The Voyage Out — Virginia Woolf

At this point the cab stopped for it was in danger of being crushed like an egg shell The wide Embankment which had had room for cannonballs and squadrons had now shrunk to a cobbled lane steaming with smells of malt and oil and blocked by waggons While her husband read the placards pasted on the brick announcing the hours at which certain ships would sail for Scotland Mrs Ambrose did her best to find information From a world exclusively occupied in feeding waggons with sacks half obliterated too in a fine yellow fog they got neither help nor attention It seemed a miracle when an old man approached guessed their condition and proposed to row them out to their ship in the little boat which he kept moored at the bottom of a flight of steps With some hesitation they trusted themselves to him took their places and were soon waving up and down upon the water London having shrunk to two lines of buildings on either side of them square buildings and oblong buildings placed in rows like a childs avenue of bricks

Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father s ship and is launched on a course of self discovery in a kind of modern mythical voyage The mismatched jumble of passengers provides Woolf with an opportunity to satirise Edwardian life The novel introduces Clarissa Dalloway the central character of Woolf s later novel Mrs Dalloway Two of the other characters were modelled after important figures in Woolf s life St John Hirst is a fictional portrayal of Lytton Strachey and Helen Ambrose is to some extent inspired by Woolf s sister Vanessa Bell Rachel s journey from a cloistered life in a London suburb to freedom challenging intellectual discourse and self discovery very likely reflects Woolf s own journey from a repressive household to the intellectual stimulation of the Bloomsbury Group

Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father s ship and is launched on a course of self discovery in a kind of modern mythical voyage The mismatched jumble of passengers provides Woolf with an opportunity to satirise Edwardian life The novel introduces Clarissa Dalloway the central character of Woolf s later novel Mrs Dalloway Two of the other characters were modelled after important figures in Woolf s life St John Hirst is a fictional portrayal of Lytton Strachey and Helen Ambrose is to some extent inspired by Woolf s sister Vanessa Bell Rachel s journey from a cloistered life in a London suburb to freedom challenging intellectual discourse and self discovery very likely reflects Woolf s own journey from a repressive household to the intellectual stimulation of the Bloomsbury Group Tanıtım Bülteninden