The characters in The Waves experience some pretty strong emotions, including love and hate. However, in a novel that frequently blurs the boundaries between total opposites, it's no surprise that the difference between love and hate isn't always clear. For example, with respect to her friends, Susan feels an ambivalence that toggles between those two emotions (though, in general, she does seem to be a hater). Louis and Rhoda are also ambivalent about their friends.
Questions About Love/Hate
- Why is Susan so angry all the time? What does her intensity do for the book?
- Why are half the narrators (i.e., Jinny, Bernard, and Neville) pretty mellow, and the other half (i.e., Susan, Louis, and Rhoda) pretty keyed-up?
- How do the anger management issues of certain characters relate to some of the imagery regarding war and violence that pop up throughout the novel?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
Love and hate are two sides of the same coin; you cannot have one without the other.
Louis and Rhoda are clearly doubles of each other, and Woolf draws attention to this fact by giving them similar inferiority complexes and anger management issues.