When the mirror is 'real', as is constantly the case in the realm of
objects, the space in the mirror is imaginary — and (cf. Lewis Carroll) the
locus of the imagination is the 'Ego'. In a living body, on the other hand,
where the mirror of reflection is imaginary, the effect is real. Henri Lefebvre, Politics of Space, 182
At the opening of her article “Rhoda
Submerged: Lesbian Suicide in The Waves ,“ Annette Oxindine
states that Bernard is Rhoda’s “male counterpart” (203). Oxindine’s article is
not centered on this relationship, and she makes this claim as though it is
established and cannot be argued, but I think that much of what identifies
Rhoda is seen in Louis as well. So I really think a case can be made that Louis
is really Rhoda’s male counterpart.
Besides the obvious connection
between the two – the short lived affair – there are other connections as well.
One connection is that both characters feel like outsiders, or like they don’t fit
in. To compensate for this feeling, each character consciously imitates or copies
the other four characters. As we see with Rhoda, while she is observing Jinny
and Susan at school, she thinks to herself
See now with
what extraordinary certainty Jinny pulls on her stockings, simply to play
tennis. That I admire. But I like Susan’s way better, for she is more resolute,
and less ambitious of distinction than Jinny. Both despise me for copying what
they do; but Susan sometimes teaches me, for instance, how to tie a bow, while
Jinny has her own knowledge but keeps it to herself. (Woolf 29-30)
Woolf takes this opportunity to
show the reader that Rhoda feels out of place, and thinks that only by copying
the others will she appear “normal.” The others are aware of this, and (at
least in Rhoda’s mind) “despise [her] for copying,” but Susan does sometimes
make the effort to teach Rhoda how to be “normal.”
Louis feels that he doesn’t
belong because he is from Australia and a lower class background. He says,
“I will not
conjugate the verb,” said Louis, “until Bernard has said it. My father is a
banker in Brisbane and I speak with an Australian accent. I will wait and copy
Bernard. He is English. They are all English ... Now they suck their pens. Now
they twist their copy-books, and, looking sideways at Miss Hudson, count the
purple buttons on her bodice. Bernard has a chip in his hair. Susan has a red
look in her eyes. Both are flushed. But I am pale; I am neat, and my
knickerbockers are drawn together by a belt with a brass snake. I know the
lesson by heart. I know more than they will ever know. I knew my cases and my
genders; I could know everything in the world if I wished. But I do not wish to
come to the top and say my lesson. My roots are threaded, like fibres in a
flower-pot, round and round about the world. I do not wish to come to the top
and live in the light of this great clock, yellow-faced, which ticks and ticks.
Jinny and Susan, Bernard and Neville bind themselves into a thong with which to
lash me. They laugh at my neatness, at my Australian accent. I will now try to
imitate Bernard softly lisping Latin.”(Woolf 12)
Even though Louis knows the lesson
(“could know everything in the world”), he is not willing to recite it to the
other children until he hears someone else first, so that he may copy the “proper”
pronunciation. He does not need to be taught like Rhoda does, but he does need
the opportunity to copy/imitate the others. Even Neville associates the two
when he says, “then Rhoda, or it may be Louis, some fasting and anguished
spirit, passes through and out again” (Woolf 144).
Whether or not the question of
who is Rhoda’s male counterpoint is important to the reading, another
(arguable) connection between the two is Woolf’s use of leitmotifs. Louis is
associated with poetry, and Rhoda with water. This connection may not be
obvious, but with the inclusion of Shelley and Byron’s poetry, there can be a
connection made between water (a part of nature) and the Romantic poets, who
wrote prolifically about nature. There is also the symbolism of waves that can
connect with poetry; the way they flow, crest, and fall is often compared with the
rhythm of a poem.
That water is a leitmotif for
Rhoda seems to be an accepted idea. Oxindine compares water with Rhoda’s
sexuality, her examples can be generalized. Oxindine states that Rhoda is
imagined as “‘the nymph of the fountain always wet’” (212), and her sexual
gratification is imagined as “pulsating water” (213). Along with these
examples, characters from the text associate Rhoda with water: Neville remembers
Rhoda as "she rocked her petals in a brown basin” and says “Love is not a
whirlpool to her” (Woolf 100). Woolf instead associates Rhoda with “dark pools,”
and “Pools … on the other side of the world reflecting marble columns” (Woolf
75). It is even assumed that Rhoda commits suicide by throwing herself off a
cliff, presumably the same on she looked from in Spain (Woolf 150-1). It is
from this cliff that she sees the fleet, so if she has thrown herself off, the
implication is that she would have landed in water. With all of the instances
of Rhoda and water in the novel, the reader must figure that there is no other way
for her to die.
The copying of others and
reflections of pools lend themselves to the idea of a mirror. During the third
interlude, Woolf subtly connects mirrors and water when she writes, the “looking-glass
whitened its pool upon the wall” (Woolf 53). The reflection of the mirror is
likened to a pool of water. Strangely, since Rhoda is associated with water,
she does not like to see herself in the mirror. Oxindine claims that “as a
young girl, Rhoda is unable to confirm her own existence in a looking glass”
(205), and uses the quote “‘that is my face,’ said Rhoda, ‘in the looking-glass
behind Susan’s shoulder — that face is my face. But I will duck behind her to
hide it, for I am not here. I have no face. Other people have faces; Susan and
Jinny have faces; they are here. Their world is the real world’" (Woolf
29). Rhoda will not face herself in the mirror, but she also doesn’t face
herself in water’s reflection. Instead, water imagined as reflecting marble
pillars. But while she does not see herself reflected, others do. Neville
thinks, “Let Rhoda speak, whose face I see reflected mistily in the
looking-glass opposite” (Woolf 100). She is “reflected mistily,” but she is
reflected.
Looking back to the opening quote
of this blog, we can apply Lefebvre’s words to Rhoda’s actions. When the mirror
is “real,” her reflection is or seems imaginary. (She is either hiding behind
the others to obliterate her reflection, or is reflected as a ghost-like
being.) When “in a living body … where the mirror of reflection is imaginary,
the effect is real” (Lefebvre
182), Rhoda creates herself by mirroring the other girls. Both she and the
girls become mirrors, Susan and Jinny provide a reflection for Rhoda to
contemplate, and Rhoda reflects back to them what she observes. Again, as
Lefebvre writes:
One truly gets
the impression that every shape in space, every spatial plane, constitutes a
mirror and produces a mirage effect; that within each body the rest of the
world is reflected, and referred back to, in an ever-renewed to-and-fro of
reciprocal reflection, an interplay of shifting colours, lights and forms. (Lefebvre 183)
The girls become an “ever-renewed
to-and-fro of reciprocal reflection,” a two-way interaction, for each other.
Throughout the novel, Rhoda
attempts to escape the real world by creating an imaginary one. Lefebvre’s
examination of the mirror in relation to the body captures Rhoda’s attempts. He
says,
If my body may
be said to enshrine a generative principle, at once abstract and concrete, the
mirror's surface makes this principle invisible, deciphers it. The mirror
discloses the relationship between me and myself, my body and the consciousness
of my body - not because the reflection constitutes my unity qua subject
… but because it transforms what I am into the sign of what I am. (Lefebvre
185)
Rhoda prefers to live in the
imaginary, so she is not interested in the possibility of a “unity qua subject.” And this explains her
reluctance to see herself in a mirror. She does not want subjectivity, and
Lefebvre says that “every form belongs to the subject. It is the apprehension
of the surface by the mirror” (181). By seeing her reflection in a mirror, she
would take form, become subject, and acquire a surface. The others, such as
Neville, view Rhoda’s reflection in a mirror, and see only the sign of what she
is. The others cannot reach the “real” Rhoda because they only see her
second-handedly.
Works Cited
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith.
Oxford UK: Blackwell, 1995.
Oxindine, Annette. “Rhoda
Submerged: Lesbian Suicide in The Waves .“ Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings. Ed. Eileen Barrett and Partricia
Cramer. NY: NYUP, 1997.
Woolf, Virginia. The Waves. Molly Hite, annot. and intro.
1941: NY: Harcourt, 2008.
