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Chapter 16
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
The sun has fully sunk below the horizon, the narrator says, but the “white fans” of the waves can still be seen breaking on the shore. In the garden, the trees have dropped their leaves to the ground and shadows drape everything inside and outside the house. A lone bird sings forlornly among the dark hills. The darkness solidifies and moves in waves over the countryside until it’s snuffed out the sight of courting couples and stately trees and even the tallest, grandest, snow-covered mountains.
In the earlier chapters, the events of one day would sometimes segue into the events of a longer period of time, as when the one exemplary day in Chapter 2 represents the protagonists’ entire early childhoods. Likewise, the book has subtly mapped the day of the interludes onto the cycle of the seasons—another metaphor often used to describe the phases of life, with spring standing for childhood and the winter—indicated here by the dry fallen leaves and early-falling darkness—of old age and death.
Themes
