Woolf employs narrative and perspective alterations to explore the transience of perception and character — the reader hardly knows who Jacob is, nor does he himself, but instead see the impressions he leaves on others, varying and contradictory. Are these the truth, or a reflection of the viewers themselves?

"Urbane' on the lips of Jacob had mysteriously all the shapeliness of a character which Bonamy thought daily more sublime, devastating, terrific than ever, though he was still, and perhaps would be for ever, barbaric, obscure.