<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>The article focuses on Virginia Woolf’s novel, <italic>The Waves,</italic> a <italic>sui generis</italic> work, in which the writer explores metaphysical and epistemological issues such as the meaning of selfhood, time and identity as flux, silence and language, the self as defined by language, and other fundamental concerns. These topics are explored through a dualistic perspective. This duality permeates the entire structure of the novel through binary oppositions: the self as one/the self as plural; the lyrical/the novelistic; the mystical/the rational; narrative/formlessness; the embodied/the disembodied; potentiality/actuality; language/silence. Woolf’s ambivalent approach is also at work in the way she uses language in the novel. The urge towards a teleological existence prompts her characters to turn events into a narrative that would arrange and combine them into one thread. The present article, however, shows that in <italic>The Waves</italic> the very human propensity to turn experience into a coherent story is countered by the opposite perception that this narrativizing drive is only an illusion.</p>
</abstract>

The article focuses on Virginia Woolf’s novel, The Waves, a sui generis work, in which the writer explores metaphysical and epistemological issues such as the meaning of selfhood, time and identity as flux, silence and language, the self as defined by language, and other fundamental concerns. These topics are explored through a dualistic perspective. This duality permeates the entire structure of the novel through binary oppositions: the self as one/the self as plural; the lyrical/the novelistic; the mystical/the rational; narrative/formlessness; the embodied/the disembodied; potentiality/actuality; language/silence. Woolf’s ambivalent approach is also at work in the way she uses language in the novel. The urge towards a teleological existence prompts her characters to turn events into a narrative that would arrange and combine them into one thread. The present article, however, shows that in The Waves the very human propensity to turn experience into a coherent story is countered by the opposite perception that this narrativizing drive is only an illusion.

Dualistic Vision in Virginia Woolf’s <italic>The Waves</italic>

American, British and Canadian Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":{"italic":"The Waves","content":"Dualistic Vision in Virginia Woolf\u2019s"}}

The article focuses on Virginia Woolf’s novel, The Waves, a sui generis work, in which the writer explores metaphysical and epistemological issues such as the...

Dualistic Vision in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves

Published Online: Jul 31, 2021

Page range: 49 - 66

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/abcsj-2021-0004

Keywords
dualism, ambivalence, actuality and potentiality, language and silence, narrativize, mysticism

© 2021 Loran Gami, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Dualistic Vision in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves

Published Online: Jul 31, 2021

Page range: 49 - 66

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/abcsj-2021-0004

Keywordsdualism, ambivalence, actuality and potentiality, language and silence, narrativize, mysticism

© 2021 Loran Gami, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
dualism, ambivalence, actuality and potentiality, language and silence, narrativize, mysticism