March 18, 2011
The Presence of Immanuel Kant’s Metaphysical in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves

In The Waves, Virginia Woolf takes upon herself, self-admittedly, an impossible task.  The science of her time has shattered “a perfect world” (54) and throughout this experimental novel one witnesses Woolf’s attempt to not only piece together some meaning from the fragments but to also describe the implications of its demise.  The world “soon to disappear” (54) is mechanically balanced, geometrically comprehensible, and “dominated by form” (55).  Newtonian law explains and justifies the existence of every atom and as such, purpose is derived from the comprehensibility of the universe.  However, as technology and industry tail the footsteps of discovery, mankind and their philosophy are forced to resign to the eternal embrace of entropy.  To aid Woolf in re-interpreting her universe, Immanuel Kant is called upon heavily throughout the text. Within the soliloquies, sublimity’s application to humanity, as experienced viscerally and internally by six distinguishable consciences, is explored and artistic illustration of Kant’s philosophical premise is achieved.  However, because the sublime, as affirmed by Woolf in The Waves and stated by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, is “an object (of nature) … of which determines the mind to think of the unattainability of nature as a presentation of ideas” we see her trace along the utmost boundaries that illuminate the interminably evasive nature of meaning as fundamental to the human condition.  These boundaries are fundamental, by definition, as a novel must always force nature into a presentation of ideas by the very premise of its existence.  Also, Woolf formulates prose-poems of a sun powered sea with two simultaneous aspects of intention.  The first of which is to allude to the enduring and cyclical nature of human existence by framing six individual lives in the context of a single day.  The second is to reveal intuitively, the constant infusion of energy into an isolated system; insinuating that our inevitable failure at distilling a single life into “a plain and logical story” (Woolf 251) is a property and casualty of this occurrence.

Each of the six characters within The Waves develops a personalized relationship with the sublime which is tailored to the substance of their identity and is instrumental in maturating their persona over the trajectory of their life.  In the “elevat[ion] of the imagination” (Kant 125) as occurred when encountering the sublime, the character’s furthest limits of experiencing existence are tested.  For Bernard, the realization that language itself cannot encompass the vast magnitude of nature acts as an object in channeling the sublime.#  This is because while he can ground himself safely amongst the world by “making phrases” (Woolf 76) and charming his friends and those around him, he is keenly aware of the “inadequacy of our greatest faculty of Sense” (Kant 117) and more specifically that he is condemned to “see every one with blurred edges” (Woolf 51).    Jinny absorbs herself in the physical world and the subtleties of the interactions to be found between the genders relating to sexual attraction.  While this pursuit represents her gambit of life, so to speak, it also carries the properties of the sublime.  When in pursuit of the ecstasy of attraction, she loses sense of her body and in this loss a comparison to the infinite is implied.  While both Bernard and Jinny can be seen to mitigate between objects of their sublime for the purposes of sanity, Rhoda foils arguably all five characters in that she is consumed by sublimity.  In this consumption, comes desperation and complete loss of identity, as she is swallowed whole by what Immanuel Kant would call, the “irresistibility of its might.”  To be sure, Rhoda is at once frightful and detached her entire life.  “Identify failed me… We are nothing… and fell” (64) as if the dissociative reality that she perceives is always and at once too much to cope.  The hint that Rhoda committed suicide on the jagged precipice of nature, exactly the kind of nature to illicit the sublime, is indicative and metaphorically suggestive of her being destroyed by the sublime.  Woolf is able to capture the sublime only because she creates and give life to her characters solely through the internal monologue.  This is essential because the sublime can only take place “in [the] mind [as] we find a superiority to nature even in its immensity” (Kant 129).  If she were to try to paint a story of someone the way Bernard attempts throughout the novel then she would lose the perspective that is necessary to interpret the divine and illusive nature of one’s personal thoughts in contrast with infinitude of their environment.

The prose-poems break up the soliloquies of the novel and serve to mark a new stage of life in all of the six characters.  As the sun rises to the top of its apex, the characters lives ripen in age to their zenith as well.  We see the personalities of all the characters come into full and then as they decline the sun begins to set behind the horizon.  This technique, employed by Woolf, is set apart from the rest of the novel in that it provides objective structure.  There is an omnificent perspective, giving detail to the ocean and describing with rich imagery the geographical splendor of nature, not being processed or interpreted by any of the characters.  It is significant that within these prose-poems no human being is ever entered into the descriptions.  Woolf is insinuating that objectivity can only be placed in the framework of natural environments and that human beings are disruptive of this objectivity.  When nature and humans are within the same frame, a flower “becomes six-sided” (229) meaning that there exist six different flowers fracturing from each of the characters point of view.    

Origin of power and the philosophical implications of such play a continuous theme throughout the prose poems.  The universe has changed from being a mechanical one in which all forces can be seen as subservient to the physical matter that guide them to a world in which tremendous force is being exerted at all times on matter, willingly or not.  In Turner Translates Carnot, this premise is seen in the advancement of technology.  Pulleys harness static energy and in this function illicit perceived control by man over the world in which they live.  Steam engines harness energy by the combustion and ignition of fuels.  Because the energy stems from ignition of fuels with “fire, everything changes, even wind and water” (Serres 56).  Thermodynamics is the new science ushered in forever leaving Newtonian mechanics to a world of the past.  Woolf intertwines this fundamentally into the prose poems as the greatest fire of all generates the waves of the ocean: the sun.  This is necessary for the entire structure of the novel.  The reason the characters struggle with finding meaning is because of the world in which they live.  In the context of this newly discovered scientific world-view, they are small molecules, no longer living in a balanced and comprehensible system of mechanical formula.  By having a source of energy outside of the system constantly creating impact on the system in which they live i.e. solar thermodynamics powering the waves of the ocean, a balanced and orderly equation is no longer feasible.  There is a constant variable of flux altering perpetually the contents of a system.  There can be no accountability or meaning in a world where the equation is not balanced in the context of a single human mind.  Because Bernard, Louis, Neville, Jinny, Rhoda and Susan are undeniably pieces of matter they are subject to force.  This brings us full circle to actual causation for the phenomena of sublimity.  The idea of sublime as defined by Kant is absolutely supportive of this world-view.  Without being dominated by the universe in which we inhabit, one could not reflect upon this and enter into the channel of the revelatory sublime.  Indeed, Woolf envisions the new world of thermodynamics and the grandeur chaos of meaning that it creates then provides the philosophy of Kant as an answer to the character’s ultimate request for purpose.