Criticism > Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism > Special Commissioned Essay on Virginia Woolf, Philip Tew - Woolf's Works

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WOOLF'S WORKS

THE VOYAGE OUT

In The Voyage Out a number of middle-class English people set off on a sea voyage with various ultimate destinations. On board, Helen Ambrose encounters her niece, Rachel Vinrace, who is traveling with her father, the owner of the ship. The innocent, virginal Rachel suffers a kind of confused sexual trauma induced by a snatched and passionate kiss from a fellow passenger, Richard Dalloway, who has been picked up en route with his wife, Clarissa. (The Dalloways recur in Woolf's later, more famous novel, Mrs. Dalloway.) So shocked, troubled, and naive is Rachel that Helen persuades her to accompany her and her husband on their visit to South America. Helen appears liberal and open to a sense of shared discovery and adventure. Thus, Rachel is offered a chance to engage literally with wider vistas of experience, but she remains curiously repressed and more interested in intellectual than in emotional development.

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1. Introduction
2. About Virginia Woolf
3. Woolf At Work
4. Woolf's Era
5. Woolf's Works
6. Woolf On Woolf
7. Woolf As Studied
8. Copyright

1. Virginia Woolf