Narrative identity, embodied consciousness, and the waves

pp. 137-163

in: Brook Miller, Self-consciousness in modern British fiction, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

Virginia Woolf's 1931 experimental novel, The Waves, ends ambiguously. Bernard, who has struggled throughout the novel to find meaning, finally understands life as a perpetual crusade against death. "It is death," he says, "Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride" (220). Immediately following Bernard's proclamation, the novel ends with the phrase " The waves broke on the shore" (220).