Segment Ending Similarities

            Something I found interesting while reading the novel was the way Virginia Woolf ending each segment or section of the book (in this case, “segments” refers to the dialogue between the italicized sections). Page 18 is where the first segment ends. About 3 sentences from the end is the thing I found interesting, where Rhoda is attempting to pull herself out of her dream. The words she uses suggest a storm, prompted by the sentence, “Let me pull myself out of these waters.” The next sentence contains a variety of words that continue the metaphor: “heap themselves”, “sweep me between their great shoulders”, “turned”, “tumbled”, “stretched, among…these long waves”. By itself, the metaphor is insignificant; however, when you look at the end of the second segment on page 51, there is a similar metaphor.

In the ending, Neville is disembarking from a train onto a crowded platform. The metaphor describing the crowd begins about 6 sentences up from the bottom of the page with the sentence, “[The huge uproar] sounds and resounds under this glass roof like the surge of a sea.” Words in the following sentences continue the metaphor: “cast down”, “whirled asunder”, and “drawn in, tossed down, thrown sky-high” all bring to mind someone getting tossed about in the sea; in the next sentence, Neville “grasping tightly” gives me the image of someone holding onto a boat or a floatation device.

Both of these endings make a good connection to the italicized sections, which are always about the sun rising over the horizon of a beach. They also tie back into the name of the novel itself. I’ll need to pay attention and see whether the pattern continues for later segments.