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“The thread I try to spin; your laughter breaks it, your indifference, also your beauty. Jinny broke the thread when she kissed me in the garden years ago. The boasting boys mocked me at school for my Australian accent and broke it.

Louis has this perfect idea in his head of how certain situations should go, and when that doesn’t happen, it tends to rattle him pretty heavily

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"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; . . ."

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"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; . . ."

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This quote shows how Rhoda feels invisible and wants to hide rather than be seen. (Page 43)

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Anxious and cares a lot of what others think 

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Anxious and cares a lot of what others think 

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“The one who runs in advance in apprehension and sympathy with discomfort or ridicule— should there be a smut on a nose, or a button undone. I suffer for all humiliations

This is a reflection how how badly Louis just wants to be accepted more than anything else. And because he has not gotten that acceptance he has become very anxious.

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'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. Susan's father is a clergyman. Rhoda has no father. Bernard and Neville are the sons of gentlemen. Jinny lives with her grandmother in London. 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.'

He hates his accent and finds it a source of shame.

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". . . Inwardly I am not taught; I fear, I hate, I love, I envy and despise you, but I never join you happily." Pg. 222
A lot of Rhoda’s “hate” for people comes from the fact that she is so different and while she thinks she hates everything about life, I’m reality I think she hates the way she cannot connect to life/ people because of the way she thinks and feels.

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“Why meet and resume? Why talk and eat and makeup other combinations with other people. From this moment I am solitary. No one will know me now”-pp152
While one might not immediately peg Neville as the solitary type as he takes numerous lovers. His life is none the less devoid of connect as the these romances are fleeting and temporary. Neville is alone in the world, and only uses other people to fuel his creativity and successful writing career. After Percival's death Neville no longer has any true meaningful connections to other people.

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 ". . . I am afraid of you all. I am afraid of the shock of sensation that leaps upon me, because I cannot deal with it as you do—I cannot make one moment merge in the next. To me they are all violent, all separate; if I fall under the shock of the moment you will be on me, tearing me to pieces. . . ."

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 ". . . I am afraid of you all. I am afraid of the shock of sensation that leaps upon me, because I cannot deal with it as you do—I cannot make one moment merge in the next. To me they are all violent, all separate; if I fall under the shock of the moment you will be on me, tearing me to pieces. . . ."

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This quote shows how Rhoda cannot be/live in the moment because she is so deep within her mind and thoughts. She fears being in the moment and chooses to stay within the walls of her thoughts because she feels it is safer. (page 130)

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"I hate the small looking-glass on the stairs," said Jinny. "It shows our heads only; it cuts off our heads. And my lips are too wide, and my eyes are too close together; I show my gums too much when I laugh."

This quote shows that Jinny is aware of her self-appearance and emphasizes physicality.

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Bernard states, “both sit silent. Both are absorbed. Both feel the presence of other people as a separating wall. But if I find myself in company with other people, words at once make smoke rings--see how phrases at once begin to wreathe off my lips. It seems that a match is set to a fire; something burns. ”

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I will not conjugate the verb... 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.

Louis is insecure about his differences and copes by trying to imitate others to fit in.

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'I begin to wish,' said Louis, 'for night to come. As I stand here with my hand on the grained oak panel of Mr Wickham's door I think myself the friend of Richelieu, or the Duke of St Simon holding out a snuff-box to the King himself. It is my privilege. My witticisms "run like wildfire through the court". Duchesses tear emeralds from their earrings out of admiration--but these rockets rise best in darkness, in my cubicle at night. I am now a boy only with a colonial accent holding my knuckles against Mr Wickham's grained oak door. The day has been full of ignominies and triumphs concealed from fear of laughter. I am the best scholar in the school. But when darkness comes I put off this unenviable body--my large nose, my thin lips, my colonial accent--and inhabit space. I am then Virgil's companion, and Plato's. I am then the last scion of one of the great houses of France. But I am also one who will force himself to desert these windy and moonlit territories, these midnight wanderings, and confront grained oak doors. I will achieve in my life--Heaven grant that it be not long--some gigantic amalgamation between the two discrepancies so hideously apparent to me. Out of my suffering I will do it. I will knock. I will enter.'

He has big dreams. He wants to grow past where he is currently. He wants to be more than he is now. He wants to have the perfect features and shed his body, which he describes as unenviable.

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 "Life, how I have dreaded you," said Rhoda, "oh, human beings, how I have hated you! How you have nudged, how you have interrupted, how hideous you have looked in Oxford Street, how squalid sitting opposite each other staring in the Tube!"

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 "Life, how I have dreaded you," said Rhoda, "oh, human beings, how I have hated you! How you have nudged, how you have interrupted, how hideous you have looked in Oxford Street, how squalid sitting opposite each other staring in the Tube!"

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This quote shows how Rhoda has never been one to appreciate the outward things of life, but always prefers the life within her mind. (page 203)

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“I am astonished, as I draw the veil off things with words, how much, how infinitely more than I can say I have observed. More and more bubbles into my mind as I talk, images and images." (Woolf 84).

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Whenever Susan has a choice to make, she is always very passionate about what she chooses - when she has children, she puts all her time and energy into them and puts them first.

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"The birds sang in chorus first," said Rhoda. "Now the scullery door is unbarred. Off they fly. Off they fly like a fling of seed. But one sings by the bedroom window alone” (pg. 10)
This is Rhoda’s first line in the book and I think she identifies as the bird by itself. Because of how in her head she is she wasn’t able to make very many connections with people, which would have been especially hard watching “the other birds fly together” or all her friends getting closer and her not being able to

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"When I am grown up I shall carry a notebook --- a fat book with many pages, methodically lettered. I shall enter my phrases."

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 ". . . Inwardly I am not taught; I fear, I hate, I love, I envy and despise you, but I never join you happily."

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 ". . . Inwardly I am not taught; I fear, I hate, I love, I envy and despise you, but I never join you happily."

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This quote shows how Rhoda almost rejects the idea of being normal. She knows she has the same emotions as others such as being able to love, hate, and fear, but she will never be able to be happily like the others. She has the option to be "normal" but she knows she won't be happy so she rejects it.

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"It was only for a moment, catching sight of myself before I had time to prepare myself as I always prepare myself for the sight of myself, that I quailed. It is true; I am not young—I shall soon raise my arm in vain and my scarf will fall to my side without having signaled. I shall not hear the sudden sigh in the night and feel through the dark someone coming."

Jenny typically feels very spiritual and as though she has some sort of power or confidence through her physical beauty. The above quote describes how she worries that she may lose her spirituality and power with age, indicating that they stem from being youthful, to an extent.

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“He floated among us like a piece of thistle-down, indolently haunting the sunny corner of the playing field, not listening, yet not remote.”-pp245
Neville tends to love in something of a world of his own not connected to that of other people. He is a constantly in his own microcosm flitting from emotional high to emotional high only trying to capture perfection and he sublime.

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"We are in that passive and exhausted frame of mind when we only with to rejoin the body of our mother from whom we have been severed. all else is distasteful, forced and fatiguing." (p.233)
After Percival dies, a man whom Neville loved, Neville finds the world to be now "distasteful, forced, and fatiguing." No longer does this man find wonderful things to analyze and preach of the world or people he knows, rather, he finds everything seemingly morose. This quote shows first hand how Neville really doesn't want to be in this world as he is, perhaps reborn or not yet born, able to experience the world for the first time again and feel joy.

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“I cannot be tossed about, or float gently, or mix with other people... I shall have children; I shall have maids in aprons; men with pitchforks...”

Susan has always stuck to her roots- she chooses to live out her life on her childhood farm. She always knows what she wants, and is confident in herself. She has her priorities straight, and knows exactly how to carry them out. However, this feeling of certainty fades away when she reaches an old age.

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"To be myself (I note) I need the illumination of other people’s eyes, and therefore cannot be entirely sure what is myself."

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“‘I grasp, I hold fast,’ said Susan. ‘I hold firmly to this hand, any one’s, with love, with hatred; it does not matter which’” (Page 17).

With either love or hatred, Susan is passionate about the emotions she reveals and loves the idea of feeling without boundaries or limitations.

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“How tired I am of stories, how tired I am of phrases that come down beautifully with all their feet on the ground!”

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“When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me I am in darkness-I am nothing”(132)

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“Now  we  are  off,'  said  Louis.  'Now  I  hang  suspended  without  attachments.  We  are nowhere.”
“They  are  all  boasting,  all  talking,  except Neville,  who  slips  a  look  occasionally  over  the  edge  of  a  French  novel,  and  so  will always slip into cushioned firelit rooms, with many books and one friend, while I tilt on an office chair behind a counter. Then I shall grow bitter and mock at them. I shall envy them  their  continuance  down  the  safe  traditional  ways  under  the  shade  of  old  yew  trees while I consort with cockneys and clerks, and tap the pavements of the city.”

Louis is continually held back by himself and his own self consciousness or lack of it. He gets a job in a shipping company while his talent and intellect can be used better elsewhere.

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 ". . . But I am not included. After all these callings hither and tither, these pluckings and searchings, I shall fall alone through this thin sheet into gulfs of fire. And you will not help me. More cruel than the old torturers you will let me fall, and will tear me to pieces when I am fallen. Yet there are moments when the walls of the mind grow thin; when nothing is unabsorbed, and I could fancy we might blow so vast a bubble that the sun might set and rise in it and we might take the blue of midday and the black of midnight and be cast off and escape from here and now."

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 ". . . But I am not included. After all these callings hither and tither, these pluckings and searchings, I shall fall alone through this thin sheet into gulfs of fire. And you will not help me. More cruel than the old torturers you will let me fall, and will tear me to pieces when I am fallen. Yet there are moments when the walls of the mind grow thin; when nothing is unabsorbed, and I could fancy we might blow so vast a bubble that the sun might set and rise in it and we might take the blue of midday and the black of midnight and be cast off and escape from here and now."

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This quote shows how Rhoda doesn't trust that anyone is here for her, she knows people will just let her fall.

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"So, before the looking-glass in the temple of my bedroom, I have judged my nose, and my chin; my lips that open too wide and show too much gum. I have looked."

Jenny references this quote again and mentions how the first time she was judging her appearance out of fear. She says that she still critiques her appearance, but this time she isn't afraid. This is a good example of growth.

"and note precisely my nose, my chin, my lips that open woo wide and show too much gum. But I am not afraid."

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“My body goes before me...a lantern...bringing one thing after another out of darkness...I dazzle you”

Jinny uses her body and her attractiveness to get male attention and overall feel more confident. She owns her sexuality and uses it to overpower the men she seduces.

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"Here is the central rhythm; here the common mainspring. I watch it expand, contract; and then expand again. Yet I am not included."
Louis is aware of the relationships people have, but does not feel like he is a part of them.

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“The smell of carpets and furniture and scent disgusts me...”
“I shall lie like a field bearing crops in rotation; in the summer heat will dance over me; in the winter I shall be cracked with cold...”

When given the choice to live in the city or a farm, Susan chooses to live on her farm. She doesn’t like the structure of the city, but loves to find her own meaning while tending to animals and plants. She is certain that a life on a farm is one that she has always wanted. She doesn’t care if she is particularly happy with her family, as long as she is surrounded by nature.

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“"This is the prelude, this is the beginning. I glance, I peep, I powder. All is exact, prepared. My hair is swept in one curve. My lips are precisely red. I am ready now to join men and women on the stairs, my peers. I pass them, exposed to their gaze, as they are to mine. Like lightning we look but do not soften or show signs of recognition. Our bodies communicate. This is my calling. This is my world. All is decided and ready; the servants, standing here, and again here, take my name, my fresh, my unknown name, and toss it before me. I enter."

Throughout the book Jinny is shown as person who is very focused on the here and now. She rarely focuses on the future and effect if things. Her focus is on herself and she uses her body to engage with the world. She is also a person who does not learn that much in the book. She stays relatively the same and is determined to live the best she can.

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"’When I came into the room tonight,’ said Susan, ‘I stopped, I peered about like an animal with its eyes near to the ground. The smell of carpets and furniture and scent disgusts me. I like to walk through wet fields alone, or to stop at a gate and watch my setter nose in a circle, and to ask, Where is the hare? . . . The only sayings I understand are cries of love, hate, rage and pain. . . I shall never have anything but natural happiness. It will almost content me. I shall go to bed tired. I shall lie like a field bearing crops in rotation; in the summer heat will dance over me; in the winter I shall be cracked with the cold. . . My children will carry me on; their crying, their going to school and coming back will be like the waves of the sea under me. . . I love with such ferocity that it kills me when the object of my love shows by a phrase that he can escape. He escapes, and I am left clutching at a string that slips in and out among the leaves on the tree-tops. I do not understand phrases’” (Page 46).

In old age, Susan is dissatisfied in her life and wished that she did more in her youth.

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"I, who would wish to feel close over me the protective waves of the ordinary, catch with the tail of my eye some far horizon; am aware of hats bobbing up and down in perpetual disorder."
Louis wishes to be part of something more, but he is confined to his ordinary life, which he finds comfortable. The restrictions he puts on himself and his insecurities hold him back.

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“I have lost my indifference, my blank eyes, my pear-shaped eyes that saw to the root. I am no longer January, May, or any other season, but am all spun to fine thread round the cradle, wrapped in a cocoon made of my own blood the delicate limbs of my baby.”
Susan has thrown away her young life to live by herself, surrounded by nature. She now lives to serve her children and ensure that they grow happily. She is essentially a background character in her own life, because her children are the main characters.