Back to Virginia Woolf Seminar Home Page
Updated July 14, 1997
Created July 14, 1997
Twenty-four year old Rachel Vinrace is accompanied by her father, Willoughby Vinrace, and her aunt and uncle, Helen and Ridley Ambrose, on a voyage to South America aboard the Euphrosyne. The Euphrosyne is one of many ships owned by Rachel's father. In Lisbon, Richard and Clarissa Dalloway are given special permission to board the ship. Soon after their arrival, Richard follows Rachel into her room and kisses her. Rachel is so repulsed by his passionate kiss that she is kept awake all night by terrible nightmares.
Chapter I: We see Ridley and Helen Ambrose walk along the river Thames in London. They will soon board a ship bound for South America. The thought of leaving their children behind greatly saddens Helen. The couple, like the city and the sea, are a study in contrasts. Helen stands silently at a railing overlooking the river and begins to weep. Ridley tries to console her but, "she shows no signs of admitting him, and feeling it awkward to stand beside a grief that was greater than his" he takes a stroll (4). Once aboard the Euphrosyne, they dine with their brother-in-law Willoughby Vinrace, his daughter, Rachel, and Willoughby’s old friend, Mr. Pepper. The chapter outlines the relationships between men and women, men and men, and women and women. Helen: "Women of her own age usually boring her, she supposed that girls would be worse" (16). "Each of the ladies, being after the fashion of their sex, highly trained in promoting men’s talk without listening to it . . ."(12). In these first conversations on the ship, death and dying are mentioned repeatedly (9, 10, 15).
Chapter II: The voyage begins. Helen thinks of Rachel’s mother, Theresa. Theresa was, "perhaps the one woman Helen called friend . . ." (20). In contrast, she suspects Willoughby of "bullying his wife" and of committing "nameless atrocities with regard to his daughter" (20). The inequalities between men and women have become more pointed. Mr. Pepper: "He went on saying ‘No’ to her [Helen] on principle, for he never yielded to a woman on account of her sex" (21). Ridley’s tirade about conditions on the ship, "Did I come on this voyage in order to catch rheumatism and pneumonia?" (27). Woolf injects humorous irony as Ridley ends his child-like tantrum with " . . . I suppose that I can face it like a man" (27). All the while, Helen tries to pacify him. Spatial relationships and different perspectives on life as seen from by those in England and those out at sea are explored (29). We learn more about Rachel. As to her education, " . . . there was no subject in the world which she knew accurately"( 31). She likes to read, play the piano, and is a "fanatic about music" (32). She’s also an only child who’s mother died when she was eleven (32). Helen studies the sleeping Rachel, " . . . lying unprotected she looked somehow like a victim dropped from the claws of a bird of prey . . . " (35). Rachel is dreaming of her two aunts, Lucy and Eleanor, Beethoven, and William Cowper. All are "Inextricably mixed in dreamy confusion" (35). Various dream-like or hallucinatory descriptions will follow.
Chapter III: The Euphrosyne arrives in Portugal. Richard and Clarissa Dalloway come on board. The others (Helen is, to a degree, an exception) appear to find the Dalloways at once unsettling and fascinating. For example, when pressed to allow them passage on his ship, Willoughby says, "there’s nothing to do but submit, I suppose" (37). However, we’re told that " . . . it was evident that for some reason or other Willoughby was quite pleased to submit, although he made a show of growling" (37). Clarissa has grace and elegance, but she’s also an insincere snob. After dinner with the others, she returns to her cabin and writes a friend about the odd and "hugely amusing" shipmates (49). She makes the first of several comparisons between people and dogs. "It’s a pity, sometimes, one can’t treat people like dogs!" (50). Rachel is completely taken with the Dalloways and embarrassed by Helen’s remarks to them. Mr. Dalloway, an egocentric politician, is temporarily away from Parliament. He shares his wife’s opinions of the other passengers. Clarissa believes Richard is "morally her superior" and feels toward him as her "mother and other women of her generation felt for Christ" (53). Such profound esteem will seem tragically comic in the next chapter.
Chapter IV: Conversations on board the Euphrosyne. Ship’s steward, Mr. Grice, takes Mrs. Dalloway to his cabin. He talks of the sea and Shakespeare. Rachel feels left out by Clarissa and Helen. "Rachel was indignant with the prosperous matrons, who made her feel outside their world and motherless . . . "(58). Once again, Mr. Grice invites Mrs. Dalloway to his cabin for more conversation. Her departure leaves Richard and Rachel alone on the deck. Richard talks about his childhood, politics, and ideals. Rachel is bewildered and frustrated by their conversation: "We don’t seem to understand each other" (69). She finally concludes that she knows "nothing." Richard replies, "It’s far better that you should know nothing" (67). Two British warships are sighted. Clarissa squeezes Rachel’s hand, "aren’t you glad to be English!" Helen unpatriotically remarks " . . . as for dying on a battle-field, surely it was time we ceased to praise courage"(72). Helen notices that Rachel looks "queer and flushed" (72).
Chapter V: The first of the two storms in the novel breaks. Clarissa becomes terribly seasick and takes to her bed. Strangely, it is Helen who nurses Clarissa. Richard and Helen discuss a politician’s life versus the life of the mind. During the storm, Richard runs into a "body" that turns out to be Rachel. As if swept in by the wind, he follows her into her room. When he inquires about her "interests and occupations" she replies, "You see, I’m a woman" (79). He tells her that she has "an inestimable power--for good or for evil . . . (80). The ship lurches and Rachel falls "slightly forward" (80). Richard "took her in his arms and kissed her passionately, so that she felt the hardness of his body and the roughness of his cheek printed upon hers" (80). Although Richard initiates and controls this situation, he grabs his forehead and says "You tempt me" (80) [italics mine]. Surely, Rachel’s behavior cannot be characterized as that of a temptress. At first, Rachel believes that "something wonderful had happened"(80). Later, she is tormented by a terrible dream of being trapped in a damp vault with a "little deformed man" with a "pitted" face like that of "an animal" (81). She feels pursued" and cannot sleep as "All night long barbarian men harassed the ship . . . "(82).