The Waves (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Virginia Woolf
- First Published: 1931
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: Late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
- Setting: England
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Self-discovery, Suicide, Poetry or poets, 1920’s, 1930’s, Emotions, England or English people, Identity, Old age or elderly people, Mortality
- Locales: London, England, Midlands, England
Characters Discussed
Percival, a childhood friend of the six central characters, who respect, admire, and love him. He is the symbol of the ordinary man, a conventional figure. Rather awkward and bumbling but pleasant and accepted everywhere, Percival forms the light around whom the six-sided flower revolves, as Bernard put it. In love with the natural woman, Susan, he is beloved by Neville, the scholar and brilliant poet. A sportsman, a hale fellow, a poor scholar, and finally a soldier who dies in India, Percival represents a kind of norm in personality and conduct.
...[The entire page is 971 words long]
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