Voyage to Romance: A Prelude to Happiness
A Wish To A Star. Come Back To Me. Brand New You And Me.
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Wait For The Sun. SC Indie Songs Vol. POKE Arthouse 1. Cyrano De Bergerac No 1. Our Love It Does Shine. Baby I'm Yours Instrumental. This Is My Song. And Other Happy Things. Cocktail Lounge Underscore 3. Woodland Pictures No 3. A Darker Shade Of Love. ST Funk and Soul Vol. JW Global View. I Fell In Love. SC Retrospectives Vol. SAS Authentic Austria. Petite Suite Part 1 60 Edit. Who's Not Letting Go Instrumental. BOM Radio Flava. Don't Give Up On Love. Tchaikovsky In The Ballroom - Part 1. Sarabande From Suite No. HR Romantic Area.
KL Brazil 1 Bossa Nights.
The Voyage Out
JW Pure Romance. Time Of The Night. SIS Vintage Songs 6. I Need One Girl Instrumental. CEV American Heritage. Title Music 1 - Romantic Main Title. ESL Filmscore Vol. SM Classical Collectables. Brightens Up My Day. In The Mood For Love. Forever By Your Side. NLV Novelty Shop. Brick By Brick - Male.
Making A Difference A. DAA Cinematic Orchestra. CAV Vintage Italy. All Is Forgiven - Female. STR Electric Dreams. Brick By Brick - Female. BSM Guiding Light. Tromboneman Is Fallen In Love. Stars In Your Eyes. Tenderness Nr 1 Symphonie Orchestra. Feeling Warm And Wonderful. If You Really Love Me. Defy Spaces For You. ST Light Drama Vol. Lady Of The Lake. SIS Vintage Songs 5. IND Retro Indie. Why Don't You Tell Me. You Make Me Happy. SAV Secret Garden. MML Guitarras Latinas. Theme Of My Love. DM Jazz Mosaic.
Those Were The Times. HR Disco Groovin'. Lets Do It Baby Tonight. HR Keep Fit. Lost Without You Vocal. Should I Fall In Love. ALT Landscape Pop. ENG Neo Soul. Way Before The Eurostar. DOM Bright Life. What Makes You Different. Lazy Days And Moonlit Nights. SG Stately Homes. CEZ Seascapes A. Il Ny A Plus Rien. Levitating Leaves Part 2. SC The Coustics. Love You Like That. GMT Night Drive. Living In The Moment. BC Modern Soul Vocals. What Do I Do Now. NLM Electric Dreams. Tell Me A Story. JW Orchestral Pastoral. Keep Falling In Love. You Are - Female. DM 50 Of The Best.
CEZ Little Nothings. You'll Never Be Alone. Another Same Old Song. HR Goodtime Music. NVN Wonderful World. Dans Le Port De Barcelone. EOS Message Personnel. MBC Romantic Period. La Cathedrale Engloutie 5. Strolling Hand In Hand. Maybe not all of it but isn't enough to want to understand? Why do I still feel so lonely? I can't feel it for with them. Twenty four year-old Rachel is taken with her Aunt on their vacation on a whim to save her from more social weirdness ignored on her father's ship, or was it to save her Aunt from the fear of boredom. I don't remember now where exactly but it was somewhere in South America.
My mind in conjuring up Tin Tin comics now, sorry. Peeping toms in hotel windows and on and off animals and filling the day with planning the future. Dalloway appears on the first part of the journey. Clarissa depressed the ever loving fuck out of me, as did Rachel's aunt and Mr. They are the sort of people who are airy fairy and know all of the right things to say.
I don't think I have had the right thing to say in my life. What is the point in moving through a script, with places to stand and cues to take? I disliked the feeling of winning and losing intensely. It was a strange feeling from Woolf that this was both a good and bad thing. It was in the sly smile that noticed what they were thinking. It wrote what they were thinking, on puppet strings. It was what they were doing, on a hand. I didn't like the over thinking, actually. Everyone was script writing their lives with their thinking about every move to make, every breath to take. I remember Rachel being surprised in her music room, home in her reveries and papers.
I liked Rachel the best when she is surprised. I liked Clarissa best and was the most saddened by her when she could be surprised. She does not, after all, know exactly what her husband is thinking as she believes she does he was putting the moves on young Rachel who flattered him with her very real interest in his forgotten childhood. It's forgiving when something else could happen. It's annoying when Rachel's aunt Mrs. Ambrose Evelyn has her precise place in every company she might find herself in.
I found that hard to take. I wanted to feel her feeling it hard to take, that she might be wrong, that someone may surprise before I felt like jumping over the ship. Almost, but too much thinking. The passage I quoted above is what I've been mulling over about book all of this time. It is why I think that the people in Woolf's novel don't want to know anyone else. How do they suppose the know what someone else is thinking? Why shy away from her own religious belief that had been needed before because she didn't like the look on another's face? Rachel turned onto other's the expected to see social constraints that others had placed on her.
Her own not knowing what the right thing to say. It is magical when Rachel and her young lover feel the joy of shared interest in each other's universal I like long walks on the beach and skipped stones and Today I Was Born To be flung into the sea, to be washed hither and thither, and driven about the roots of the world- the idea was incoherently delightful.
She sprang up, and began moving about the room, bending and thrusting aside the chairs an tables as if she were indeed striking through the waters. He watched her with pleasure; she seemed to be cleaving a passage for herself, and dealing triumphantly with the obstacles which would hinder their passage through life. They only had to ask, to have faith. Faith not hinged on how you think it should look like. I wish I had faith in people that lasted all of the time. I believe that Woolf felt it was possible for them if only they wanted to ask for it.
It is when they allow themselves to be surprised and are happy about it. I think it was her first novel and I am not complaining so much as wishing. I also would compare it to some of my least favorite Elizabeth Bowen novels not my favorite of all favorites The Death of the Heart that changed my life like when you have someone who understands you and you also have faith in it.
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It is smart, it lives in the world What she thinking about, then? Evelyn was tormented by the little spark of life in her which was always trying to work through to other people, and was always being rebuffed. Falling silent she looked at her visitor, her shoes, her stockings, the combs in her hair, all the details of her dress in short, as though by seizing every detail she might get closer to the life within.
View all 4 comments. Jan 20, Tim rated it really liked it. Often when friends visit me I take them there for the afternoon. My first impression was that this is much easier to read than I expected. But then it was her first novel and no doubt she was still testing her powers.
I found it a little slow to begin with but by the half way point was hooked. The writing is beautiful, especially when Rachel, the young heroine, is at the helm. A small detail I really liked was that the young lovers were constantly referred to as ordinary looking. View all 13 comments. Do accept my apologies; since our whaling voyage two years ago it has been my fondest wish to journey with you again, and, indeed, it was my intention to visit you at the beginning of this year; but, alas, I have been detained by Mrs.
Damn that woman, she is too good! I did not mean to tarry long with her, but 22 February, Mr. I did not mean to tarry long with her, but she invited me to a party with her friend Mrs. Dalloway, and since that night I have been reluctant to part company with her. We just got back from an ocean voyage to South America not one of your ocean voyages, I swear! How can I tear myself away? Please, my good friend, do not be cross. I shall join you again in a few short months, once my visit with Mrs.
She has even said that we might visit a lighthouse later! Out of respect for our friendship, I promise not to approach it by sea. Wait for me, Herman, and accept my solemn promise that you will soon be reunited with Your faithful friend, Jacob P. All my love to Queequeg, etc. View all 7 comments.
May 21, Petra rated it really liked it. What an incredible first novel! A young woman tells the story of how people view life events differently in different times of their lives. The young view things one way, the more senior another; men view things differently than women. It is a wonderful look at the world in a microcosm of people.
At the same time, is the story of Rachel's maturing and coming into herself. She grows from a naive, unthinking girl into a wiser, self-thinking young woman. She is at least starting to think for hersel What an incredible first novel! She is at least starting to think for herself. Life in the South American resort is superficial. This is portrayed by the activities of the characters and the constant sun, warmth and unvarying days.
Yet Life continues, always continues. In the end, Life continues. This is a remarkable first novel. Virginia Woolf covers so much about love, marriage and relationships, in many age groups. For such a young author, this book covers a wide variety of insights through many ages. I did appreciated some of ironies and satirical takes on the British imperial outlook and its intrinsic classism and sexism of the time.
But all that was fairly restrained. Middle-aged Helen Ambrose ambarks on a ocean excursion to South America with her husband Ridley, her year old niece Rachel, and handful of other monied passengers. Though we are unmoored from London society and go to a place possibly Brazil with cultures and life forms exotic to their experience, their British sensibilities and trappings of civilization are largely hermetically sealed off.
They are so concerned with their own habits of living, refined hobbies like reading Gibbon or Jane Austen, embroidery, and gossip that we are barely aware of the lower classes like servants and steamship crew, the nature of the flora and fauna of the New World, or the identity and character of the anonymous native people they visit on a riverboat outing. The fish out of water bring their own tanks. Watching people departing on a ship is a common spur to the imagination of escaping the mundane. Turning the telescope the other way gives a different perspective.
We get a surprise early on how someone as well-grounded as Helen can be disturbed with dark thoughts from her experience of departure: The people in ships, however, took an equally singular view of England. Not only did it appear to them to be an island, and a very small island, but it was a shrinking island in which people were imprisoned. No darkness would ever settle upon those lamps, as no darkness had settled upon them for hundreds of years. 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. I love this window on how the mind can cohere itself in the face of the chaos in nature: Choked by the wind their spirits rose with a rush, for on the skirts of all the grey tumult was a misty spot of gold. 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.
Yet they do succeed quite well at that. Women hang out with women discussing womanly concerns, and men jockey for respect on their triumphs at the reins of empire and quest for knowledge. A side trip to a Mediterranean port to give a ride to the Dalloways makes a lot of ripples. Rachel tries to draw him out on his wisdom and ends up the victim of a sudden kiss.
It almost comic how the heroic master of human achievement can be so bumbling in his untamed lust. Clarissa I love as I did in her later rendition, so charming, empathetic, and self-deprecating. So bold to reach for some surprising and profound insight about human nature. Life is a bit duller when we leave the Dalloways ashore and head out across the Atlantic.
The search by Rachel and another passenger for a marriage prospect among the slim pickings aboard take center stage. Her main emotional outlet is through her music and she has severe challenges to formulating her feelings or discerning that of the inarticulate single men on the trip: It appeared that nobody ever said a thing they meant, or ever talked of a feeling they felt, but that was what music was for.
Helen is not really capable in mentoring Rachel on her quest for a husband as she has a rather jaded perspective: When two people have been married for years they seem to become unconscious of each other's bodily presence so that they move as if alone, speak aloud things which they do not expect to be answered, and in general seem to experience all the comfort of solitude without its loneliness. I once met a cow in a field by night.
The creature looked at me. I assure you it turned my hair grey. But we almost want to warn Rachel away when he espouses typical views of the day about the capabilities of women: Not really vainer than men. Lack of self-confidence at the base of most serious faults. Dislike of own sex traditional, or founded on fact? But I felt hope for the ability of Rachel to expand his imagination and alter his perspective: Woolf makes her plot take a tragic turn and then diffuses and defuses its impact with a swarm of secondary characters taking up life as usual.
The execution of closure to her tale was baffling and dissatisfying to me, but overall I felt the promise of her future capability to expose the mind in action and elucidate the meanings of gender in the modern world.. View all 6 comments. Rachel Vinrace is a naive and vulnerable year-old young woman on a sea voyage from London to a South American resort with her aunt and uncle.
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Having been sheltered the first 24 years of her life, Rachel is exceptionally shy and startled when meeting new people on the ship, particularly when they show genuine interest in her as a person and as an intellectual. The relationships she forms with these people affect her greatly, and she even falls in love. This isn't just a book Freaking fantastic. This isn't just a book about a sea voyage; the voyage here is a girl growing into her own woman, emotionally and intellectually. She comes alive before the reader's eyes in a surprisingly non-saccharine manner.
The back cover of the edition I read mentions the book being "full of light and shadow", and no truer words have been written. This is Woolf's first novel, written after at least one of her own suicide attempts, and it's clear on every page how light and dark, land and sea affect each character, each scene, each motive. One would think after a while the motif would get dull, but I found myself excited by it each time. The stream-of-consciousness in this book is delicious, and not annoying as can happen so often in modernist writing.
If all Woolf books could be like this one, I'd be a happy camper. Alas, I think this is the minority and I lucked out. I will certainly try at least Mrs. I'm interested to see where her story goes. Having to my shame never read any Virginia Woolf, I decided to start with this, her first novel. It tells the story of a voyage from England to an unnamed country in South America.
Among the passengers on this voyage are an innocent young woman, Rachel, and her aunt and uncle. The book is set partly on the ship, and then continues at a hotel in South America. Although it tells Rachel's story, there are many other different characters, both on the boat and at the hotel, whose lives and loves we Having to my shame never read any Virginia Woolf, I decided to start with this, her first novel. Although it tells Rachel's story, there are many other different characters, both on the boat and at the hotel, whose lives and loves we are privy to, via many fascinating conversations and interactions.
Woolf's characters talk about such interesting things - the meaning of love, differences in the roles and expectations of men and women, art versus science, politics and colonialism, and more! I found the ending of this book surprisingly moving and poignant. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the wonderful Juliet Stevenson and, I must say, she did an absolutely sterling job. I would definitely recommend this particular audio version and I will almost certainly listen to more Woolf books read by Stevenson. Nov 16, Duane rated it really liked it Shelves: I personally consider Virginia Woolf the greatest writer of the 20th century, period, bar none, man or woman, doesn't matter.
But I'm not a writer myself so I don't have the ability, I can't find the words to express what I feel about what I've read. Many of you can and do write beautiful reviews worthy of the books they honor. Many times I've said, "that's how I feel, that's what I think". Having said that, this book is not one of her best. It's not bad, it's very good actually, it just I personally consider Virginia Woolf the greatest writer of the 20th century, period, bar none, man or woman, doesn't matter.
It's not bad, it's very good actually, it just not at that very high level that she would reach with more experience. This was her first novel I believe and has a different feel to it from her other works. But the genius is in there, you can feel it. Feb 18, Elaine rated it really liked it Shelves: It took me 3 months to listen to this, as I listened to almost every passage at least 2x, as Juliet Stevenson's voice constructed the peculiar insular world of a group of English people a century ago on first a ship, and then at a hotel abroad.
I liked it surprisingly much, even as it is a gentler, less subtle and more conventional Woolf than the puzzler of the later novels. I think the thing that I found most intriguing was the sense that years ago, with its confusion about women's roles in It took me 3 months to listen to this, as I listened to almost every passage at least 2x, as Juliet Stevenson's voice constructed the peculiar insular world of a group of English people a century ago on first a ship, and then at a hotel abroad.
I think the thing that I found most intriguing was the sense that years ago, with its confusion about women's roles in the public and private spheres, is both so very far away and so very contemporary. Many of the questions Woolf asks including whether there is life on Mars! And the book is well-crafted - a world you want more of and an ending really quite moving if you don't have a clue about the plot I didn't.
Oh, and the Clarissa Dalloway walk-on was unreasonably exciting to me - like glimpsing a favorite famous actor at a restaurant or similar. The wrestling with the importance of art and literature especially St. John's status as an "important man" in embryo and Terence's putative novels feels more dated somehow, even though I suspect the role of embroidery as women's creation probably has spun off some very interesting essays.
Nonetheless, a strong novel amazing as a debut really, which probably shouldn't surprise with a deep cast of interesting characters. And, of course, the always stunning narration of Juliet Stevenson - the icing on the cake! View all 11 comments. The Voyage Out is Virginia Woolf's literary debut and it is absolutely fantastic!
I have to admit that when I started this novel I was hesitant and I was sure that it was just a classic. I thought I'd like it and maybe slightly enjoy it; but never love it. I've never been more wrong. As soon as I finished the first chapter I realised that 9. As soon as I finished the first chapter I realised that I was really enjoying the story and the writing.
It is beautiful and magical in a way I'd never expected it to be. Her writing reminds me of my favourite author ever: Virginia Woolf's writing style reads as if it is written by a 20th-century Laini Taylor. It has the same magical and addictive quality to it.
Woolf uses beautiful words and phrases to weave together a vivid image and a lasting feeling. It is the feeling of trying to find your true self, and the hopelessness when you've found what you seek but lose it all, because it simply wasn't meant to be. These topics—such as women's suffrage, life on Mars, medicine, science, politics, philosophy—are lightly present in the dialogue and in the little things that characters don't say.
It's an interesting addition, because it makes the novel more than just a story on a certain character. It broadens the view of the world as depicted in the novel. For that reason, I really enjoyed those pieces of dialogue and background buzz. The characters are more complex than they appear at first sight.
They have their weaknesses and strengths. They are very human and very palpable. I can imagine every single character with clarity and without confusion. I feel like I know them. This is one of the elements I loved most about The Voyage Out. With most classics I am very distanced from the characters; the writing often obstructs my ability to connect with the character on a deeper level and they just feel centuries removed from me because they often are.
With The Voyage Out I barely had this problem. I enjoyed the plot and the characters! Overall, The Voyage Out is an interesting and thought-provoking read. If you're looking for a classic that's relatively easy to read and contains magical writing and lively characters, I recommend that you read The Voyage Out!
Apr 01, Debbie Zapata rated it really liked it Shelves: Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? I certainly was before I read The Voyage Out, the first novel she wrote. The Voyage Out mainly tells the story of Rachel Vinrace and her discovery of Life, but it also feels like Woolf is trying to work out Life for herself, or at least to use the characters in this book as mouthpieces for what she herself believed or wondered about while she wrote.
Dalloway makes an appearance in these pages, and although I did not like her very much she seemed so flighty and shallow! I hope to someday read the novel written about and named for her. I loved many of the images in these pages, such as this description of the ship during a storm while crossing the Atlantic on the way to South America: All the characters felt real to me, and all were struggling in one way or another with topics that can still be puzzling today: I was annoyed at one statement made by Hirst, when he insisted he had no Jewish blood in the family.
Was that really a necessary thing to comment on? But other than that, I think Woolf was quite talented at this early stage of her career, especially at building tension during the entire book, and the way she wrapped everything up in the final chapter. Nicely done and well worth reading.
May 16, Sandy rated it really liked it Shelves: So much has been written about Virginia Woolf and her work that I will not pretend to write a "review". Suffice it to say that, after a disappointing and unsuccessful attempt to read To the Lighthouse one year ago, I have managed to finish The Voyage Out. This is a wonderful story which is packed full of stunning descriptions of place - both interior and exterior; unique and eccentric characters; sensitive evocations of a variety of human emotions; moods and memories; wishes and regrets.
Virgini So much has been written about Virginia Woolf and her work that I will not pretend to write a "review". Virginia Woolf writes a smorgasbord for the senses and peppers it with provocative comments on social issues. Having read this, her first novel, and enjoyed it immensely, I will consider reading more of her work. I suspect that, for me personally, a chronological approach may work best.
Perhaps if I follow her writing style as it develops, I will find it less daunting. At any rate, this is an occasion for celebration - in my books pardon the pun. Having read even one Woolf novel is a significant achievement for me. I don't know exactly what I feel. Some one else would make you a better wife. I can imagine you very happy with some one else. Does it 'You see, I'm not as simple as most women,' Evelyn continued. Does it even matter? If the point of life is the journey, not the arrival, then perhaps not. Woolf's first novel, this feels like she's still trying to find her novelistic feet and narrative voice.
Straddling the nineteenth-century rites-of-passage story, the courtship novel and something far more modern, this is about all kinds of journeys: The journeys out, in all cases, are one-way only - there's no going back for these passengers. There are places where Woolf's trademark delicacy and sensitivity come to the fore, especially in the latter part of the book. Less successful, for me, are the comedy of manners sections which feel laboured rather than light, as do the passages foregrounding the pomposity and conservatism of characters like Richard Dalloway.
Interestingly, in Woolf's next book, Night and Day , she returns more fully to a quasi-Victorian narrative about women's marriage choices but messes it up nicely by placing it in a suffragette context. Ultimately I found this a bit unsatisfyingly amorphous but there's better to come. View all 5 comments. Apr 08, Chrissie rated it liked it Shelves: There is in fact a reason for Woolf including so many characters, and there is another theme too - how people react to a life changing event, in this case view spoiler [death hide spoiler ].
Woolf looks at people's behavior, the behavior of family members, close friends and other acquaintances too. All these people were a necessary part of the book. You can observe Woolf observing people and our different ways of behaving. This book does not leave you when completed! No, it's quite a good ETA: No, it's quite a good book, if you want one for mental gymnastics. You can also consider the book and its message and Virginia Woolf's own life choices. I do enjoy how Woolf writes. She always gets me thinking! In this one, particularly when we meet Clarissa Dalloway, about whom she will later write an entire novel, I laughed over and over again.
The theme here is how men and women tend to react differently and how we view life when young. If you are now a bit older you will recognize your own younger self. Well at least I did. This had me both thinking and laughing. Sometimes it just says what others have said too, perhaps a bit better. Please read below; it is boring to repeat what is mentioned there!
The writing is wonderful, BUT I cannot relate to so VERY many people. The setting is an undefined South American country near the Amazon. People at a hotel, so LOTS of them! They have decided to have a dance. Then after dinner letters are read from friends and relatives in England. Again, LOTS of relatives and friends. Clarissa, yes the famed one, makes me giggle. No, it is not just she that is funny, Richard says, "That is the painful thing about pets; they die. One person has a passion for black beetles, and another hasn't. Pepper, "his heart's a piece of old chewed leather.
The lines make me laugh! It appeared that nobody ever said a thing they meant, or ever talked of a feeling they felt , but that was what music was for. I found her so intrig "To feel anything strongly was to create an abyss between oneself and others who feel strongly perhaps but differently. I found her so intriguing not just as a writer but as an individual especially the struggles she had about her mental health she was diagnosed as a manic depressive. It could be said that her creativity is strongly tied or may even be enhanced by her sporadic mood swings and intense emotionality.
Whether that's the case or not, Woolf is a celebrated author because she is innovative in the way she portrayed the inner workings of a thinking woman who aspired for intellectual stimulation and dedicated herself to a life of passionate pursuit for artistic achievement. The Voyage Out is the earliest novel Woolf ever published, and introduces the character of Clarissa Dalloway who will become her lead protagonist in Mrs. Dalloway which is one of her best works. In The Voyage Out , we meet twenty-four year old Rachel Vinrace; a deeply sheltered yet inherently curious young woman who embarks on 'a journey of self-discovery' as she was taken under the care of her aunt Helen Ambrose who expressed her anxiety over the fact that Rachel knew so little about the world and all it has to offer; including the relationships with women in a polite yet slowly but surely progressing Edwardian society, as well as the burden and expectation of marriage and lifelong compatibility.
Rachel is musically gifted, but wants to learn more about herself and others by getting acquainted with books, and having conversations with other older and more learned women such as her aunt and her friends. She also becomes drawn to two very different men--St. John Hirst and Terrace Hewet. The former is a rather disparaging and academic man whose depressingly misogynistic views and sense of entitlement often creates a tension with Rachel because he keeps on belittling her person; while the latter she finds a real connection with because he respects her and eventually falls in love with her.
The Voyage Out might as well be called The Voyage In because a lot of Woolf's passages for this novel are composed of self-reflection and evaluation of characters' inner lives and their turmoils. One thing I could commend about this book a lot was how well-rounded Woolf's characters had been--even down to the ones I find very disagreeable in nature and manner. I could compare and contrast this with the Jane Austen novel Emma which I read this January and struggled to finish.
The stark difference in both novels is that Austen's protagonist Emma Woodhouse is confident about herself and knows who she is and what she wants--only to spectacularly fool herself about a very important grain of truth about her person. Meanwhile, Woolf's Rachel Vinrace knows next to nothing about herself and the depths of her ignorance and passion to become the best version of who she is--only to discover that the greatest inhibition on her way is only herself.
But the lives of women of forty, of unmarried women, of working women, of women who keep shops and bring up children, of women like your aunts--one knows nothing about them. They won't tell you. Either they're afraid, or they've got a way of treating men. It's the man's view that's represented. In spite of her flaws, Emma is remarkably admirable; she demands only the best because she respects herself enough to understand no one should ever mistreat her or cast her aside.
That being said, Rachel's journey of self-discovery was more nuanced and fully realized than Emma had been in her titular novel, and that lies in how Austen and Woolf writes their female protagonists. Woolf was simply not satisfied by making her heroine fall in love with a man and leave it as that. Throughout her narrative of Rachel and Terrace's love affair, she poses questions regarding gender roles and interpersonal distinctions between how a man and woman communicate, live and pursue their respective vocations.
I also can't help but view Rachel and Terrace's relationship as a representation of how Woolf views her marriage with her husband, whom she was deeply devoted to even if she did commit suicide due to accumulated stress over the years. I maintain personally that there will always be an inequality between men and women in relationships, no matter how much we want to believe we can extinguish this.
Opposite-sex relationships can only be meaningful if there is an innate understanding that couples should focus more on their complementary traits. Men and women were never meant to be equal, at least not all the time. I'm sure this wasn't the intended message of The Voyage Out, but it's definitely what was on my mind the entire time I was reading it since I already have established opinions. But this novel doesn't tackle romantic relationships in a way where it romanticizes them and where every couple is better off marrying and raising a family just because it is what is expected.
In Woolf's point of view of Edwardian society, a power struggle not just in gender politics but also religion is unavoidable. The women are becoming independent and outspoken of their views already; even those who are blissful with their domestic lives as wives and mothers. They are more willing to talk to their suitors and husbands about what they want, and this is a challenging shift in dynamic for both sexes--but Woolf has portrayed it in a manner that is respectful of both men and women.
Helen Ambrose, my favorite character, is one of these progressive women. She doesn't have to be a radical feminist who fights vocally about women's rights. That's not why I found her particularly admirable. What I love about Helen is that she is happy with her choices--and encourages Rachel to make her own choices and face both rewards and consequences no matter what.
Helen was such a splendid woman in her forties who values the wisdom of her age without imposing it on others, especially Rachel.