Bernard

Character Analysis

Have you ever had a friend who just can't let there be a lag in conversation? Who's always talking to strangers while you're trying to have a quiet coffee with him? That's Bernard. From the time he was a little kid, Bernard was a chatty Cathy, telling stories, trying to cheer up his friends, and making connections with random strangers.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Bernard fancies himself a budding arteest from almost the very start of the novel. He keeps a book of alphabetized phrases that he plans to use in some great literary work someday. He collected these phrases from observing strangers and friends. Um, Bernard is Harriet The Spy.

Language is a kind of hunt for Bernard—he always seems to seeking some kind of more perfect or powerful moment of expression—but his phrases never quite get him where he wants to go.

For example, when he is a young man, he considers writing a letter to a girl he thinks is cute. He spends several paragraphs describing his intent to construct a very precise image of himself in the girl's mind by choosing exactly the right words and phrases for the letter, saying:

I must give her the impression that though he—for this is not myself—is writing in such an off-hand, such a slap-dash way, there is some subtle suggestion of intimacy and respect. I must allude to talks we have had together—bring back some remembered scene. But I must seem to her (this is very important) to be passing from thing to thing with the greatest ease in the world. I shall pass from the service for the man who was drowned (I have a phrase for that) to Mrs Moffat and her sayings (I have a note of them), and so to some reflections apparently casual but full of profundity (profound criticism is often written casually) about some book I have been reading, some out-of-the-way book. (3b.3)

However, just as he's about to pick up the pen to start writing, he finds he can't get started. It seems that trying to wrangle language so that it perfectly encapsulates everything he wants to say doesn't always work. Bernard says he will just write the letter later, but it's unclear that he ever does. We're guessing that he never does.

Man of the People

Don't get the wrong idea, though: Bernard's obsession with getting the words right isn't pure perfectionism or artist's vanity; he uses language to bridge gaps between people. Remember how he's always befriending random strangers? Neville comments that Bernard talks "as easily to the horse-breeder or to the plumber as to us. The plumber accepted him with devotion" (2b.56). In short, Bernard is obsessed with getting people to connect.

Toward the end of the book, Bernard tries to articulate why he's always collected phrases and images, saying that he's been on the scent of some bigger truth or story:

I have made up thousands of stories; I have filled innumerable notebooks with phrases to be used when I have found the true story, the one story to which all these phrases refer. But I have never yet found that story. And I begin to ask, Are there stories? (7b.5)

Bernard ultimately realizes that language can't do what he's been trying to make it do, but he recognizes the importance of continuing to try to communicate. In fact, he views it as the best way to fight against death and decline. Ta-da! Lit nerd vindication: reading and writing essays are useful for something beyond getting good grades. Lit is about foiling the Grim Reaper.

Multiple Personality Disorder

As one of Woolf's most experimental novels (and have you read her "traditional" novels? When Woolf gets experimental, she gets out there), The Waves is doing something bizarre-o with character. Bernard begins to articulate what's going on with that in the final chapter, where he indicates that "Bernard" may not be a separate character at all, but one facet of a larger person that also includes Rhoda, Jinny, Susan, Neville, and Louis.

Hmm, they are all quite different and complementary, aren't they? We never know whether or not these characters are separate or just part of a six-headed megabeast: again, this is an experimental novel by Virginia Woolf, which means anything goes. It's like saying saying "a really creepy movie by David Cronenberg" or "a really suspenseful movie by Alfred Hitchcock."  This is next-level experimentation.

Bernard does seem to be the most dominant of these characters, however, and serves as the mouthpiece of the group in the book's final chapter.

Oh, yeah: fun fact—a lot of critics think that Bernard is inspired by E.M. Forester, a real-life buddy of Woolf's.