The Voyage Out

“As for the mass of streets, squares, and public buildings which parted them, she only felt at this moment how little London had done to make her love it, although thirty of her forty years had been spent in a street. She knew how to read the people who were passing her; there were the rich who were running to and from each other’s houses at this hour; there were the bigoted workers driving in a straight line to their offices; there were the poor who were unhappy and rightly malignant.”

In this quote, Woolf uses Helen’s perspective to emphasize two important things. The first is that London is an exhausting metropolis comprised of different types of people. Characterizing London through its overwhelming population emphasizes the need for Helen to leave London for the voyage. The second is Woolf’s satirical depiction of London society. Helen may be surrounded by different types of people in London, but that doesn’t mean that she knows many different types of people. She labels workers as “bigoted” and the poor as “malignant,” two critiques of her society that imply she looks down on people in lower social classes. She also mocks the rich for socializing too much, but this criticism is less severe than that of the lower classes.

“It seemed dreadful that the town should blaze forever in the same spot; dreadful at least to people going away to adventure upon the sea, and beholding it as a circumscribed mound, eternally burnt, eternally scarred. From the deck of the ship the great city appeared a crouched and cowardly figure, a sedentary miser.”

In this quote, Woolf characterizes London as a “miser,” emphasizing the symbolic need for this adventure to occur. Rather than feel homesick or crave land, this characterization emphasizes that a voyage away can highlight how one’s home can become burnt, scarred, and cowardly. The adventure is thus a refreshing change from what has become so familiar as to breed resentment. With this characterization, Woolf suggests that the voyagers are right to leave London for the open ocean, and that they themselves are held back when in London; after all, how can one be in a cowardly place without themselves becoming cowardly?

“The sense of untapped resources, things to say as yet unsaid, made the hour significant, so that in future years the entire journey perhaps would be represented by this one scene, with the sound of sirens hooting in the river the night before, somehow mixing in.”

Woolf captures the pleasures of embarking on a new adventure. She inspires “the sense of untapped resources,” revealing that the unknown is full of interesting and exciting possibilities. The start of a voyage is so significant that future memories of that voyage will bring to mind the start very vividly. Thus, the experience of traveling is important in the anticipation of travel, not just in the travel itself.

“One thinks of all we’ve done, and our navies, and the people in India and Africa, and how we’ve gone on century after century, sending out boys from little country villages—and of men like you, Dick, and it makes one feel as if one couldn’t bear not to be English!”

This quote captures Clarissa Dalloway’s fervent patriotism. For Clarissa, being English is an honor because England is reflected all over the world through colonialism and imperialism. In Clarissa’s perspective, colonialism is good because England is good, therefore England is making the world a better place. This opinion is not atypical in early-20th-century England, but it does suggest that Clarissa thinks of the world myopically and through her own, privileged experience.

“Did she realise, to begin with, what a very small part of the world the land was? How peaceful, how beautiful, how benignant in comparison the sea? The deep waters could sustain Europe unaided if every earthly animal died of the plague to-morrow.”

In this quote, Mr. Grice’s third-person limited perspective presents a direct contrast to Clarissa’s patriotic opinions about England. To Mr. Grice, whose life is built on voyaging, England is an idea, not a real entity. The land itself is tiny, and England is, symbolically and physically, a tiny speck in the grand scheme of the universe and the globe. There is far more life in the ocean than on land. Mr. Grice’s perspective presents the idea that human beings—even the English—are not inherently superior to the other organisms that share the planet with humans.

“Instantly the world dropped into shape; they were no longer atoms flying in the void, but people riding a triumphant ship on the back of the sea. Wind and space were banished; the world floated like an apple in a tub, and the mind of man, which had been unmoored also, once more attached itself to the old beliefs.”

Human beings in a ship at sea are in constant battle against the elements of the ocean. Storms, waves, sea sickness, danger, and even boredom can inform the sea voyage excursion. A lesson about travel that Woolf highlights in this quote is that the sea can make a human feel like “atoms flying in the void” but that such experiences with our relative smallness are brief. Human beings are assertive and adaptable, and the “mind of man” will go back to its “old beliefs” before long. This also suggests that people don’t necessarily change in profound ways.

“The vision of her own personality, of herself as a real everlasting thing, different from anything else, unmergeable, like the sea or the wind, flashed into Rachel’s mind, and she became profoundly excited at the thought of living.”

When Helen proposes that Rachel can develop a personality and life of her own, Rachel is stirred by the potential to learn new things about herself. In this quote, Woolf uses imagery and simile to portray the excitement of coming into one’s own. The idea that Rachel could be as special and forceful as the sea and the wind makes her excited for her future. She’s inspired in new ways and is eager to embrace life. This quote marks the beginning of Rachel’s bildungsroman.

“The Spaniards, bloated with fine living upon the fruits of the miraculous land, fell in heaps; but the hardy Englishmen, tawny with sea-voyaging, hairy for lack of razors, with muscles like wire, fangs greedy for flesh, and fingers itching for gold, despatched the wounded, drove the dying into the sea, and soon reduced the natives to a state of superstitious wonderment.”

This quote provides the reader with some historical context for the colonization of South America and the relationship between the English and the locals. This quote characterizes the English as “hardy,” evoking the imagery of the superiority of the British Empire. This quote characterizes the Spaniards as “bloated,” which articulates a juxtaposition between two great competitors in the race to colonize the world. This quote further encourages the idea of British superiority because of the “superstitious wonderment” the English instill in the natives. But what this quote really suggests is that the English fought with the Spaniards when the Spaniards were spoiled by their own colonization. The English caught the Spaniards in a weak spot, and it is notable that the battle for South America is therefore between two European powers and not between the local native tribes and the European imperialists.

“Meaning? Oh, something about bubbles—auras—what d’you call ’em? You can’t see my bubble; I can’t see yours; all we see of each other is a speck, like the wick in the middle of that flame. The flame goes about with us everywhere; it’s not ourselves exactly, but what we feel; the world is short, or people mainly; all kinds of people.”

In this quote, Woolf uses Hewet’s profound thoughts about human identity to introduce an idea that becomes one of her main messages. Mainly, this message is that human beings are largely and essentially unknowable to one another. No matter what a person reveals to the external world, there is always a part of them, symbolized here as a bubble, that can’t be accessed or shared. This quote celebrates human autonomy and suggests that the aura each individual keeps hidden from the world is important but not the totality of that person.

“But Mrs. Ambrose would have been the first to disclaim any influence, or indeed any belief that to influence was within her power. She saw her less shy, and less serious, which was all to the good, and the violent leaps and the interminable mazes which had led to that result were usually not even guessed at by her.”

Rachel is flourishing, but Helen doesn’t take credit for Rachel’s new character developments. This reveals that Helen knows that people are intrinsically tied to their autonomy—no one can force another person into changing. The desire for transformation and the metamorphosis itself must come from within. This quote highlights Helen as wise, mature, reasonable, and humble. It also highlights character development as an internal journey, not an external one.

“‘But why do we do it?—is it to prevent ourselves from seeing to the bottom of things’ (he stopped by a stream and began stirring it with his walking-stick and clouding the water with mud), ‘making cities and mountains and whole universes out of nothing, or do we really love each other, or do we, on the other hand, live in a state of perpetual uncertainty, knowing nothing, leaping from moment to moment as from world to world?’”

In this quote, Hewet questions human tribalism. Why do people form communities when they could be alone? This reflects the experience of being English in a foreign land, where the other English people all gather. This quote also questions the way humans create entire structures of society, as opposed to other communal creatures that don’t make systems out of community. This quote is important because it suggests that all of human society is a reaction to the unknown. Humans are so uncertain about the future (and aware of this uncertainty) that they create structures and communities to protect themselves against the unknown.

“[N]or could she explain why Hirst’s assumption of the superiority of his nature and experience had seemed to her not only galling but terrible—as if a gate had clanged in her face.”

This quote captures an important moment in Rachel’s character development. She experiences her emotions intensely, but she doesn’t yet have the ability to put words to them. Hirst hurts her feelings and makes her feel inferior because she is a woman, but Rachel doesn’t know how to articulate that hurt and what it means to her. Her acknowledgement that she doesn’t know how to express these feelings leads her to seek ways to put words to her emotions, an important step in becoming a more fully realized person.

“There was something, of course, unusual about her—she was young, inexperienced, and inquisitive, they had been more open with each other than was usually possible. He always found girls interesting to talk to, and surely these were good reasons why he should wish to go on talking to her; and last night, what with the crowd and the confusion, he had only been able to begin to talk to her.”

Hewet is attracted to Rachel, but he’s not sure why. In this quote, he articulates what’s interesting about her. Hewet is a person who doesn’t worry about identifying why he likes someone. He prefers to rely on the human intuition of connection and attraction. This quote also emphasizes that Hewet, unlike Hirst and other men in the 20th century, enjoys the company of women as partners in conversation. It’s the conversation that exists between Rachel and Hewet, the openness of their communication, that makes her different from other women he’s been attracted to. This is important because it reveals that Rachel is becoming more open to the world around her, allowing Hewet to see a deep side to her.

“‘Oh dear,’ she continued impatiently, ‘what a lot of bother would be saved if only people would say the things they think straight out! I’m made like that. I can’t help it.’”

Evelyn is a unique character in this novel because she doesn’t necessarily adhere to the strict social norms of Edwardian English society. Evelyn is adventurous, feminist-minded, and not obsessed with getting married. Here, Woolf reveals another way in which Evelyn is special. She speaks directly and candidly, which is often seen as rude or crude in her society, especially coming from a woman. But Evelyn’s opinion here reflects Woolf’s, whose satirization of characters who don’t say the things they mean straightaway reveals that Woolf advocates for honesty and direct communication over polite social facades.

“It must have been so much easier for the Elizabethans! I thought the other day on that mountain how I’d have liked to be one of those colonists, to cut down trees and make laws and all that, instead of fooling about with all these people who think one’s just a pretty young lady.”

This quote again captures Evelyn’s uniqueness, but it also foreshadows the modernist future Woolf champions. Evelyn recalls a much earlier era in British history—a time she characterizes as one of active colonization rather than mere tourism. Evelyn wants to be part of the process of change, not “just a pretty young lady.” This quote emphasizes Evelyn’s feminism, and it also introduces Woolf’s desire to see a society in which women have an equal part in creation.

“She had gradually come to be interested in her niece, and fond of her; she disliked some things about her very much, she was amused by others; but she felt her, on the whole, a live if unformed human being, experimental, and not always fortunate in her experiments, but with powers of some kind, and a capacity for feeling. Somewhere in the depths of her, too, she was bound to Rachel by the indestructible if inexplicable ties of sex.”

Helen and Rachel’s friendship is an important development for both women. Their friendship is more like older-younger sister, and Helen is often maternal toward Rachel. Though Rachel was raised by two aunts, she hasn’t had a female role model. Helen sees Rachel’s growth and development with happiness. She witnesses how one person can make changes in their own lives and develop genuine autonomy and authority over their own lives. It is possible for everyone to change. What’s more, this quote highlights the importance of female relationships, especially in a misogynistic, patriarchal society.

“With one foot raised on the rung of a chair, and her elbow out in the attitude for sewing, her own figure possessed the sublimity of a woman’s of the early world, spinning the thread of fate—the sublimity possessed by many women of the present day who fall into the attitude required by scrubbing or sewing.”

This depiction of Helen characterizes her through the lens of ancient Greek female protagonists. Helen’s posture while she sews evokes the imagery of the ancient Greek women whose role was, artistically, symbolically, and usefully, to weave. Helen’s posture is, to Hirst, the perfect image of a woman. It evokes images of domesticity, patience, and utility, but it’s also symbolic of Helen’s wisdom and control.

“‘The respect that women, even well-educated, very able women, have for men,’ he went on. ‘I believe we must have the sort of power over you that we’re said to have over horses. They see us three times as big as we are or they’d never obey us. For that very reason, I’m inclined to doubt that you’ll ever do anything even when you have the vote.’”

In this quote, Hewet presents an argument stereotypical of how men in the Edwardian era thought of women’s suffrage. Because women have been so influenced by a society run by men, powerful men figure that women won’t be able to make decisions on their own. This is a reductive view of feminism and female empowerment, and it reveals a new layer to Hewet and how he thinks about women.

“As for the novel itself, the whole conception, the way one’s seen the thing, felt about it, make 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.”

In this quote, Woolf uses Hewet’s voice to celebrate the complexity and meaningfulness of novel writing and reading. The novel form is a way of learning about the world and about one’s own role in the world. The novel is not just about one thing, it’s about a lot of theories, people, and concepts. What’s most meaningful about reading novels is that it is impossible for people to read them without projecting their own context onto them, relating the novel to what is most accessible in the reader’s life. This is extremely exciting for novelists like Hewet and Virginia Woolf, even if it means that the risk of the novel is that the novelist will be misunderstood.

“All round her were people pretending to feel what they did not feel, while somewhere above her floated the idea which they could none of them grasp, which they pretended to grasp, always escaping out of reach, a beautiful idea, an idea like a butterfly.”

As Rachel learns more about herself and the world around her, she becomes frustrated with certain important masks worn by those in social communities. It is not safe, or even possible, for people to be direct with how they feel. Therefore, everyone necessarily develops a façade to protect social norms and their own relation to others. Rachel, like Evelyn, wishes that people would be more direct. Rachel sees people’s pretense as a betrayal of the human condition.

“They had not gone far before they began to assure each other once more that they were in love, were happy, were content; but why was it so painful being in love, why was there so much pain in happiness?”

Woolf reveals that love and happiness are intertwined with pain. Pain has many sources, but what’s important to note in this quote is that the pain exists even while happy people try to remind themselves and others of their happiness. No emotion is perfect, and human emotions are fallible to complex layers. Pain is a reminder to happy people that happiness can’t last and will ebb and flow from day to day. This quote introduces one of Woolf’s most important messages about the tangential nature of human emotions and the patience it requires to be a rational human being when pain and happiness are so easily interchangeable.

“What had she done with her life? What future was there before her? What was make-believe, and what was real? Were these proposals and intimacies and adventures real, or was the contentment which she had seen on the faces of Susan and Rachel more real than anything she had ever felt?”

Like all people, Evelyn has moments of crisis in which she second-guesses her dreams, her happiness, and her life. Evelyn has decided not to marry, but when she sees how happy women like Rachel and Susan are in their engagements, she can’t help but wonder if she’s making the right decision. This process is one of the ways in which social connections can hinder our development and emphasizes the importance of balancing what one sees in society and what one wants for oneself. Evelyn is influenced by society because she can’t help it; as a part of society she must be informed by how other people react to life. While it’s normal to question our own ways of being, Woolf encourages her reader to follow their own path, no matter how radical.

“All that evening the clouds gathered, until they closed entirely over the blue of the sky. They seemed to narrow the space between earth and heaven, so that there was no room for the air to move in freely; and the waves, too, lay flat, and yet rigid, as if they were restrained.”

The final chapter of the novel begins with an ominous storm. Woolf uses imagery to reveal the terrifying battle between humans and the environment. The storm is a prescient symbol of Rachel’s death. It’s foreboding and frightening. It coincides with Rachel’s death, representing Rachel’s death as dark, tragic, and scarily sublime. The storm also helps reveal how out of place the English tourists feel in Santa Marina. When the island is storm-less, the beauty and warmth of the island is a respite from the cold dreariness of foggy London. But here, when it’s stormy, it becomes a frighteningly dangerous place.