summary of the voyage out

"The Voyage Out" Summary

By Virginia Woolf

classics | 375 pages | Published in NaN

Estimated read time: 5 min read

One Sentence Summary

A young woman's journey of self-discovery and awakening during a sea voyage to South America.

Table of Contents

Introduction, brief synopsis, main characters, summary of story points over chapters, main events, themes and insights, reader's takeaway.

"The Voyage Out" is the debut novel by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1915. It is a compelling story that delves into the complexities of human relationships, societal expectations, and the pursuit of personal fulfillment. Set against the backdrop of the early 20th century, the novel takes readers on a thought-provoking journey through the lives of its diverse and engaging characters.

Plot Overview

"The Voyage Out" follows the journey of Rachel Vinrace, a young woman who sets out on a sea voyage from England to South America with her aunt and uncle. The novel portrays Rachel's experiences as she navigates the challenges of self-discovery, love, and the constraints of conventional society.

The story begins in England, where the characters are introduced in a social setting that reflects the norms and values of the time. As the narrative progresses, the voyage takes the characters to South America, where they encounter new cultures and landscapes that significantly impact their perspectives on life and relationships.

The novel features a rich cast of characters, each with distinctive traits and roles in Rachel's journey.

Chapter 1-5

The novel introduces the main characters and sets the stage for the sea voyage. Rachel's introspective nature and her interactions with the other passengers begin to reveal the complexities of human relationships.

Chapter 6-10

As the voyage progresses, Rachel's encounters with Terence Hewet lead to a growing connection between them. The novel delves into the themes of love, desire, and societal expectations.

Chapter 11-15

The characters' experiences in South America bring about profound changes in their perspectives. Rachel's journey of self-discovery takes center stage as she grapples with her own identity and desires.

Chapter 16-20

The relationships between the characters become increasingly intricate, and the novel explores the tensions and conflicts that arise as they confront their innermost feelings and societal pressures.

Chapter 21-25

The narrative reaches a poignant climax as the characters face pivotal moments that test their beliefs and choices. The novel skillfully intertwines themes of personal freedom, societal constraints, and the pursuit of happiness.

The novel is punctuated by several significant events that shape the characters' development and the overarching themes of the story:

• Rachel's initial encounters with Terence Hewet and the gradual evolution of their relationship.
• The characters' experiences in South America, which expose them to new cultures and ideas.
• Moments of introspection and self-discovery for Rachel and other key characters.
• The unfolding of complex emotional dynamics and conflicts among the passengers during the voyage.
• The culminating events that challenge the characters' perceptions and lead to profound realizations about their lives and relationships.

"The Voyage Out" encompasses a range of thought-provoking themes, including:

• Self-Discovery: The novel delves into the internal journeys of the characters as they seek to understand themselves and their place in the world.
• Love and Relationships: The complexities of romantic and familial relationships are explored, highlighting the impact of societal norms and personal desires.
• Societal Expectations: The clash between individual aspirations and societal constraints forms a central theme, offering insight into the pressures faced by the characters.
• Cultural Exploration: The novel presents the transformative effects of encountering new cultures and environments, broadening the characters' perspectives.

Through its exploration of these themes, "The Voyage Out" offers profound insights into the human experience, the complexities of emotions, and the pursuit of personal fulfillment. It invites readers to contemplate the intricacies of human relationships and the challenges of navigating societal norms while staying true to one's authentic self.

"The Voyage Out" is a captivating and introspective novel that resonates with readers through its rich character development and exploration of timeless themes. As readers immerse themselves in the characters' journeys, they are prompted to reflect on their own quests for self-discovery, the complexities of love and relationships, and the influence of societal expectations on personal fulfillment.

In conclusion, Virginia Woolf's "The Voyage Out" stands as a compelling narrative that continues to captivate readers with its insightful exploration of human emotions, relationships, and the pursuit of self-realization. Through its vivid characters and thought-provoking themes, the novel remains a timeless work that invites readers to embark on an introspective voyage of their own.

The Voyage Out FAQ

What is 'the voyage out' about.

The novel follows the protagonist, Rachel Vinrace, as she embarks on a sea voyage to South America with her family and encounters various characters who challenge her perspectives on life and love.

Who is the author of 'The Voyage Out'?

The author of 'The Voyage Out' is Virginia Woolf, a prominent English writer known for her modernist literature and feminist perspectives.

What genre does 'The Voyage Out' belong to?

The novel 'The Voyage Out' can be classified as a modernist fiction and coming-of-age story, exploring themes of self-discovery, societal norms, and personal growth.

Is 'The Voyage Out' part of a series?

No, 'The Voyage Out' is a standalone novel and is not part of a series.

What are some key themes in 'The Voyage Out'?

Key themes in 'The Voyage Out' include the search for identity, the constraints of societal expectations, the role of women in the early 20th century, and the impact of cultural differences.

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Tutorials, Study Guides & More

The Voyage Out

May 30, 2015 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Voyage Out was Virginia Woolf’s first full length novel. It was written and re-written many times between (probably) 1907 and its eventual publication by Duckworth in 1915 (the publishing house run by her step-brother Gerald Duckworth). It was originally called Melymbrosia , and an earlier version was completed in 1912. This alternative version was published with that title in 1962. But when her own publishing house the Hogarth Press produced a Uniform Edition of Woolf’s works in 1929, it was the later 1915 version that was used as the definitive text.

first edition 1915

The Voyage Out – critical comment

The principal theme

Virginia Woolf was to devote a great deal of her career as a novelist and essayist to issues of women’s education and their position in society – from her earliest story Phyllis and Rosamond (1906) to her epoch-making attack on patriarchy Three Guineas (1938). Her first novel is no exception – as an exploration of a young woman who has received no formal education and who has been brought up at home in a manner which does not prepare her for any sort of independent adult life.

there was no subject in the world which she knew accurately. Her mind was in the state of an intelligent man’s in the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; she would believe practically anything she was told. invent reasons for anything she said. The shape of the earth, the history of the world, how trains worked, or money was invested, what laws were in force, which people wanted what, and why they wanted it, the most elementary idea of a system in modern life—none of this had been imparted to her by any of her professors or mistresses

Rachel is intensely conscious of her lack of formal education, her powerlessness in society, and her exclusion from the male-dominated world of governance and decision-making. Her one consolation is that she has been left undisturbed to develop her artistic flair for piano-playing.

The experimental novel

Virginia Woolf is rightly celebrated as one of the most talented innovators of the modernist period for the work she produced between Jacob’s Room in 1922 and The Waves in 1932. For that reason her earlier first novel The Voyage Out (1915) is often classified as ‘traditional’ or ‘conventional’. That is partly because its main subject is a young woman’s ‘coming of age’, partly because the narrative follows a linear chronology, and partly because the book contains a substantial proportion of well-observed middle-class social life which could have come from any number of nineteenth century novels – from Jane Austen to George Meredith.

But the novel is far from conventional – for a number of reasons. First, it does not have a ‘plot’ as such. A group of people go on a cruise from London to Latin America. Whilst there, they organise an expedition into the interior, and when they get back one of them dies of fever. There is no mystery to be solved; there are no surprising coincidences or revelations; the one serious romance between the characters is abruptly terminated by Rachel’s death; and the narrative is even denied any structural closure. There is no return journey to the starting point:.

Instead we are presented with what Rachel Vinrace calls for during the events of the novel – “Why don’t people write about the things they do feel?” . Despite all the symbolism of a first journey away from home, a first love affair, and the dawning of mature consciousness which Rachel experiences, the bulk of the novel is taken up with what people say and think about each other. This was a bold alternative to the plot-driven novels of the late Victorian era.

[In fact Woolf’s next novel, Night and Day (1919) is far more conventional. Another young middle-class woman, Katharine Hilbery, is facing the limited social choices offered to her in life – but the novel is grounded in a family saga and a rather complex love quadrangle.]

Point of view

The other major innovation Woolf developed in this novel is what might be called the floating or roaming point of view. Novelists very often choose to relay their narratives from the point of view of a single character or a narrator who might be a character or a surrogate for the author. Woolf uses a combination of a reasonably objective third person narrative mode with passages in which the point of view switches from one character to another. She does this in order to explore three separate issues which she developed even further in her later novels.

The first of these issues is what might be called the relativity of human perception – how one person perceives another, and how this perception might change from one moment to the next. The second is to explore the distance which separates human beings, even when they feel that they closely understand each other. The third is to explore the differences between what a person does and what is said – or to point directly at internal contradictions in the human psyche. Very often people say things they do not mean, or they make statements about themselves which are contradicted by their behaviour.

The novel begins in London, then moves via a very convincing storm at sea to Portugal, where the Dalloways join the ship. This part of the narrative is quite credible, and is possibly based on a journey at sea Virginia Woolf made to Portugal with her younger brother Adrian in 1905. But after the Dalloways are dropped off (almost parenthetically) in North Africa the location switches with virtually no transition to the fictitious Santa Marina.

The implication is that this is located somewhere near the mouth of a ‘great river’ – presumably the Amazon. But despite adding historical background details of European colonialism in the region, and a sprinkling of exotic vegetation which Woolf adds to the narrative, the topography of the story never becomes really convincing.

It is significant that one feature of the indigenous vegetation that she mentions repeatedly is cypress trees – ‘at intervals cypresses striped the hill with black bars’ – which are characteristic of the Mediterranean but certainly not of tropical Latin-American vegetation. This might be ignored were it not for the fact that she was to do something very similar in later novels.

The background events of Jacob’s Room (1922) concerning Betty Flanders are supposed to be set in Scarborough, on the East coast of Yorkshire, but these scenes are never as convincing as the others set in Cambridge and London. And nobody in their right mind can read To the Lighthouse (1927) without visualising its setting as St Ives and the Godrevy Lighthouse where Woolf spent many summer holidays in her childhood. Yet the novel is supposed to be set in the Hebrides. This remains completely unconvincing throughout the whole of the novel.

There are a number of minor characters who are written into the story line of The Voyage Out , but who then disappear from the text as if they have been forgotten. Mrs Chairley the Cockney housekeeper; Mr Grice the self-educated steward; the briefly identified Hughling Elliot; and even a major figure such as Willoughby Vinrace, captain of the Euphrosyne , owner of the shipping line, and Rachel’s own father who disappears half way through the narrative, never to reappear.

It is not clear from the structure or the logic of the novel why Rachel has to die. There are no practical or thematic links to what has gone on before in the events of the narrative; nobody else is affected by the ‘fever’; and the conclusion of the novel (‘woman dies suddenly’) is not related to any of the previous events.

It is true that Woolf was surrounded by many unexpected deaths amongst her own friends and relatives (her mother, her brother, her friend Lytton Strachey) but this biographical connection does not provide a justification for the lack of a satisfactory resolution to the narrative.

The Voyage Out – study resources

Mont Blanc pen – the Virginia Woolf special edition

The Voyage Out – plot summary

Chapter I . Ridley Ambrose and his wife Helen are leaving London to join their ship, the Euphrosyne which is due to take them on a cruise to South America. They join their niece, Rachel Vinrace, whose father owns the ship. A fellow traveller, Mr Pepper reminisces critically with Ambrose about their contemporaries at Cambridge. They are then joined by the captain Willoughby Vinrace.

Chapter II . The story switches between Helen’s reflections on Rachel, Mr Pepper’s bachelor interests and habits, and Mrs Chairley’s rage against the ship’s linens. It then covers Rachel’s lack of formal education, her talent for music, and her upbringing by aunts. She searches for coherence and meaning whilst she is critical of the adults who surround her.

Chapter III . In Portugal, Richard and Clarissa Dalloway are taken on board as extra passengers. At dinner there is conversation on the arts and politics, after which Clarissa writes a satirical letter criticising the other guests. Her husband joins her, and they both feel superior but sympathetic towards their fellow travellers.

Chapter IV . Clarissa meets Mr Grice, the self-educated steward, and then shares confidences with Rachel after breakfast. They read Jane Austen on deck, and Rachel discusses political philosophy with Richard Dalloway, who reveals his traditional and deep-seated male chauvinism.

Chapter V . The ship encounters a stormy passage at sea, which lays everybody low for two days. Helen comforts Mrs Dalloway with champagne. Meanwhile Richard Dalloway follows Rachel into her cabin and kisses her impulsively. That night Rachel has disturbing dreams.

Chapter VI . The Dalloways leave the ship. Rachel confides her mixed feelings about the incident to Helen, who advises her about Men and The Facts of Life. The two women agree to be friends, and Helen invites Rachel to stay at their villa whilst the captain sails up the Amazon, to which her father agrees for slightly selfish reasons.

Chapter VII . The ship reaches Santa Marina. Its colonial history is described. The Ambrose villa San Gervasio is dilapidated. After a week Mr Pepper decamps to a local hotel because he thinks the vegetables are not properly cooked at dinner.

Chapter VIII . Three months pass. Helen reflects on the inadequate education of young women. Helen and Rachel post letters then walk through the town to the hotel where they encounter guests playing cards. They are observed by Hirst and Hewet.

Chapter IX . In the hotel, people are preparing for the night. Hirst and Hewet discuss the possibility of organising a party excursion. Next day there is desultory chat over tea until Ridley Ambrose joins with Hirst and Hewet.

Chapter X . Rachel is reading modern literature and reflecting philosophically about the nature of life. She and Helen receive an invitation to Hewet’s expedition. The outing presents the radical young figure of Evelyn Murgatroyd, and Helen meets Terence Hewet,

Chapter XI . The party splits up at the top of the climb. Arthur declares his love to Susan. Their embraces are observed by Hewet and Rachel: she recoils ambivalently from the spectacle. They are joined by Hirst and Helen, whereupon they all agree to tell each other about themselves. The party then returns to town amidst a display of fireworks.

Chapter XII . A dance is held to celebrate Susan’s engagement to Arthur. Rachel is patronised then insulted by Hirst, whereupon Hewet makes excuses for him. Hirst then goes on to unburden himself to a sympathetic Helen. At dawn Hirst and Hewet walk back to the villa with Helen and Rachel.

Chapter XIII . Next day Rachel takes books by Balzac and Gibbon into the countryside to read, her mind full of impressions from the dance. She feels strangely moved by reading Gibbon, as if on the verge of some exciting discovery, and she thinks a lot about Hirst and Hewet.

Chapter XIV . Guests at the hotel read letters from friends and relatives back home. Susan is obsessed with the subject of marriage. Hewet can’t stop thinking about Rachel, and he goes up to the villa where he overhears her talking to Helen about her dead mother. He goes back to the hotel in a state of excitement, and is then quizzed by Evelyn about her flirtatious entanglements. Last thing at night he sees a woman coming out of someone’s bedroom.

Chapter XV . Some days later Helen and Ridley are visited by Mrs Flushing who is on a ‘collecting’ trip with her nouveau riche husband. They are joined by Hirst, Hewet, and Rachel who has tired of reading Gibbon. When Rachel and Hewet go for a walk, it leaves Hirst free to engage Helen in an intimate conversation, during which he reveals his fears and weaknesses, as well as expressing his admiration for her.

Chapter XVI . On their excursion Rachel and Hewet discuss the life of the typical unmarried middle-class girl (and its limitations) plus the issues raised by women’s suffrage. As he tells her about his literary ambitions she feels romantically attracted to him. He is excited yet dissatisfied by their intimacy and the tension between them.

Chapter XVII . Rachel is powerfully disturbed by her feelings for Hewet, and a distance grows between her and Helen. One Sunday there is a service in the hotel chapel. Rachel is distressed by the absence of any genuine religious belief, and she objects to the spirit in which the service is held. When Mrs Flushing invites her to lunch, she erupts into a criticism of the sermon. Mrs Flushing proposes a river trip to visit a traditional native village. Hirst and Hewet argue over religion, literature, and Rachel.

Chapter XVIII . Hewet realises that he is in love with Rachel, but he is in doubt about the idea of marriage. He wonders what her feelings are and cannot make up his mind about what to do.

Chapter XIX . Evelyn complains to Rachel about two men with whom she is romantically involved. Then she becomes enthusiastic about social reform – including the rescue of prostitutes. Rachel feels oppressed by her appeal to intimacy. She then meets Mrs Allan who invites her to her room and asks her to help her get dressed for tea. Rachel feels oppressed by this appeal too, and escapes into the garden, but she is irritated by the chatter and the discussion of plans for the excursion, and she then quarrells with Helen.

Chapter XX . The Flushings, along with Hewet and Hirst plus Rachel and Helen go on the expedition. They sail upstream in a small ship. Hewet is very conscious of Rachel’s presence. They go on a walk together in to the forest – to declare their love for each other. When they return to the ship they feel detached from their companions.

Chapter XXI . The expedition continues. Hewet and Rachel try to discuss the consequences of their love – which seem to lead inevitably towards marriage, about which neither of them is sure. The expedition reaches the native village. Hewet and Rachel are completely absorbed in each other. At night, back on the ship, they ask Helen for advice. She reassures them that they will be happy.

Chapter XXII . Hewet and Rachel become engaged. Whilst she plays the piano, he writes notes for his novel – on women, which reveal his traditional chauvinism. They plan their future and get to know about each other’s past lives. They become very nostalgic for England – both the countryside and London.

Chapter XXIII . Rachel is annoyed by people’s inquisitiveness now that she is engaged. A message from home brings news of the suicide of a housemaid. A ‘prostitute’ is expelled from the hotel. Hirst admits to himself that he is unhappy, but he brings himself to congratulate Hewet and Rachel.

Chapter XXIV . Sitting in the hotel, Rachel comes to an appreciation of her independent identity, even though she is joining herself to Hewet for the rest of her life. Miss Allan finishes her book on the English poets. Evelyn envies Susan and Rachel for being engaged, but she herself dreams of becoming a revolutionary.

Chapter XXV . Rachel develops a headache and is confined to her room. The headache gets worse and she becomes delirious. ‘Dr’ Rodriguez reassures them it is nothing serious, but Rachel gets steadily worse. Hirst is despatched in search of another doctor and returns with Dr Lesage. He confirms that Rachel is seriously ill – probably with fever. Hewet, Helen, and Hirst wait anxiously for days. Rachel starts to hallucinate, then eventually she dies.

Chapter XXVI . News of Rachel’s death quickly reaches the hotel. It is thought she was unwise to go on the expedition where she has caught the fever. Mr Perrot makes a final appeal to Evelyn, but she turns him down,, as she is leaving for Moscow.

Chapter XXVII . Life returns to normal at the hotel. There is a tropical thunderstorm, and people prepare to return home.

OUP World Classics edition

The Voyage Out – characters

Virginia woolf’s writing.

“I feel certain that I am going mad again.”

Other works by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf – web links

© Roy Johnson 2015

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Mrs Dalloway’s First Outing: The Voyage Out

In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library , Dr Oliver Tearle considers Virginia Woolf’s first foray into the novel

A sure-fire way to set the ‘klaxons’ off on the popular BBC panel show QI – where panellists have to avoid giving the obvious-but-wrong answer to interesting questions – is to ask, ‘Which Virginia Woolf novel first featured Mrs Dalloway?’ Of course, the question already feels like a trap, and Alan Davies would be right to be wary. For Mrs Dalloway (1925), perhaps Virginia Woolf’s best-known novel, came ten years after Woolf’s first novel, The Voyage Out (1915). And it is in The Voyage Out that we first find Clarissa Dalloway, albeit in a slightly different form from her later, more introspective party-throwing incarnation.

As you’d expect from a first novel, The Voyage Out , in terms of its form, style, and structure, is markedly less modernist than Woolf’s later works: it is generally accepted that her third novel Jacob’s Room (1922) represented the turning point in her novel-writing career. The trademark Woolfian style – the somewhat misnamed stream of consciousness, above all else – which she perfected to a fine pitch in later works such as To the Lighthouse and The Waves , is largely absent here. However, just because The Voyage Out is not typically modernist, that does not mean that it is not a modern novel. The novel does contain many elements which we find in her more out-and-out modernist work – use of free indirect style, experimenting with narrative perspective, and interest in dream-states and problems of vision – and it shows Woolf already attempting to write something different from other writers, especially her Edwardian forebears, the trinity of Bennett, Galsworthy, and Wells whom she famously rubbished in her 1919 essay ‘Modern Fiction’.

‘I want to write a novel about Silence,’ he said; ‘the things people don’t say. But the difficulty is immense.’ He sighed. ‘However, you don’t care,’ he continued. He looked at her almost severely. ‘Nobody cares. All you read a novel for is to see what sort of person the writer is, and, if you know him, which of his friends he’s put in. As for the novel itself, the whole conception, the way one’s seen the thing, felt about it, made it stand in relation to other things, not one in a million cares for that. And yet I sometimes wonder whether there’s anything else in the whole world worth doing. These other people,’ he indicated the hotel, ‘are always wanting something they can’t get. But there’s an extraordinary satisfaction in writing, even in the attempt to write. What you said just now is true: one doesn’t want to be things; one wants merely to be allowed to see them.’

Woolf had set out to write something different from her contemporaries, and so, for all its formal conventionality, The Voyage Out might be seen as (to borrow Christine Froula’s phrase) ‘a Woolf in sheep’s clothing’, as something other than what it purports to be. It may seem less radically different and experimental than her later novels, but there are still key ways in which it departs from conventional narrative: its emphasis on the everyday, on meaningless conversations, on the difference between what people think and what they say.

It is worth considering what Woolf’s attitude to fiction was, the better to place The Voyage Out within its context. Woolf’s friend Lytton Strachey greeted the novel as ‘very, very unvictorian!’ but Woolf was reacting against a ‘foe’ closer to home: the Edwardians. The Voyage Out was published in 1915, which immediately places it after the Edwardian era, which was dominated, for Woolf, by novelists like H. G. Wells, John Galsworthy, and Arnold Bennett (who is the only novelist I know to have a famous omelette named after him). The Voyage Out had been gestating for a number of years before its publication, however: it started life in a slightly earlier proto-form as the earlier work Melymbrosia , completed in 1912 but begun when the fiction market was dominated by those Edwardians whom Woolf found so unsatisfying as writers. In her essay ‘ Modern Fiction ’ (1919), Woolf put forward her views on these Edwardian writers along with some ideas about how fiction can move forward. By then, she had begun to see more clearly how her own fiction might move in new, more daringly experimental directions. The Voyage Out may be a tentative step in the right direction, but it was a step. And every journey, or voyage out, must begin with the first step.

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4 thoughts on “Mrs Dalloway’s First Outing: The Voyage Out”

Fascinating stuff. I’m in the midst of reading “To The Lighthouse” for the first time, so it’s interesting to see the stepping stones that lead her to it.

Thanks! And To the Lighthouse is one of my favourites :)

Her use of language is breathtaking, as is her grasp of human psychology.

Nice. Per the modernist style, which you aptly refer to as the “somewhat misnamed stream of consciousness,” I’ve often directed people to Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse.” If you’ll permit an allusion to Goldilocks, in Faulkner it’s too heavy, in Joyce it’s too confusing, but in Woolf it sparkles and flows just right :) My latest blog on Woolf is here: https://shakemyheadhollow.wordpress.com/2020/02/24/gender-in-virginia-woolfs-to-the-lighthouse/

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The Voyage Out - Chapters 1-6 Summary & Analysis

The Voyage Out opens with Ridley and Helen Ambrose walking through London to catch their ship along the River Thames. She is overcome by the prospect of leaving her children for their voyage to South America. The couple boards the waiting boat, which is captained by Helen’s brother-in-law, Captain Willoughby Vinrace. On board, she meets Rachel Vinrace, whom she finds uninteresting and uneducated in the ways of the world, and Mr. Pepper, who is a fussy academic. She resigns herself to a dull journey.

After a couple of days at sea, the boat stops, in order for Captain Willoughby to conduct business in a port in Lisbon. When he returns, he is accompanied by Richard and Clarissa Dalloway. Richard is a politician, and Clarissa is his worldly, well-educated wife. Rachel is immediately struck with admiration for Clarissa’s sophistication and aims to...

(read more from the Chapters 1-6 Summary)

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The Voyage Out

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The Voyage Out (The Virginia Woolf Library)

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Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-11

Chapters 12-16

Chapters 17-21

Chapters 22-27

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Willoughby’s ship, the Euphrosyne , is a symbolic setting of transformation and human connection. It is the vessel that takes people away from the comforts of England and embarks on a journey to the unknown. From the perspective aboard the ship, the land of England fades into the distance and the endless horizon of the ocean signifies the vastness of the world. The physicality of the ship is also important as its close confines lead to Human Connection Through Forced Proximity . With only a few people to speak to on board, the characters are forced into conversations they might otherwise have avoided. These conversations lead to Self-Discovery , especially in Rachel. Thus, the ship’s journey to Santa Marina is also a metaphorical journey from the known to the unknown, from certainty to uncertainty, and from stagnant personhood to character development. The ship is named after Euphrosyne, one of the three ancient Greek goddesses of good cheer. As complex as the journey to Santa Marina becomes, it is true that the voyage and subsequent character development spur new joys.

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The Voyage Out Literary Elements

By virginia woolf.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by Elizabeth Shaw

Modernist novel

Setting and Context

London, and then South America.

Narrator and Point of View

The narrator is omniscient but knows the inner thoughts of the characters.

Tone and Mood

The tone of the novel is philosophical and sometimes nihilistic.

Protagonist and Antagonist

The protagonist is Rachel, and to an extent the antagonist is Mr. Hirst.

Major Conflict

The major conflict of the text is between intellect and emotion.

The climax of the novel is Rachel's death.

Foreshadowing

The effect of Rachel's piano playing on Helen is foreshadowed by the assertion at the beginning of the novel that people don't express the truth, and "that was what music was for."

Understatement

Helen understates the importance of emotional intelligence.

The text alludes to various places in London, such as the Strand and Westminster.

At the beginning of the text, Woolf uses imagery to describe London, from the weather to the different colors of the river.

A paradox is implied in the following statement: “It is impossible for human beings, constituted as they are, both to fight and to have ideals.”

Parallelism

Helen and Rachel are paralleled for their respective dependence on intellect and emotions.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Personification.

The ship is personified in the following passage: "the steady heart of the Euphrosyne slowly ceased to beat."

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The Voyage Out Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Voyage Out is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for The Voyage Out

The Voyage Out study guide contains a biography of Virginia Woolf, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Voyage Out
• The Voyage Out Summary
• Character List

Wikipedia Entries for The Voyage Out

• Introduction