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Book club questions for The Waves by Woolf Virginia
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
Woolf once said ‘The six characters were supposed to be one’. How ‘real’ do you think the characters in The Waves are?
Is The Waves a ‘unique’ novel? How does it compare with other books by Woolf (or anyone else) you have read?
Why do critics and others often refer to The Waves as ‘a poem’ or as an example of ‘poetic prose’? What features does it have in common with poetry?
How do you think the italicised interludes and the main sections of the novel are related?
Woolf weaves many quotes and contemporary references into The Waves. Can you pick out any examples? How does knowing about these allusions affect the way you read the novel?
What do you think of the ‘said Bernard’, ‘said Rhoda’ (etc) style of narrative?
Why doesn’t Percival speak, and what do you think his ‘role’ is in the novel?
What is the effect of having Bernard ‘sum up’ or retell everything again in the final section?
Why might The Waves be of such interest to post-colonial scholars?
How would you go about making a film version of The Waves?
The Waves Book Club Questions PDF
Click here for a printable PDF of the The Waves discussion questions