The Importance of Birds in Virginia Woolf's The Waves To emphasize her point in The Waves, Woolf uses a distinctive style. It weaves together the dramatic monologues of six characters in successive stages of their lives to tell its story; and introduces each of the sections with a descriptive passage of the sun and waves through a single day. In these passages the descriptions of the sun, sea, plants and birds make implicit comparisons with the characters' speeches. The birds' actions in the descriptive passages strikingly parallel the characters' development of consciousness, exemplified by Susan. The development of birdsong skills and early explorations parallel Susan's experiences in childhood and adolescence. Initially the birds chirp independently. Later, "the birds [sing] out their empty melody" (8). Like the other children in the first section, Susan presents her observations without integrating them with those of her playmates: "I see a pale yellow slab... which widens until it meets a purple stripe"; “a caterpillar is curled into a green ring… notched with blunt feet” (9). Later, Susan talks about herself. She thinks in concrete terms: "it's black, I see; it's green, I see; I'm bound by words alone." Polarization marks his emotions: "I love and hate" 16). The jealousy she feels over Ginny kissing Louis demonstrates Susan's primitive lack of sophistication. Susan reveals that she will not be afraid of life and will live it to the fullest: "I am not afraid of the heat, nor the cold of winter" (25). The sun rises higher; the birds occasionally join their voices in a wild song, fall silent and disintegrate. Susan goes to school. Deeply nostalgic, s...... middle of paper ...... decidedly feminine" (248). He admits that he loves her because she cried with him after Ginny kissed Louis; because her primitivism appealed to the poet in him. So Woolf shows how life resembles the sea: the waves, stages of development, provide a body of knowledge to make sense of the past and guide future decisions. The sea, a microcosm, represents the earth, and the birds symbolize humanity Woolf realizes that human behavior is predictable and can be classified in several ways. Susan represents one possible classification, and Woolf links the external patterns of birds to Susan's internal reality to demonstrate the unity of body and psyche. Works Cited Coleman, Elliott, ed by Byron, Keats and Shelley Garden City, NY: International Collectors' Library, 1967. Woolf, Virginia New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich., 1959.