I recently read The Waves by Virginia Woolf. I am not sure if misunderstood some of it, but I interpreted that all characters existed in one person.
I know the beginning and restaurant scenes were written as if they were all separate people. However, the way the book was written was that each of their stream consciousnesses converged into one. The modernism style also emphasized how there seemed to be a collective consciousness of them all.
Does this mean they were one person in the end? Some details made me believe this and that book was about someone who lived many lives or several people lived in one person (like multiple personality disorder). The writing was similar to Orlando (another Woolf book) where the main character lives hundreds of years and changes gender. Most evident of this was how in the end, the main “voice” says “I am not one person; I am many people; I do not altogether know who I am.”
Also, something about Rhoda made me feel like it was one person. When she spoke, it seemed like she had no choice in living like she was only needed at certain points to the one person.
Again, I don’t know if I misunderstood the book. I am going to reread it because I want to understand it better and it was hard to follow toward the end.
by Patrick561561