Moment as an Eternity in Woolf's '"Waves"

Natia Noidze, Georgia;   Abstract: It is regarded that ‘’Waves’’ is the most experimental novel of Virginia Woolf. The novel is unique with its unconventional structure and chapterless narration, however, my paper aims to research the issue of time in’ ’Waves’’. It is not surprising that modernism brought about the new understanding of time, it attempted to demolish the preciseness of the clock and put forward a more generalized notion of it. The title of the novel is a presentation of what is displayed through it. A Wave is a part of a bigger unity, which is either the ocean or the sea. The waves have their own intensity but often after the rifts and their own triumphs they disappear and join their beginning as it is in ‘’In my beginning is my end’’. Playing down this idea Woolf presents seven heroes who are the representation of seven particular being / ‘’dasein’’ in the sea of human beings/ ‘’sein’’.Contrary to other Woolf’s novels, time in this novel is not of a purely psychological nature. Instead, it suggests eternally present timeand distinguishes between ones being and being in general (Sein VS Dasein). Keeping this in mind, the novel never ends and never begins. The heroessee themselves as the parts of the unity, parts of the past and present at the same time. Throughthe novel they struggle to define themselves with one ‘’being’’, as they say, that they do not have particular being, they are not one thing but ‘’complex and many’’. At the end of my paper, I will also underline the importance of focal point of the novel, in which Woolf narrates the scene in which all the charactersare wrapped and make up one single unity, the perspective of eternity. Key words: ETERNITY, SEIN, DASEIN, BEING, TIME