Tracing the lives of a group of friends, The Waves follows their development from childhood to middle age. While social events, individual achievements and disappointments form its narrative, the novel is most remarkable for the rich poetic language that expresses the inner life of its characters: their aspirations, their triumphs and regrets, their awareness of unity and isolation, and their questioning of the meaning of life itself. Perhaps more than any of Woolf's novels, The Waves conveys the endless complexities of human experience.