Knowledge and Experience in Virginia Woolf's The Waves: an exploration of epistemology at stake in modernist fiction

In the The Waves (1931) Virginia Woolf is approaching the possibilities of true knowledge in fiction. She does so both on the level of content and form. Bernard, one of the novel’s speakers, has an epiphany while shaving as a middle-aged man. He discovers that time has changed. Time no longer indicates the possibility of the future, but rather the missed possibilities of the past. This new experience of time results in Bernard losing his urge to describe the world. Instead Bernard attempts a different mode of narration in order to communicate and grasp his new experience of life. Bernard’s problem with representation is also Woolf’s problem. The Waves is similarly qua its form an experimental piece of fiction that is following the rhythm of the sea rather than a traditional plot structure. By doing so Woolf is posing the same questions to fiction as Bernard: How is it possible to describe the world objectively? The thesis is investigating this question by extensively using Ann...Show moreIn the The Waves (1931) Virginia Woolf is approaching the possibilities of true knowledge in fiction. She does so both on the level of content and form. Bernard, one of the novel’s speakers, has an epiphany while shaving as a middle-aged man. He discovers that time has changed. Time no longer indicates the possibility of the future, but rather the missed possibilities of the past. This new experience of time results in Bernard losing his urge to describe the world. Instead Bernard attempts a different mode of narration in order to communicate and grasp his new experience of life. Bernard’s problem with representation is also Woolf’s problem. The Waves is similarly qua its form an experimental piece of fiction that is following the rhythm of the sea rather than a traditional plot structure. By doing so Woolf is posing the same questions to fiction as Bernard: How is it possible to describe the world objectively? The thesis is investigating this question by extensively using Ann Banfield’s book The Phantom Table (2000).Show less

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Knowledge and Experience in Virginia Woolf's The Waves: an exploration of epistemology at stake in modernist fiction