-conscious around each other and hyper-aware, as in their first reunion dinner when Percival was alive, of one other’s flaws. Their awareness of one another’s flaws is a projection of the awareness of their own inner vulnerabilities, assuming judgment from the others. Susan and Neville are engaged in a subconscious competition over whose lifestyle is happier. Louis is determined to prove himself not only worthy of, but better than, his friends. All of the friends consider one another carefully: their first reaction to being reunited is to worry about one another’s perspectives and to feel actively aware of one another’s influence.

Chapter 9 concludes the novel on a different tone than the rest of the novel, focusing on Bernard’s perspective alone. This dramatic shift in form and focus helps the final chapter to explore The Existential Human Condition, expressive of the concept that each person must face death alone and in their own way. Bernard celebrates the significance of friendship and associations and the rich individuality of his five friends but the interrelated communality of the multiple voices has fallen away to concentrate on the individual, and rather lonely, narrative of Bernard in his old age.  

The Waves ends with a final reflection about language and consciousness. This emphasizes the theme of The Role of Language in Shaping Reality. Bernard is frightened of old age and unsure how to maneuver this last stage in his life. Language therefore fails him—or so he thinks. Through his stream of consciousness narration, it is evident that Bernard indeed has the language to poignantly depict the changes, new anxieties, and maintenance of old joys that come with elderly years. Bernard also worries that he’s learned this lesson too late. He doesn’t see what the future holds for him, which is a crisis for the maintenance of his otherwise positive personality and outlook on life. However, he faces this new stage with defiant courage, revealed through the heroic language of his final words: “Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death” (228).