Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
*London.
The flow of life in London’s streets is at the heart of Woolf’s method for developing the moods of the city, which in turn stand for the moods of the English people. There is a blending of judgmental distance and participatory enthusiasm in her descriptions.
*Midlands. Central region of England. Whereas London provides a concrete ground for the narrative, the setting where the characters have reached maturity as adults, the countryside surrounding the city is the region of their origins and often operates as a metaphor for particular emotional states of being. In italicized prefaces to individual sections of the novel, the title motif stands for the passage of time. “Trees wave,” “hay waves,” “the brisk waves” and the like are typical phrases suggesting transition and alteration, while the concept of the garden as a controlled vision of awesome natural forces offers a contrast to the mechanized life of the city.
Elvedon. Semimystical place that Bernard claims he and Susan found in childhood, a magical land of fantasy and possibility glimpsed as a hazy apparition.