50 pages • 1 hour read
Virginia WoolfThe Waves
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1931A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary
This section again opens with a description of the sun rising further over the sea and the landscape.
At University, Bernard feels torn between his extroverted self and internal sense of inferiority. He feels that other people only ever see a superficial part of him. Bernard tries writing a letter to a woman but he worries too much about it being memorable that he can’t find the right words to express himself. Neville is at university with Bernard and also wants to write. Neville’s poetry is inspired by the beauty he sees all around him, especially Percival’s beauty. Bernard wants to prove to Neville that he is not superficial, but he struggles to write something authentic and interesting that would convince Neville that he is multilayered.
Louis is working as a clerk in London. He eats in a restaurant where he can people-watch through the window. The people interest him so much that he can’t focus on his meal or the book that he’s reading. Louis is also writing and wants to recapture poetry in his book and make it accessible again to the people around him, whom he believes have given up on or forgotten about poetry. Louis still feels out of place with his accent but, in poetry, he loses himself and becomes one with others.
Susan is up early in the country and appreciates the early morning. She considers herself; she loves the agrarian rhythms of her rural life, and the study of nature, and sees herself as an inextricable part of the land her family owns. One day soon, she knows she’ll get married and become just like her mother. Although she won’t have the adventures of Jinny and Rhoda, Susan is happy with her life. When Susan thinks of Jinny, she remembers watching Jinny kissing Louis when they were children.
Jinny is living in London. She loves the nightlife of London. She goes to a party, excited to socialize and be seen. At the party, Jinny meets a man. She is attracted to him and attracted to the energy between the two of them. She loves the sensation of recognizing and pursuing mutual attraction.
Rhoda is at the same party as Jinny. She admires Jinny’s ability to socialize and wishes she could be more comfortable in social situations. Rhoda feels uncomfortable, out of place, like a crashing wave.
Chapter 4 Summary
This section again opens with a description of the shoreline landscape; the sun has now risen further.
For the first time in many years, all six friends reunite at a dinner party in Percival’s honor as he is about to sail to India (then part of the British Empire) to pursue a career there.
Bernard is recently engaged to be married. He is elated and his expectation that one day he will have children, and how that will change things for him. His happiness has renewed his sense of self so much so that even the bustling, chaotic streets of London don’t bother him. He is excited to be reuniting with his friends.
Neville arrives at the dinner early so he can torture himself with waiting for Percival’s arrival. Louis arrives first. In Neville’s perspective, Louis is formidable but difficult in comparison with Percival. Susan arrives next, uncomfortable to be in the city. Next, Rhoda arrives quietly, barely noticeable. When Jinny arrives, she captures everyone’s attention, and Susan feels that Jinny is secretly judging Susan’s lack of style. When Bernard arrives, Neville notes how comfortable he is with everyone but judges that, in knowing everyone without intimacy, Bernard truly knows nobody.
When Percival finally arrives the group bonds emotionally again. They recall happy scenes from their childhood together. Louis acknowledges that he and his friends are naturally different from one another. Jinny considers that all of their shared memories and childhoods together mean that they both love and hate one another. Susan realizes that Bernard’s engagement highlights that they are grown up and have lost a certain freedom in adulthood. Percival leaves, and his departure brings the rest of the group even closer together. When the friends say goodbye to one another, they do so with genuine affection and appreciation. Only Neville is disturbed because he is so deeply in love with Percival that he feels lost in Percival’s absence.
Chapters 3-4 Analysis
In Chapters 3 and 4 of The Waves, Woolf further explores how the human consciousness grows and is molded by changing circumstances and by other people. The themes and language of the narratives become more complex and sophisticated as the characters become more skilled in constructing and maintaining identities of themselves and others.
One major way in which Woolf achieves consciousness is through her male characters’ desire to be writers, which is developed through these sections. It is ambiguous that Woolf, as a female author and proto-feminist, makes the three men writers and the women not; this may be an acknowledgment of the rarity of women writers at the time, and the monopoly that men had on educational and intellectual opportunities. These chapters also show the increasing divergence in role and lifestyle between the men and women: As young children, they play and learn together, but they are later separated into strictly gendered educational settings; the men progress to university and/or careers whereas the women have less formal structure in their lives once they reach maturity.
The portrayal of writers and writing also explores the theme of the Role of Language in Shaping Reality. Expression of self through writing, expression of world through writing, and self-determination through writing are ways in which Bernard, Neville, and Louis identify themselves. Bernard wants to write fiction and Neville and Louis see themselves as poets. Their relationship to writing and their writing processes are different, but their goal is the same: to find themselves through the writing and publication of their writing. For all three men, the idea of having a reader out there is important to their writing. Writing, for them, is not done in a vacuum but rather for an audience. This is because they all want to feel seen and heard, and they see the written word as their pathway to true recognition. Through writing, they can, they hope, find a community of people. All three men worry about not being seen authentically in their real lives: Bernard worries that people find him superficial and don’t notice his other layers; Louis worries that people judge him for his station in life and national heritage; and Neville hides his sexuality and true passions from others. Thus, in a society that forbids men their complex interiority, only through writing can Bernard, Neville, and Louis be freed from the oppressive feeling that they are misunderstood.
Chapters 3 and 4 depict the transition from young adulthood into adulthood. In this novel, young adulthood is defined by a relief to be more in control of one’s life and yet still at odds with the extent of that control. This emphasizes the theme of The Existential Human Condition: Identity and Meaning. Louis doesn’t have the opportunity to go to university because of his financial situation, and his introduction into the workforce comes with adult responsibilities that set the aspects of his character. Louis is resentful of Bernard and Neville; attending University confirms their membership of the English male upper class, intended for a life of privilege not commerce. Yet Woolf emphasizes that young adulthood is not as pleasurable or enviable as they may seem. Young adulthood is often marked by turbulent emotions and feelings of alienation and lack of self-determinism, such as Susan’s feverish homesickness, Neville’s impossible infatuation with Percival, and Rhoda’s deepening existential crisis.
The milestone of adulthood is acknowledged through a symbolic dinner in Chapter 4 that brings all the friends back together again. At first, this dinner emphasizes their resentments and annoyances with one another. These friends are tied together through a shared history and through a shared love for Percival. But Woolf’s setting of the dinner party also emphasizes one of the major transitions of adulthood: A loss of self that occurs with separation and growth apart from one’s childhood represented by their childhood friends. With the exception of Bernard and Neville at university, these friends don’t see one another often because their lives become increasingly full of different responsibilities and different people as they move into adulthood. Thus, they grow apart a little, and also, Woolf shows, grow away from the child they each were before.
The novel also asserts the strength of childhood memories and the formative bonds between the group. This speaks to the power of childhood development in the formation of identity. In Chapter 4, the friends evoke their childhood together with positivity and some nostalgia. What’s more, the bonds that people make in childhood innocence are more long-lasting than the resentments they develop over time as life and adult responsibilities take over. Therefore, Woolf articulates her point that childhood bonds are extremely important in developing the self and relationships to the world around us, including how individuals relate to others and the life decisions they make.
Related Titles
By Virginia Woolf
