Though chock full of pretty ocean landscapes and flowers, The Waves also sprinkles references to violence, brutality, and savagery in the mix. Even references to pretty things have sinister undertones, creating a sense that the beautiful in life often comes with the ugly.
Woolf is pretty amped up about binaries and blurring the lines between them, so her emphasis on the violence/ugliness even within the most exquisite things is par for the course.
Questions About Violence/Brutality
- Susan has a pretty brutal inner life when she is young, at one point essentially making voodoo dolls out of stones and burying them. Later, however, she transitions into being consumed by maternity and the imperative to protect others (rather than destroy them). What do you make of these two aspects of Susan's character?
- Neville refers to a "violent passion" for Percival. We know that's a common enough way to refer to an intense emotion, but is there anything more to this phrase? What do you make of the notion that love can be somehow violent?
Chew on This
The novel suggests that there is always an element of violence and brutality in love, as loving involves the "violence" of knowing (or wanting to know) another in a way that violates the privacy typically afforded to a person.
The novel associates violence with authority, thereby undercutting the attempts of the characters to put a positive spin on Percival's authority over others.