Time
The novel is fragmented into multiple timelines. Each chapter represents a different time than before. Unlike most novels, The Years refrains from trying to tie the story tightly together. Instead, opting to skip certain events that are not crucial to the idea being presented in the book. Despite its difference in time, the chapters successfully succeed one another rapidly. This attributes to the author retaining a shred of familiarity within each chapter, like the outside perspective of the weather. Virginia Woolf uses the power of time to tell a story that spans a lifetime, while also highlighting the major parts that mostly influence the overall purpose of the book. Time is the most essential theme of The Years, as it is time that has the power to tell this story. In time, the actions of the past influence the future. The characters don’t always make the best of choices, despite the knowledge of the past. Therefore, doomed to repeat themselves.
Weather
The author uses the weather to set up every new chapter. She vividly describes the atmosphere of the environment that each chapter is built upon. She ensures that the reader fully visualizes the space in which the story is being told. The novel is very subjective, therefore these brief insights of the weather act as an objective that counters the former. The weather is written in general, outside the reality of the characters. The weather detailed in the novel is in a way, not part of the story, but acts as a device connecting to the stories that make up the novel. The death of Mrs. Pargiter is followed by rain and then it moves to Edward at the University. Rain acts as a link between two stories happening separately but within the same time frame.
Death
The Years explores death in a revolutionary way in the art of storytelling. One of the earliest encounters with death in the novel is with Delia. She just lost her mother, but she’s unable to process her grief and therefore is unable to overcome it. This is an overtly new perspective on how to grief as opposed to how grief is usually portrayed as emotionally overwhelming. The Years give a more realistic and practical reaction to grief, detailing how some people process it differently than others. The novel also makes ample use of chimes as a sign of humanity’s inevitable death. In several deaths in the novel, chimes are going off, symbolizing the mortality in humanity over time.
