Writing to a rhythm, not a plot in Woolf's 'The Waves' among the six voices of Virginia Woolf's The Waves, but simultaneously by the "identity of things" where "the speeches often resemble a single omnipresent voice with six personalities" (1973: 151). Contributing to this "identity" are the similarities in the form and style of the six voices, which appear similar not only between the characters, but also throughout their progression from childhood to adulthood. This rhythmic notion manifests itself throughout the text in complex and varied ways, and it is precisely this tension between the individuals, particularly Louis, Rhoda and Bernard, and their "underlying equivalence" which, in this essay, will examine these characters' sense of self as a concept. means for Woolf to use the idea of writing to a rhythm, not a plot and to show how this changes her representation of narrative, time and characters in The Waves. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay We can see in the “series of dramatic soliloquies” at the beginning the blatant isolation of Louis and Rhoda in the structure of the novel. Louis is anxiously aware of his Australian accent and alien roots, while Rhoda is almost without an identity; she has “no face” (32) and finds herself outside the loop of conventional time and meaning where she alone must “find an answer” (15). Rhoda observes how those around her “know what to say if you talk to them, [they] really laugh, they get really angry; whereas I must first look and do what others do when they have done it” (1998: 33). . Similarly, Louis straightens his hair, hides his accent, and claims that he does these “antics” in hopes of looking “like all of you” (104). More specifically, Louis is part of a discourse on masculinity based on the tradition of the British Empire, within which “order” and “obedience” preside (36). The 'boastful boys' who 'play cricket' and whose 'names are repeated' are 'the volunteers...the officers of the Natural History Society'. These are the men Louis envies and to assimilate into their community, he would “sacrifice everything he knows.” Yet as all six characters progress simultaneously and rhythmically through life, Louis realizes that he cannot truly be “one of them,” despite his repetitions of “I'm an average Englishman; I am an average employee” (75). He describes the activity and flow of a restaurant as containing "the central rhythm" of life, the "common mainspring" that he observes in its expansion and contraction, but he is not included in it (76) . His solution to his marginalization is to “reduce you to order”; to alert those around him of what appears to him as their “aimlessness” and their “cheap and worthless” pace. Woolf's characters not only tend to represent individual aspects of her personal subjectivity, but by using a "series of dramatic soliloquies" one can observe how this alters the representation of her character. Louis's quest for order in a society, similar to that of Woolf's writings "for rhythm and not plot", in which he sees himself as an outsider, is later realized when, as a "grown man ", he is capable of spreading "commerce where chaos reigned" (139). It is from this position that he can sign his name, assert his identity, "me again, and me again...clear, firm, unequivocal" (138). Not only is Louis faced with aforeign society with which he must reconcile, but there is within him a “vast heritage of experience”. Louis states: But if I do not nail these impressions to the board and among the many men in me, I only make one; to exist here and now and not in streaks and patches, like crowns of snow scattered on distant mountains; and I will ask Miss Johnson, as I pass through the office, for information about the films, I will have my cup of tea and I will accept my favorite biscuit, and then I will fall like snow and be lost. (141)Thus, he “erases certain stains” and erases past “taints” such as “my accent, the beatings and other tortures,” associated with the larger society around him (139). It is the structural fusion of Woolf's internal experience, as well as his dedication to habitual order and action where he can "add" and calculate what Patricia Waugh calls the "imperial ego" and "the 'ideal of masculine culture' which maintain the spirit of Louis. “mental health”. Woolf uses a seamless wave-like arrangement for her individual "dramatic soliloquies" to focus on the main emotional outlets of her characters such as Louis above. By focusing primarily on its sentiment, the plot of The Waves is altered to become more rhythmic than chronological. This can be seen by looking at the individuality of the character. While Louis claims some kind of cure for his externality condition, Rhoda is prey to fear, because as Bernard observes, she "likes to be alone...she fears us because we break ourselves." the feeling of being which is so extreme in solitude” (109). Gillian Beer comments on Makiko Minow Pinkney's observation that The Waves "maintains for most of its duration 'a precarious dialectic between identity and its loss, the symbolic and its unrepresentable Other - a disturbing and unstable alternation'" ( 1998: xxv). This is indeed evident in the complexity of Rhoda's character, as life stains and corrupts her (169), she is "transformed...overturned...extended, among these long lights, these long waves, these endless paths, with people who move on with their lives.” , pursuing" (20). However, it is in solitude that she finds her so-called "sense of being", that she is threatened by nothingness, forcing her to "bang her head against some hard door to call me back to the body” (33) Rhoda’s emotions are similar to those of the ebb and flow of the ocean, she finds herself trapped in her own time and repeatedly forces herself to grasp “hardness,” a kind. of the umbilical cord of the physical domain where, illogically, it does not exist because it is here that identity fails it (50). Woolf's own identifying personality traits, we can see her lack of identification with the real world in the character of Rhoda. Rhoda's only stopping point seems to be her death, just as Woolf states that it is. is “[with] intermittent shocks, sudden as the springs of a tiger, [that] life emerges lifting its dark crest from the sea, [this is what we are attached to, this is what we are linked, like bodies to wild horses” (51). Later, Rhoda perceives the interdependence of others' lives as “anchored in a substance made of repeated moments that follow one another; they are committed, have an attitude towards children, authority, fame, love, society; where I have nothing” (186). . It is from this paradoxical space that Rhoda is able to notice the habitual and "unnatural" activities of those around her, which only seem to be masquerading as life. She can only stay inthe dialectic, a space that ultimately leads to her suicide which, in itself, seems to occur outside of the time loop (15), because the reader's only access to the details of Rhoda's death is through the declaration of Bernard on Rhoda's death. a fact and nothing more. Throughout the text, the reader is subjected to Bernard's "unquenchable thirst" for "stories" and "sentences" (53), which always exist only in the form of "smoke rings" or " bubbles”, perhaps evoking their ephemeral nature. as well as possible dissipation or evaporation. Each character in the novel seems to have their own crutch, which obviously serves as the main peak. As the characters constantly return to their ideal, time and characters in the plot become less structured again. An example of this would be Bernard who claims that his words lift the veil on things (68), but he is unable to finish both his sentences and his stories, perhaps suggesting that "the veil" may not be never fully lifted. His primary desire on the train is to "assimilate" the elderly traveler into a community, to "unfreeze" him with his human voice and its "disarming quality" because "we are not single, we are one." By his own admission, Bernard needs “the impulse of others” (64). He is inseparable from those around him and “is not one and simple, but complex and multiple” (61). Bernard becomes increasingly disillusioned with his own words and their inability to represent life as shown in his summary - which becomes an accumulation. of meaning - where he admits that none of these stories are true, "[but] like children we tell ourselves stories, and to decorate them we invent these ridiculous, flamboyant and beautiful phrases" (199). He then admits to being wary of “careful conceptions of life” and aspires to “a little language like that of lovers, broken words, inarticulate words, like the sound of feet on the sidewalk”. Naremore states that The Waves "manifest an intense desire to express a timeless unity of all things" (1970: 175), hence the existence of a question in the novel "whether language can serve such an end", leaving Bernard to seek “a certain conception” more in accordance with those moments of humiliation and triumph which undeniably occur from time to time” (1998: 200). If in the past Bernard had been convinced, he "must make sentences and sentences and thus interpose something hard between me and... indifferent faces" (22), now he rejoices in "the confusion, the height, indifference... of the story. , of conception, I see no trace of it then" (200). Bernard's language seems to mirror Woolf's writing as her unusual rhythmic style is also filled with confusion and indifference. One perhaps, like Bernard who, with the appearance of his inadequacies, is left with nothing but distrust, condemned to complete his final "story" to the reader in the environment in which he is trapped, just like the author Bernard's first significant fight with the. emotion and language postdates Percival's death and the simultaneous birth of his son, when he is unable to distinguish joy from sorrow (125). Death in the novel becomes the ultimate climax within the characters (125). It seems to be the most compelling unifying factor of all, alerting the characters to their common mortality Rhoda then states that "the guests seem to be dancing in a circle around a campfire, [so] Percival has become the flame. the light around which their thoughts and emotions flicker like moths” (1970: 96). Percival is indeed a distinct unifying entity for all six characters, but it is in death that he evokes the true extent of their vulnerability, much like the moths.

Essay / Writing to a rhythm, not a plot in Woolf's 'The Waves' among the six voices of Virginia Woolf's The Waves, but simultaneously by the "identity of things" where "the speeches often resemble a single omnipresent voice with six personalities" (1973: 151). Contributing to this "identity" are the similarities in the form and style of the six voices, which appear similar not only between the characters, but also throughout their progression from childhood to adulthood. This rhythmic notion manifests itself throughout the text in complex and varied ways, and it is precisely this tension between the individuals, particularly Louis, Rhoda and Bernard, and their "underlying equivalence" which, in this essay, will examine these characters' sense of self as a concept. means for Woolf to use the idea of writing to a rhythm, not a plot and to show how this changes her representation of narrative, time and characters in The Waves. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay We can see in the “series of dramatic soliloquies” at the beginning the blatant isolation of Louis and Rhoda in the structure of the novel. Louis is anxiously aware of his Australian accent and alien roots, while Rhoda is almost without an identity; she has “no face” (32) and finds herself outside the loop of conventional time and meaning where she alone must “find an answer” (15). Rhoda observes how those around her “know what to say if you talk to them, [they] really laugh, they get really angry; whereas I must first look and do what others do when they have done it” (1998: 33). . Similarly, Louis straightens his hair, hides his accent, and claims that he does these “antics” in hopes of looking “like all of you” (104). More specifically, Louis is part of a discourse on masculinity based on the tradition of the British Empire, within which “order” and “obedience” preside (36). The 'boastful boys' who 'play cricket' and whose 'names are repeated' are 'the volunteers...the officers of the Natural History Society'. These are the men Louis envies and to assimilate into their community, he would “sacrifice everything he knows.” Yet as all six characters progress simultaneously and rhythmically through life, Louis realizes that he cannot truly be “one of them,” despite his repetitions of “I'm an average Englishman; I am an average employee” (75). He describes the activity and flow of a restaurant as containing "the central rhythm" of life, the "common mainspring" that he observes in its expansion and contraction, but he is not included in it (76) . His solution to his marginalization is to “reduce you to order”; to alert those around him of what appears to him as their “aimlessness” and their “cheap and worthless” pace. Woolf's characters not only tend to represent individual aspects of her personal subjectivity, but by using a "series of dramatic soliloquies" one can observe how this alters the representation of her character. Louis's quest for order in a society, similar to that of Woolf's writings "for rhythm and not plot", in which he sees himself as an outsider, is later realized when, as a "grown man ", he is capable of spreading "commerce where chaos reigned" (139). It is from this position that he can sign his name, assert his identity, "me again, and me again...clear, firm, unequivocal" (138). Not only is Louis faced with aforeign society with which he must reconcile, but there is within him a “vast heritage of experience”. Louis states: But if I do not nail these impressions to the board and among the many men in me, I only make one; to exist here and now and not in streaks and patches, like crowns of snow scattered on distant mountains; and I will ask Miss Johnson, as I pass through the office, for information about the films, I will have my cup of tea and I will accept my favorite biscuit, and then I will fall like snow and be lost. (141)Thus, he “erases certain stains” and erases past “taints” such as “my accent, the beatings and other tortures,” associated with the larger society around him (139). It is the structural fusion of Woolf's internal experience, as well as his dedication to habitual order and action where he can "add" and calculate what Patricia Waugh calls the "imperial ego" and "the 'ideal of masculine culture' which maintain the spirit of Louis. “mental health”. Woolf uses a seamless wave-like arrangement for her individual "dramatic soliloquies" to focus on the main emotional outlets of her characters such as Louis above. By focusing primarily on its sentiment, the plot of The Waves is altered to become more rhythmic than chronological. This can be seen by looking at the individuality of the character. While Louis claims some kind of cure for his externality condition, Rhoda is prey to fear, because as Bernard observes, she "likes to be alone...she fears us because we break ourselves." the feeling of being which is so extreme in solitude” (109). Gillian Beer comments on Makiko Minow Pinkney's observation that The Waves "maintains for most of its duration 'a precarious dialectic between identity and its loss, the symbolic and its unrepresentable Other - a disturbing and unstable alternation'" ( 1998: xxv). This is indeed evident in the complexity of Rhoda's character, as life stains and corrupts her (169), she is "transformed...overturned...extended, among these long lights, these long waves, these endless paths, with people who move on with their lives.” , pursuing" (20). However, it is in solitude that she finds her so-called "sense of being", that she is threatened by nothingness, forcing her to "bang her head against some hard door to call me back to the body” (33) Rhoda’s emotions are similar to those of the ebb and flow of the ocean, she finds herself trapped in her own time and repeatedly forces herself to grasp “hardness,” a kind. of the umbilical cord of the physical domain where, illogically, it does not exist because it is here that identity fails it (50). Woolf's own identifying personality traits, we can see her lack of identification with the real world in the character of Rhoda. Rhoda's only stopping point seems to be her death, just as Woolf states that it is. is “[with] intermittent shocks, sudden as the springs of a tiger, [that] life emerges lifting its dark crest from the sea, [this is what we are attached to, this is what we are linked, like bodies to wild horses” (51). Later, Rhoda perceives the interdependence of others' lives as “anchored in a substance made of repeated moments that follow one another; they are committed, have an attitude towards children, authority, fame, love, society; where I have nothing” (186). . It is from this paradoxical space that Rhoda is able to notice the habitual and "unnatural" activities of those around her, which only seem to be masquerading as life. She can only stay inthe dialectic, a space that ultimately leads to her suicide which, in itself, seems to occur outside of the time loop (15), because the reader's only access to the details of Rhoda's death is through the declaration of Bernard on Rhoda's death. a fact and nothing more. Throughout the text, the reader is subjected to Bernard's "unquenchable thirst" for "stories" and "sentences" (53), which always exist only in the form of "smoke rings" or " bubbles”, perhaps evoking their ephemeral nature. as well as possible dissipation or evaporation. Each character in the novel seems to have their own crutch, which obviously serves as the main peak. As the characters constantly return to their ideal, time and characters in the plot become less structured again. An example of this would be Bernard who claims that his words lift the veil on things (68), but he is unable to finish both his sentences and his stories, perhaps suggesting that "the veil" may not be never fully lifted. His primary desire on the train is to "assimilate" the elderly traveler into a community, to "unfreeze" him with his human voice and its "disarming quality" because "we are not single, we are one." By his own admission, Bernard needs “the impulse of others” (64). He is inseparable from those around him and “is not one and simple, but complex and multiple” (61). Bernard becomes increasingly disillusioned with his own words and their inability to represent life as shown in his summary - which becomes an accumulation. of meaning - where he admits that none of these stories are true, "[but] like children we tell ourselves stories, and to decorate them we invent these ridiculous, flamboyant and beautiful phrases" (199). He then admits to being wary of “careful conceptions of life” and aspires to “a little language like that of lovers, broken words, inarticulate words, like the sound of feet on the sidewalk”. Naremore states that The Waves "manifest an intense desire to express a timeless unity of all things" (1970: 175), hence the existence of a question in the novel "whether language can serve such an end", leaving Bernard to seek “a certain conception” more in accordance with those moments of humiliation and triumph which undeniably occur from time to time” (1998: 200). If in the past Bernard had been convinced, he "must make sentences and sentences and thus interpose something hard between me and... indifferent faces" (22), now he rejoices in "the confusion, the height, indifference... of the story. , of conception, I see no trace of it then" (200). Bernard's language seems to mirror Woolf's writing as her unusual rhythmic style is also filled with confusion and indifference. One perhaps, like Bernard who, with the appearance of his inadequacies, is left with nothing but distrust, condemned to complete his final "story" to the reader in the environment in which he is trapped, just like the author Bernard's first significant fight with the. emotion and language postdates Percival's death and the simultaneous birth of his son, when he is unable to distinguish joy from sorrow (125). Death in the novel becomes the ultimate climax within the characters (125). It seems to be the most compelling unifying factor of all, alerting the characters to their common mortality Rhoda then states that "the guests seem to be dancing in a circle around a campfire, [so] Percival has become the flame. the light around which their thoughts and emotions flicker like moths” (1970: 96). Percival is indeed a distinct unifying entity for all six characters, but it is in death that he evokes the true extent of their vulnerability, much like the moths.

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