The Voyage Out
The Voyage Out (German: The trip out ) is the first novel by Virginia Woolf . It was published in 1915 and is still in the conventional style of the time.
plot
The Voyage Out is the story of Rachel Vinrace, a 24-year-old young woman who grew up with two aunts without siblings. Her father, Willoughby Vinrace, is a shipowner and takes her on a trip to South America. On board are Rachel's uncles and aunt, the Ambrose couple. You drive from London via Lisbon to South America, where the Ambroses want to spend a vacation and Willoughby Vinrace has business to do. Helen Ambrose suggests that her brother-in-law take Rachel in while he continues the ship.
In a coastal town called Santa Marina, for which there is no geographical equivalent in the real world, the Ambroses settle in a villa with Rachel. But life mainly revolves around a nearby hotel that is home to a colony of English vacationers. Real and potential lovers quickly form: Susan Warrington becomes engaged to the lawyer Arthur Vennington, as does Rachel Vinrace to the future writer Terence Hewet; his friend St. John Hirst quietly adores the married Helen Ambrose, the lawyer Perrott is turned down by Evelyn Murgatroyd. This entanglement is triggered by an excursion that the hotel guests undertake up a mountain, as well as a multi-day excursion up the river to a native village. Whether as a result of the river trip remains open - Rachel Vinrace falls ill with a fever from which she ultimately dies. The newly engaged Terence Hewet has to face her death.
subjects
One topic is the slowly expanding opportunities that are open to women. In the words of Terence Hewet: “'I would often walk down streets where people live in a row and one house looks like the other, wondering what the hell the women are doing in there,' he said. 'Just think: it's the beginning of the 20th century and until a few years ago no woman appeared and said anything. This strange, silent, unrepresented life went on in the background for all these thousands of years. Of course, we've always written about women - abused, taunted, or adored them; but it never came from the women themselves. '"
The hotel guests belong to a social class that doesn't have to worry about their income. Many men are scholars or want to be writers, but one of the women, Miss Allan, is also working on a literary history. Virginia Woolf plays through the different life perspectives that a woman from the upper class has to offer with the various lovers, married couples who have been married for many years, but also with Miss Allan, who lives alone.
The author had previously made a trip to the Mediterranean, but never visited South America. Their description of the continent is correspondingly poor in knowledge. The locals and the hotel guests who speak other languages only form a backdrop that is barely noticed by the British people who carry the story.
Publication history
Virginia Woolf worked on The Voyage Out for over four years. According to her husband Leonard , she rewrote the manuscript five times from start to finish. Her half-brother Gerald Duckworth accepted it for publication in April 1913. It became one of two Virginia Woolf books that did not appear in the Hogarth Press ; this publisher did not acquire the rights until 1929.
Virginia Woolf must have experienced the time leading up to publication as extremely stressful. In July 1913 her illness was announced again, and on September 9th she attempted suicide. Her husband Leonard Woolf postponed publication because of this, which seems to have only prolonged Virginia's suffering. In February / March 1915 she suffered a relapse. The book finally appeared on March 26, 1915, and after that, her condition slowly improved.
The book was well received by the critics, but sold poorly. By 1929 only 479 had been sold, and Virginia Woolf had made only 26 pounds 2 shillings 10 pence from them. For the Woolf couple, this raised the question of whether the two writers could even make a living from selling their books. It was only when Virginia Woolf became famous through her later books that her first work also sold.
Biographical background
According to their biographers George Spater and Ian Parsons, The Voyage Out is a decidedly biographical book. Rachel's aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose, are therefore to be equated with Virginia Woolf's parents, but Helen Ambrose also has features of Vanessa Bell ; Rachel's fever delirium is similar to the delirium during Virginia's breakdowns. The figure of St. John Hirst is drawn after Lytton Strachey . The ship is called Euphrosyne after a book of youthful verses by Strachey and Leonard Woolf, among others.
Virginia Woolf designs Rachel Vinrace as a unworldly girl who doesn't even know about the love between man and woman. In this way, it can completely rediscover the feelings associated with it. Rachel Vinrace and her fiancé Terence Hewet reflect on marriage, the differences between men and women - the suffragette movement is mentioned several times - and the possibility of making a living from writing. These are questions that will also have preoccupied Virginia Woolf as you write. She had also lived in seclusion to look after her sick father, met Leonard Woolf for the first time in 1911 after a long break and married him in 1912.
First edition
Virginia Woolf: The Voyage Out . Duckworth, London 1915. German under the title: The journey out . S. Fischer, Frankfurt 1997.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ "I've often walked along the streets where people live all in a row, and one house is exactly like another house, and wondered what on earth the women were doing inside," he said. “Just consider: it's the beginning of the twentieth century, and until a few years ago no woman had ever come out by herself and said things at all. There it was going on in the background, for all those thousands of years, this curious silent unrepresented life. Of course we're always writing about women - abusing them, or jeering at them, or worshiping them; but it's never come from women themselves. "(p. 258)
- ↑ Leonard Woolf: My Life with Virginia: Memories . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt, 2003, p. 71.
- ↑ Leonard Woolf: My Life with Virginia: Memories . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt, 2003, p. 62.
- ↑ Leonard Woolf: My Life with Virginia: Memories . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt, 2003, pp. 67 and 309.
- ↑ George Spater and Ian Parsons: Portrait of an Unusual Marriage: Virginia and Leonard Woolf . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt 2002, p. 132.
- ↑ Leonard Woolf: My Life with Virginia: Memories . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt, 2003, p. 68.
- ↑ George Spater and Ian Parsons: Portrait of an Unusual Marriage: Virginia and Leonard Woolf . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt 2002, p. 132.