Structural Outline of The Waves

E.K. Sparks
Clemson U
Spring 2000
Eliot and Woolf Seminar Structural Outline of The Waves

by Virginia Woolf

(Page numbers are beginning of sections in Harcourt edition)

Episode One : CHILDHOOD

i. Relating to Objects (Watch the growth in perceptions, awakening of consciousess, impressionism)

Start out by describing simple objects in simple language (I see..)
Objects in motion in relationship, similie, metaphor images of circularity. perspecitive shift (Louis and Jinny and Susan and Rhoda get down and see from the ground as in "Kew Gardens)
Sensations: lights flash, stones cold, hand burns, spurt of water .. increasing multiplicity and complication of sensations
Move to house: more things, chains of things (first human: Mrs. Constable)
time established, early morning: sequence. Louis identifies a rhythm.
Rhoda's visual exaggeration; Neville's aural exaggeration; Jinny's exteme sensation

ii. Relating to People (Childhood negotions of alliances: alone, together, jealousy, etc.; imaginary games -- creating other worlds: Elvedon -- first world is Eden, garden; ships in bowl; symbol-making --knife is an emperor; awareness of class, shame;)

7 Before sunrise

8 i. -- Impressions at dawn;
ii.-- Louis alone before breakfast; Jinny kisses Louis; Susan gets depressed and runs off; Bernard comforts her with fantasy of Elvedon; Rhoda wi petals in bowl; Nevile thinking about Bernard's leaving him and taking knife; lessons wi Miss Hudson; reactions to words; Rhoda left behind; B & J under currant bushes; Miss Curry takes them for a walk; Neville left behind; Susan sees servants kissing; dinner; baths; Rhoda going to sleep

Episode Two : SCHOOL DAYS

29 Sun rising; bud opening; amorphousness
30 Bernard leaving for school first time; Louis alienated; Neville fits in, Headmaster, old Crane
32 Girls at school: react to Miss Lambert
34 Boys at chapel & cricket
40 Girls getting ready to play tennis
45 Cricket match: various reactions to masculinity
53 Girls--day before vacation, longing for future
57 Boys--day before vacation
61 Girls--first day of holidays, on the train
65 Boys on train

Episode Three : COLLEGE & SOCIALS

73 sun rose; 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 76 men: Bernard at college, writing love letter like Byron, fantasy of visit to country house; Neville also at college, in love wi Percival, wants to be a poet; Bernard reacting to N; N reacting to B, doomed always in love; B meditating on friends; Louis in eating shop, feels alien and vulnerable 97 Women: Susan in early morning, imagining lover, hungry; Jinny going to party wi gilt chairs, unfurls, rooted but flowing; talking freely; Rhoda terrified at party., tongues cut like knives, wave breaks.

Episode Four : DINNER PARTY

108 risen sun; thud of waves; rivers move inland; in garden birds sing alone, now and then songs run together, then sever; sun in room makes object on table sharply defined 111 ARRIVALS: Bernard on train, happiness at being engaged makes him feel connected to other passengers; going to farewell dinner for P /118 Neville arrives early/ 119 Louis sees Susan/ 120 Susan sees Jinny/ 121Nev sees Bernard/ 122 Rhoda no face
122 PERCEVAL ARRIVES: Neville, P restores order; B sees as hero
123 DINNER PARTY: everyone contributes short sharp memories; 127 IDENTITY STATEMENTS: Bernard's flower speech; Neville's re-incarnation speech, seeking a pattern; Jinny sees social pattern but only in terms of own body; rapidity and change of Neville's mental life; Rhoda, lacks all connection; Susan natural happiness only; B cannot bear solitude
135 SENSORY REACTIONS: R, mystic light; Jinny membranes; L roar of London; 135 REACTIONS TO PERCIVAL: B thinks of India, R sees him as a round stone; for Louis he is the touchstone that makes falseness clear; S love hate; 138 DRIFTING INTO FANTASIES AS DINNER ENDS: N overfed, fall into cavern; R white statues, fountain, grove...Louis and Rhoda imagine a festival dance that turns into a funeral procession 142 ESTABLISHING THE CIRCLE BEFORE IT IS BROKEN: Susan senses circle as chain; Louis feels it break in flow; R sees circle destroyed; B sees moment of ravenous identity is over; Louis feels circle close again; J globe whose walls are P

Episode Five : PERCIVAL'S DEATH

148 Sun at full height; burns, uncompromising, exact, level. Starts out reds, goes to grey. Roams over other countries, 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.

151 REACTIONS TO P's DEATH: Neville cannot pass by the tree, loses sense of reality; Bernard=s son just born, sense of sequence, goes to art gallery; R cannot cross puddle, walking thru town, violets; sense of death, hanging meat, goes to concert; oblong in square; fantasy of dark pools, pillars stand entire

Episode Six : THE LIFE OF WORK & LOVE

165 Sun past mid-point. Birds, dragonfly, reeds, still. Red blinds. Light driving darkness before it in mounds. Rising tide but fish stranded.

167 Louis in office--commerce; attic room. He and Rhoda lovers. Make one of his many selves; hatchet falls.
171 Susan at home with baby; has become her mother. >Glutted wi natural happiness
173 Jinny at a party, making up stories about people; lover--jug jug

Neville in rooms wi lover, remembering journey of the day/relationship. Hates pomposity. How we build a relationship by noticing things together

Episode Seven : MIDDLE AGE

182 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.

184 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. 190 Susan-- in field wi son, summit of desire; round of country life. But sometimes sick of natural happiness. Memories of childhood

193 Jinny-- Tube in London. No longer part of procession. But takes solace in Empire

196 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 200 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 203 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

207 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.

210 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; Rhoda green knife

217 Reflections on separateness: Bernard cannot bear solitude; Louis feels thread is broken but relies on job and ironic distance; Jinny focuses on the present surface, surround by people although she knows she is growing older. 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

224 Meditations in silence when replete 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

226 Fight against the Chaos: Nev love, r sees them getting ready to leave;

227 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

227 R and L watch others walk on as they stop by urn... see the other approaching as fish from sea.

232 Other return: B comments on destroying a world; B sense of tolerable of life--lights of shopkeepers

Episode Nine : BERNARD's SUMMING UP

236 Sun has set; can't distinguish sea and sky, black and grey. Things melt into obscurity. Waves of darkness

238 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 (*248: what is beyond the individual, what is perhaps permanent, is the symbolic); first love; 252 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... Moment when B=s I.d. solidifies, sense of being inheritor of civilization 254 move into the house, complexity of life, shell form, period of precision and completeness when we become very competent, but still there are moments (*256--globe is a bubble , cauldron with six little fish) 258 B's leap--marriage, (biographer) tendency to domesticity; sense of completeness in life and sufficiency of language 263 , 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. 267 Is this the end? 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--lowest curve of being, and yet fights, nets leaves of tree into order with words. 270 Back to city on train, pleasure in pageant of existence. 271 Another drop falls; seeks Nev. who thinks in unlimited time of the mind, but focuses in on one person, moment; then visits L and R but no answer; thinks of S and J 276 Remembers Hampton Court--sense of rivalry yet together they make complete body 280 Barber shop, sense of dissolution, cut in swathes, but then collects identity. Pretends to be with R though she has killed herself. Goes to St. Paul=s, which he does no respect as Louis 283 Rhythm stopped for one day, leaning over gate--nothingness, eclipse of sun, life as a dance of dust. But sun and color return--though to a world new wiout self 288 Meets "you: in the cloak room. 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 290 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) now merges with images of interludes (birds, tunnels among flowers, house. 292 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 an unification. Praise of solitude (book drops to the floor). Reiterates need for a little language 296 waiter comes, end of meal. Outside, is a kindling in sky--not yet dawn. Eternal renewal, wave rises again. Death is the enemy.