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Light and Dark
The waves in The Waves stand for the cyclical nature of life. In this way, they’re like the birds. But while the birds track the phases of a human life, the waves suggest something more primordial. Instead of a single human life, the waves represent the life force of the world itself. The waves are described as breath sounds and as a great beast, restrained but still powerful and sending its force into the world through the sound of its stamping feet. They represent the cycles of the seasons Susan appreciates in her garden. They represent the connection between life and death, which Bernard begins to understand on the day that his first child is born but his friend Percival dies. In the interludes, the waves are consistent, eternal, and never-ceasing. They vary in size, frequency, and intensity, but they never stop. The fact that they remain visible in the flash of foam on their edges even after the sun has set promises that life writ large will always go on even as mortal things age, whither, and die.
Waves Quotes in The Waves
The The Waves quotes below all refer to the symbol of Waves. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 2
Quotes
“I see a ring,” said Bernard, “hanging above me. It quivers and hangs in a loop of light.”
“I see a slab of pale yellow,” said Susan, “spreading away until it meets a purple stripe.”
“I hear a sound,” said Rhoda, “cheep, chirp; cheep, chirp; going up and down.”
“I see a globe,” said Neville “hanging down in a drop against the enormous flanks of some hill.”
“I see a crimson tassel,” said Jinny, “twisted with gold threads.”
“I hear something stamping,” said Louis, “A great beast’s foot is chained. It stamps, and stamps, and stamps.”
“Look at the spider’s web on the corner of the balcony,” said Bernard. “It has beads of water on it, drops of white light.”
“The leaves are gathered around the window like pointed ears,” said Susan.
[…]
“Islands of light are swimming on the grass,” said Rhoda. “They have fallen through the trees.”
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Chapter 8
Quotes
Yes, between your shoulders, over your heads, to a landscape […] to a hollow here many-backed steep hills come down like birds’ wings folded. There, on the short, firm turf, are bushes, dark leaved, and against their darkness, I see a shape, white, but not of stone, moving, perhaps alive. But it is not you, it is not you, it is not you; not Percival, Susan, Jinny, Neville, or Louis. […] It makes no sign, it does not beckon, it does not see us. Behind it roars the sea. It is beyond our reach. Yet there I venture. There I go to replenish my emptiness, to stretch my nights and fill them fuller and fuller with dreams. And for a second now, even here, I reach my object and say, ‘Wander no more. All else is trial and make-believe. Here is the end.’
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Chapter 14
Quotes
Certainly, one cannot read this poem without effort. The page is often corrupt and mud-stained, and torn and stuck together with faded leaves, with scraps of verbena and geranium. To read this poem one must have myriad eyes, like one of those lamps that turn on slabs of racing water in at midnight in the Atlantic, when perhaps only a spray of seaweed pricks the surface, or suddenly the waves gape and up shoulders a monster. One must put aside antipathies and jealousies and not interrupt. One must have patience and infinite care and let the light sound, whether of spiders’ delicate feet on a leaf or the chuckle of water in some irrelevant drainpipe, unfold too. Nothing is to be rejected in fear or horror. […] One must be sceptical but throw caution to the winds and when the door opens accept absolutely.
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Chapter 18
Quotes
Again I see before me the usual street. The canopy of civilisation is burnt out. […] But there is a kindling in the sky whether of lamplight or of dawn. There is a stir of some sort—sparrows on plane trees somewhere chirping. There is a sense of the break of day. I will not call it dawn. What is dawn in the city to an elderly man standing in the street looking up rather dizzily at the sky? Dawn is some sort of whitening in the sky; some sort of renewal. […] The stars draw back and are extinguished. The bars deepen themselves between the waves. The film of mist thickens on the fields. A redness gathers on the roses, even on the pale rose that hangs by the bedroom window. A bird chirps. Cottagers light their early candles. Yes, this the eternal renewal, the incessant rise and fall and rise again.
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Get the entire The Waves LitChart as a printable PDF.
Waves Symbol Timeline in The Waves
The timeline below shows where the symbol Waves appears in The Waves. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...to distinguish the sea from the sky, but a line of darkness separates the two. Waves roll continuously in toward the shore with the regularity of a person’s breath. The line...
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Chapter 3
The narrator describes the beach again. As the sun rises higher, the waves sparkle with light. The brightness raises sharp shadows on the grass and the birds sing...
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Chapter 4
...sits on the train, she feels life welling up in her once more like a wave in the ocean with the strength and suddenness of a tiger pouncing. She looks at...
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Chapter 5
...the house, illuminating its objects and casting shadows on the walls. The wind whips the waves higher until they attack the shore like “turbaned warriors.”
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Chapter 7
...narrator describes how the sun has risen completely above the line of the horizon. The waves roll into the shore rhythmically, with the incessant energy of an engine. In the garden,...
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Chapter 8
...Rhoda tries to sneak behind it to the sea to “replenish [her] emptiness” in the waves, and for an instant, she feels like she’s arrived at her destination.
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Chapter 9
...the house shine brightly, while light and shadow vie for mastery of the rooms. The waves break swiftly on the shore “like a great beast stamping.”
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Chapter 11
...the light can’t drive out all the shadows, which pile up in the corners. The waves hurl themselves with increasing fury on the beach.
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Chapter 15
The sun is sinking below the horizon, turning the waves red with its dying light. The narrator describes the breeze that rustles through the trees’...
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Chapter 17
...has fully sunk below the horizon, the narrator says, but the “white fans” of the waves can still be seen breaking on the shore. In the garden, the trees have dropped...
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Chapter 18
...yet he senses the impending “break of day.” He feels as if he’s riding a wave that carries him forward like a knight jousting with his enemy, death. And the wave...
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