Thus, the novel deals with the development of Rachel Vinrace from the time when she sails on the voyage out with the other characters on the ship named Euphrosyne up to her peaceful death in the hospital at Santa Marina just after she has acquired the ability to take a grip on life.
Virginia Woolf’s preoccupation of the theme of life and death was of course there from the beginning. Rachel wonders,”... And life, what was that? It was only a light passing over the surface and vanishing as in time she would vanish, though the furniture would remain.” (Woolf 145) With Rachel’s death Virginia Woolf could have finished the novel but she adds two more chapters. These two chapters are not without meaning: they symbolize the continuity of life. Rachel dies but everything goes on as usual. It is what life is – death, just an incident in life.
The Voyage Out is a slow and rather a dull piece of work, traditional in style and conventionally ambitious in scope. Though divided in twenty seven chapters, there are no complications and no moments of high tension in this novel. The plot is quiet. It is traditional with its chronological sequence, easily followed flashbacks, central characters fully drawn and others receding into the background, a narrative diversified with scenes and dialogues, explanations of what goes in the people’s minds, without following the technique of stream of consciousness, descriptions of setting and so on. Characters in the novel are mostly shown talking,