Bernard : The Rhizomatic Hero in Woolf’s The Waves
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| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves will be analyzed through the lens of the rhizome, a concept developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their seminal work A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Deleuze and Guattari argue that Western thought has long been dominated by “arborescent” models of understanding, representation, and knowledge. In contrast, this paper will explore The Waves as a work that challenges such structures, particularly through the character of Bernard. It will argue that Bernard embodies a “rhizomatic hero,” offering a fragmented, nonlinear alternative to traditional, dendritic (tree-like) modes of storytelling. In opposition stands the character of Percival, who represents the centralized, arborescent ideal. Through a comparative analysis of these two figures, the paper will demonstrate how Woolf’s narrative enacts a rhizomatic form of storytelling. |
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