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A character in The Waves

Percival

The handsome, silent friend whom everyone follows. He never speaks in the novel, and dies young in India.

The book

The WavesVirginia Woolf, 1931

Virginia Woolf's novel of six friends who speak in turn from childhood to old age, while the sun crosses one day over the sea.

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At a glance

The real person
Thoby Stephen · 1880–1906

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Percival is seen only through the others. He is athletic, conventional and kind, and they all love him in different ways. Herbert Marder calls him Woolf's idealized image of her brother Thoby Stephen, who died of typhoid in 1906.

How Percival Is Portrayed

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • In chapelOn pages 37 to 38, seen by Neville, he sits upright with blue, oddly blank eyes and flicks his hand to the back of his neck. The other boys copy the gesture and fail.
  • Everybody followsOn pages 38 to 39, seen by Louis, he walks clumsily down the field through the long grass, and everybody follows him.
  • He cannot readOn pages 50 to 51, seen by Neville, he thinks only of winning the cricket match. He cannot read, and yet understands poetry better than Louis.
  • The farewell dinnerOn pages 133 to 134 he arrives without changing for dinner and smooths his hair. He is about to leave for India, and he sits down next to Susan, whom he loves.
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

In India his horse stumbles, throws him, and he dies at twenty-five. The news reaches Neville by telegram. For the rest of the book the friends measure their lives against his absence.

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