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Chapter 12
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Waves, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity
The Meaning of Life
Facing Loss and Death
The Power and Limitations of Storytelling
Colonialism and Conquest
Summary
Analysis
As the sun sinks lower in the sky, the narrator says, the color leaches out of the scenery. The birds circle through the air, coming to rest individually and in groups in the trees. The blooms of the flowers begin to wilt, and the drying leaves start falling from the trees. The afternoon sun brings light and warmth to the fields where cows walk lazily through the grass. On the horizon, one can occasionally make out the shadow of a house or church steeple against the sky. In the house, the light softens, reddens, wavering uncertainly.
Now the six friends approach middle age, a time of reckoning when they will each begin to measure the success of their approach to life. Likewise, the birds have settled in the trees—some, like Bernard and Susan, have families. Meanwhile others like Rhoda, Louis, and Jinny, remain solitary. Middle age is a time when the shadows lengthen—death is coming closer—but the scenery is still warm and welcoming.
Themes
