I indicated in our last class what some of the likely questions or sources of questions for the final exam would be. The exam will emphasize *Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse*, and *The Waves*.

Most questions will have short answers. The following is the longest question with the longest answer. You can be thinking about it ahead of time if you wish. The final will be open book, open notes.

Part Three. Short essay. about 1-2 pages.

"Are there stories?" Can stories any longer have anything to do with any notion of "truth" in a world where all truths are subject to question, and belief in "reality" or absolutes is nearly impossible?

In my notes on section 7 of The Waves, I wrote the following:
"187 Bernard begins to doubt the stories. This is very important. He refers to stories in the context of "truth" and the image of the crucifix. He has just thought of how Neville once "raged at the sight of the doctor's crucifix"--implying Neville's anger at the intrusion of a powerful religious belief into the quest for truth. Bernard "at once make up a story and so obliterate the angles of the crucifix." Here Bernard expresses a causal relation that is worth examining closely, because it indicates the nature of the shift from his youthful idealism about stories and language and his current disillusionment with the power of stories, of language. At one time Bernard believed that he could "obliterate the angles of the crucifix"--that, is, soften the harsh impact of intrusive, oppressive systems of dogma--through his ability to tell stories. Just as he once consoled Susan through chasing after her and distracting her with the childhood game they played at Elvedon, so through his stories he could distract Neville from his rage at organized religion (specifically, the quasi-Catholic strains of the High Episcopal Church). But now, Bernard has lost his faith--not his religious faith, but his faith in writing, which is just as important. He tells us that what made it possible for him to fill so many notebooks all his life and to make up thousands of stories was his belief that one day he would indeed tell "the true story, the one story to which all these phrases refer. But I have never yet found that story. And I begin to ask, Are there stories?" This is a significant moment in the book, and something to keep in mind especially as you read p. 218 in section eight, and all of section nine, Bernard's final soliloquy."

Consider the question of whether or not stories can be told, whether or not narrative meaning is still possible, in the world fragmented and rivened by the mass destruction of world wars, by the persistence of oppression despite postcolonial consciousness of it, and the modern/postmodern doubt of the meaninglessness of all that was once held sacred. If there are no longer any absolute truths provable by scientific inquiry or available through religious belief, then why indeed tell stories? What is the value of stories, of art, in Woolf's modern landscape (and in our own postmodern world)?

Discuss how section 9 of The Waves either affirms or negates the reader's desire to believe in the value of stories (novels; meaning) and discuss one other Woolf novel that you think affirms or negates a belief in the power of stories. Write approximately 1-2 pages in response to this topic. Fragments & paraphrase OK. Make specific references to events, characters, statements and be sure that I understand what point you are making with your evidence.