Jacobs room: Woolf employs the conventions of a bildüngsroman to develop the expectations of a promising young man, only to pull them out from under him. She illustrates what happens when a young man is denied the opportunity to excel and is instead sent to war. This book also serves as an elegy for the missing generation lost in the trenches of World War I ; The waves: Follows the thoughts of six protagonists from childhood to old age against the backdrop of the sea, as they reflect on their own lives and that of their friend and hero, Percival.