- InterChange Conference on Woolf's The Waves
(pp.182-297)
- June 27, 2000
- Karin Westman:
- As Laura told us yesterday, Woolf wrote the following to
G. L. Dickinson about *The Waves*: "I wanted to give the
sense of continuity, instead of which most people say, no you've
given the sense of flowing and passing away and that nothing
matters. Yet I feel things matter quite immensely. What the significance
is, heaven knows I can't guess; but there is significance --
that I feel overwhelmingly" (Letter #2460, 27 Oct 1931).
- Do you think that Woolf's novel conveys "the sense of
continuity" or "the sense of flowing and passing away
and that nothing matters"? What might be the "significance"
offered in the novel, especially by the end?
- Elizabeth Davis:
- time---last night's reading connected time and life experiences.
the sense of continuity comes from time moving, like waves. the
characters evolve further and things that matter change, as all
perceptions do with maturity. i didn't get to the end.
- Banks Yatsula:
- absolutely the novel conveys a sense of continuity. the structure
itself of the novel is continuous and im sure it was very difficult
to stick to the form in which it was written. in the greater
sense of the word, the novel conveys the idea that life is a
continuous process with its ebbing and flowing, we as humans
are here to embrace it and not everyone embraces it the same
way. And even more importantly, each person changes in the course
of life so that we may fell, at any given moment, something different
about the same thing.
- Elizabeth Davis:
- definate continuity because they are interactive throughout
life
- Doug Grant:
- I was going to say the same thing Elizabeth did. The passage
of time is like the waves and their is definitely a signifcance,
even if it is an elusive one.
- Banks Yatsula:
- it is not necessarily the idea that nothing matters, because
things do matter....it seems more the question of how and when
things matter and at which point do we let go of what once mattered?
- Karin Westman:
- So what exactly about time are we to take away from the novel?
That we should embrace it? That we have a choice? That we should
use it in a cetain way?
- Elizabeth Davis:
- they are connected because they measure time together and
expericence time differently. that fascinates me. how does it
end?
- Doug Grant:
- What matters and what doesn't matter does not effect continuity,
although the importance of what does really matter has a direct
bearing on how we percieve the overall continuity.
- Jennifer Boyd Cook:
- I don't feel the novel is expressing a real "sense of
continuity," despite Woolf's intentions. I think the reflections
and experiences of the characters do flow and pass, but I don't
believe that because of a lack of continuity that the novel and
all of the characters somehow don't convey any "meaning."
I think there is meaning there, but that it's sort of poetical,
and I think it alludes the reader because he or she might have
expectations for a work set in a novel form which depend on themes
which are more conrete. Like Woolf, though, I'm having difficulty
on pin-pointing what exactly the meaning is. Maybe it is to embrace
life's unpredictabilities and our multiple identities to their
fullest potential. If things weren't so impermanent, then nothing
would matter.
- Banks Yatsula:
- oddly, I enjoyed the lst part of the novel much more that
the first. It seems to speak to that part of us which is able
to see youth and able to appreciate youth and its innocence which
we may have lost, and i have not yet decided if its loss is a
good thing, but it certainly is eye-opening
- Elizabeth Davis:
- time is a choice, rather, time is used constructively in
differen fasets. time is also continouous, like rolling waves,
and should be embraced in the moment or in retrospection, as
all characters do.
- Karin Westman:
- Given that we get Bernard's view of his life in the last
section, does he feel he has used his time constuctively? And
want makes actions "constructive"? (i.e: Helping yourself?
Helping others?)
- Doug Grant:
- The issue of time is so complicated because although hardly
anyone would argue against the fact that time moves too rapidly,
here the question is whether or not it should be embraced.
- Elizabeth Davis:
- and, because time is continuous there is a sense of permanance.
Bernard says "our live too stream away, down the unlighted
avenues, past the strip of time, unidentified"(227)--i guess
that means life and time are continuous and are defined only
in the moment. and past moments get blurred and significant memories
and ideas fade, like the poem in his head.
- Banks Yatsula:
- yes i think that the word "constructive" does play
a part in time and its passage. somehow, if we think we have
been constructive, we are able to eal with time's passage much
more easily. On the other hand, if we think time has been wasted
we feel worthless and depressed, as if we amount to nothing
- Karin Westman:
- What, then, does Woolf's novel offer as the better way (if
not the "right" way) to live life, to experience time?
- Doug Grant:
- I agree with Banks in that we need to feel we have been construcitve
in using time and hope that we don't look back and see that we've
wasted it.
- Jennifer Boyd Cook:
- I agree with Banks about the concept of how things "matter"
in the book. Placing meaning on something is very fluid for each
of the book's characters.
- Do you feel maybe Woolf wants us to abandon our fixations
on time and using it to its fullest? Do you feel she wants us
to escape into unpredictability and just experience, rather than
trying to capture every moment in a story the way Bernard does?
- Elizabeth Davis:
- Neville says the best way to experience time is to keep walking
(227).
- Banks Yatsula:
- on pg 288....Bernard asks himself if he is "one and
distinct" and cannot find division between himself and the
others....that is sort of deoressing but it is accurate because
ultimately we (our bodies and our minds) are bound by the constraints
of time...We all age we all deteriorate...thus in this way we
are one; we share the experience of that journey through life
and into the journey of death.
- Elizabeth Davis:
- woolf seems to think the best way to experience time is live
for the moment but recall the past.
- Doug Grant:
- I didn't really think of Jennifer's question until she asked
it, but now I think that maybe that is one idea that Woolf is
trying to convey, to stop concentrating on time so much and just
go with the flow.
- Banks Yatsula:
- I see Elizabeth D,'s point.....we must live with a passion,
but we must also be able to look at those passions a smomentary
and then be able to embrace something else......without this
ability to be mutable we surely shall perish within our own minds
- Karin Westman:
- So, Neville is one who recognizes the need to keep on walking,
as ELizabeth mentions, though he also likes the stability of
his room and poems. What about hte other characters? How well
are they able to negotiate this flux of time that we've been
identifying?
- Elizabeth Davis:
- and isn't the point of the book to explore six perceptions
of the same experience? woolf then would be saying we experience
life intellectually, emotionally, physically, etc. at different
times. one cannot explore all human facets at the same time.
right?
- Karin Westman:
- Good point, Elizabeth, about Woolf's emphasis on living in
the present/recalling the past. Is there one character who can
do this best?
- Elizabeth Davis:
- "going with the flow" is a perfect phrase, Jennifer
and Doug.
- Banks Yatsula:
- well, since we hear the most from Bernard, we are able to
see his ability to recall the past. But it is hard to say if
he truly lived in the present...he was certainly obsessed with
recording the present.
- Doug Grant:
- I'd say that Bernard is the character who we should most
concentrate on concerning this question about time passing and
how we should approach viewing it.
- Banks Yatsula:
- on the other hand, it does seem as though Jinny had a more
difficult time with aging, I say this mostly because she was
all about the physical and about socializing. She continued to
apply that lipstick and to receive visitors...it is a sthough
she lived on the surface to some degree. But she was also aware
of it.
- Jennifer Boyd Cook:
- Do you feel Woolf doesn't want us to view time as constraining?
From the way she presents her characters, we must infer their
age or certain stages within their life. Why do you feel that
Woolf felt (assuming she felt this way because she didn't include
it) age and other details were not necessary in creating her
characters? While their thoughts all convey different impressions
of the life around them, they seemed wrap up into one consciousness.
I'm sure everonne's tired of talking about the time theme, but
maybe the idea of these characters experiencing things simultaneously
reduces the friction between living and an impending sense of
fleeting time.
- Banks Yatsula:
- so again, what are we to do with time's passage? hmmmm....
- Karin Westman:
- OK: So, so far we have Woolf representing a sense of continuity,
rather than only a passing away, and that there may be significance
in Bernard's approach towards experience above others'. Any other
thoughts her on what "significance" you all feel we
are asked to draw from the book?
- Elizabeth Davis:
- Neville and Bernard seem to be the strongest "recallers."
but jinny say's "time's fangs have ceased their devouring.
We have triumphed over the abysses of space, awith rought,e with
powder, with flimsy pocket-handkerchiefs" she recalls the
past by acknowledging the present.
- Karin Westman:
- So, there may be some way to feel conneted, feel in control
of this continuity through material objects, too?
- Karin Westman:
- Jennifer's offered a good point here about the tension between
imposed ideas/orders of time and fluidity: Characters certainly
do feel constrained by time, in a negative way: Is it ever helpful,
too?
- Banks Yatsula:
- it seems important to mention that when one views the past,
one's view is tainted by the present. Perhaps that is why we
feel as though "nothing matters," and why we always
feel as though we "must. Must. MUST." We must so that
we may apply meaning to our lives, for if there is no meaning
then time has been wasted.....it's a cycle just as the waves
are.
- Elizabeth Davis:
- sure, it makes sense that one would try to control time with
objects...like flowers, make-up, studies. the outcome is the
same....the only way to control time is suicide. otherwise, time
keeps moving and takes you with it.
- Jennifer Boyd Cook:
- I thought Elizabeth's point about the multiplke perceptions
of the same experience is important. The multiplicities of experiencing
is an idea I feel Woolf might want her readers to grab most.
- Karin Westman:
- The tyranny of the word "must" then is in tension
with the fluidity of experiencing the world: the must is necessary
to give some meaning but will necessarily limit (perhaps even
helpfully limit, otherwise you can end up like Rhoda?)?
- Doug Grant:
- Maybe the best way to come to a conclusion about this question
of time is to move away from it as an issue and concentrate more
on the idea of perception. Time is made a negative thing only
through characters' perceptions, so a change in that might help
to achieve a better understanding
- Banks Yatsula:
- so perhaps there is something about life that leaves us with
the feeling of things left undone....like Bernard's book, or
like the grass is always greener; this seems tied to the ideas
of imperialism, the need to conquer....but then there is always
the need to break away from this constraint and the need to appreciate
the natural placement of things and acknowledge the beauty of
differences---between countries and individuals
- Karin Westman:
- Good point, Doug, about time being a perception: even the
"structure" of the day interludes are the way humans
interpret time.
- ****As a final posting, offer these three items:
- 1. one theme that you think Woolf explores in the novel,
2. an example of it, and 3. say whether you think it's a theme
of To the Lighthouse, too.
- Banks Yatsula:
- The "must" definitely constrains. It is not any
different today. There is always teh desire to be the best, to
have the most, and then there are those who wish to reject this
"best and Most" attitude. Louis was caught up in this
"must" was hw not?
- Doug Grant:
- 1. Are we using our time wisely and living our lives to the
fullest, are we going to regret not choosing another path?
- 2 Bernard's struggle through the novel to answer this question
is an example
- 3. Definitely pertains to themes from To the Lighthouse
- Elizabeth Davis:
- woof wants the reader to explore the perception of time and
its effects over the course of life. Bernard says "we have
been walking for hours it seeems. But where? i cannot remember...i
am not called upon to give my opinion"(235). he equates
memory with opinion and opinions, as noted earlier, change. therefore,
memory offers a skewed perception.
- as for the Lighthouse, memory and time are parallel themes
here.
- Jennifer Boyd Cook:
- Woolf wants her readers to appreciate the multiple ways of
experience life, of interpreting it, etc. There is a passage
setting up Bernard's and Neville's contemplations over identity
on pg. 75. There is a flower sitting on a window-sill and then
there is the image or reflection of the flower in the window-sill.
Woolf writes, "Yet the phantom was part of the flower, for
when a bud broke free, the paler flower in the glass opened a
bud, too." (75). This highlights the theme of varying impressions
Woolf's characters get as they go through life. While there many
instances in which each character chimes in with a different
version of the same experience, I think this image is reminding
the reader that for everything that happens, there is a refelction
of it in multiple impressions, and that identity and perception
demand this multiplicity to be complete.
- Banks Yatsula:
- !. the tyranny of time and the mutability of self.
- 2. Bernard is ultimately subjected to time's passage, and
it seems to leave him as a subject of time' passage. He seems
to be represented as a chronicler (is that a word?) even if is
ultimately one of the casualties of time itself.
- 3. This idea of time as permanant and unwavering and of humans
as merely caught up in the natural scheme of things seems to
be a big issue in both novels, only the idea is taken to fruition
with The Waves
- Return to ENGL 395