Claiming Cycles

"If seconds heal all wounds, I'll put these tips on you.
 When faith is left to prove, it's all you have to lose"
             --The Cab, "One Of Those Nights

"For this is the truth about our soul, he thought, our self, who fish-like inhabits deep seas and plies among obscurities threading her way between the boles of giant weeds, over sun-flickered spaces and on and on into gloom, cold, deep, inscrutable; suddenly she shoots to the surface and sports on the wind-wrinkled waves; that is, has a positive need to brush, scrape, kindle herself, gossiping" (161).

This passage vividly describes the cyclical pattern of happiness and sadness in our lives. Woolf depicts a fish that swims through "deep seas" and "giant weeds". The fish "threads" a path for her life through the hardships endured by most people. And every once in a while, us humans find ourselves in a time of happiness with the "sun", a time that is irreplaceable. But, these times "flicker" and shine for only a meager amount of time, representing how the precious moments in life are not everlasting. We continue to face each day, but each dawn we face the "inscrutable" mystery of how our lives will progress in the future. Similarly to the fish, we are inspired to "shoot to the surface" and live how we actually want.

Woolf also mentions the "waves" that are continually discussed throughout the novel. In this context, they represent the cycle of contentment and dissatisfaction encountered in everyone's life. They are "wrinkled" and old, symbolizing how this cycle is timeless and continuous. Septimus, for example, faces this cycle profoundly in his time. He finds joy after the "gloom" of war depression with his wife, but fails to let go of the past, depicting how we must let the cycle flow naturally or else we will be tragically stuck in the past. The truth about our soul is found through our emotions during all periods in our life.