Selected postings from the Virginia Woolf Listserv

about Reading The Waves

 
Hi,

I subscribed to this list about a week ago so:Hello to you all. I already have a question. At this moment i'm writing a paper about The Waves. It's a wonderful really musical book but i'm having some problems with the focalisation. I can't always make up who says what, it's a bit fussy in this novel. Maybe one of you, has a better grip and can tell me the trick.

Thank you, Jaap

Jaap Drooglever
JaapDr@dds.nl

Thu, 1 Jun 2000
 
Hi Jaap,

I'm reading the Waves for the first time at the moment, but haven't found that a problem.

Usually the name of whoever is speaking is mentioned in the first sentence of a paragraph, and then that voice continues until you hit an indication that now someone else is speaking, like 'said Bernard' or 'thought Jinny'.

I think it's trickier that way towards the beginning, and there's a spot where the point of view of a situation changes very rapidly (the bit where Jinny kisses Louis, and you see different parts of the chain of events through different characters' eyes).
I don't know where you're up to, but I think it gets easier as you go along!
Tricia
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 02:24:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Connie Monson <cmonson@emory.edu>
Subject: Re: Focalisation in The Waves
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Another way of looking at it (late in the night, where I sit) is that the "trickiness" of distinguishing one speaker from the next is an expression of group identity in tension with individual identity. Where you have to read twice to find out whether Rhoda or Jinny said something, it seems that the text draws attention to the thinnest of lines separating one's fate from the other's. In some sense the group functions as a single organism, even when its members are geographically distant from one another. So in a way, Woolf is highlighting some of the questions _behind_ the question "Who said that?"
 
always ready to complicate matters,
Connie Monson
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 13:59:32 +0200
From: Jaap Drooglever <Jaapdr@dds.nl>
Subject: focalisation in The Waves
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Thank you Tricia, for your answer,
Maybe you are right and the focaliser is indeed indicated by the first name in the paragraph. But i'm having a bit of a shaky feeling saying that. I'm uncertain by nature and most times that pays off. The first reason of doubt is the fact that sometimes things shift and without changing paragraph it is obvious that the focaliser of a pasage in the middle of a paragraph is not the one mentioned in the first line. Does that mean that the focalisation has changed or was it in the hands of this actor all the time? My second reason to doubt is the fact that it is Woolf's objective in The Waves to overcome the boundraries of the individual. I think that must have implications for the focalisation proces. Can this shifting be the effect of Woolfs objective.
(about the question where a I up to: I'm working on that right now in a paper for a coure called: Hearing, seeing and feeling: modernity and sensitivity by Ernst Van Alphen)
 
Hope you can make me certain, somehow
Jaap
Jaap Drooglever
JaapDr@dds.nl
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 10:59:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bosseaux Charlotte <charlyboss@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Focalisation in The Waves
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Hi Jaap,
I have read the Waves a lot of times and i remember that the first time I read it I was a bit confused. I then realised that all the characters always refer in their speech to things that happen to them or specific fears and habits. Hence, as you read you can identify the characters with special features such as Rhoda's basins, the pools she can cross, the swallow that dips her wings in a pool or Louis' fear of the beast that stamps and constant stressing of his Australian accent, or Bernard's reference to language.
The other way i found useful is punctuation. You will notica that Rhoda's speech is marked with columns [colons] and semi columns [semi-colons] which refer, in my opinion to the way she experiences the world. If you look at each speech and you should find differences that reflect the way they all experience the surrounding world.
 
I hope this help and that you will love this book as much as I do,
 
Charlotte
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 16:12:04 -0400
From: Elisa Kay Sparks <sparks@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Subject: Re: Focalisation in The Waves
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Dear Jaap--
You've already received one reply explaining how Woolf signposts the transitions from speaker to speaker in The Waves. I am attaching a plot summary of the entire novel worked out by me and my grad students in seminar this spring. It tracks most of the switchoffs. Also, Mark Hussey's plot summary in Virginia Woolf A-Z is immensely helpful.
 
Elisa Sparks