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Article: Virginia Woolf's 'The Waves': to defer that "appalling moment."
- Article from:
- Criticism
- Article date:
- January 1, 1998
- Author:
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In The Waves, an "appalling moment" is one in which individual autonomy collapses in the face of a completely unnamable, unfathomable absence.(1) Such a moment cannot be avoided; merely deferred. While the collapse--and reconfiguration--of subjectivity is, in general, a major focal point for Woolf scholars, The Waves attracts particular attention: its six immaterial voices, each struggling towards self-definition from childhood to old age, make it impossible not to interrogate this novel's "subjects." Most critics seem to agree that subjectivity, for Woolf, is no simple matter, but they disagree on the significance, expression, and forms of its intricacies.(2) The most ...