Virginia Wolf, The Voyage Out (1915)

1. Analyse the text from a literary point of view:

1.1. Structure

The initial unit or thematic base of the text is “Hewet an Rachel had long ago reached the
particular place on the edge of the cliff”. The structure is Subject + verb + adverb of time, with
an adverb of time between the auxiliary verb and the main verb. It is a direction-determining
introduction. Situations introduction. All this is typical of narrative texts.

The text is divided into three parts. The first part is line 1-29. Here we find description of
landscapes. The second part is the dialogue. The last part is the impressions that Hewett has
about Rachel.

The conclusion is with a point, because we are expecting that something happens between
them. , because it summarizes some of the content that we find in the previous paragraphs. It
is typical of descriptive texts.

In lines 20, 29, 31, 33, 34 and 49 we find examples of direct speech. There is also free indirect
speech from line 35 to line 48, because we can read Hewet’s mind and his thoughts about
Rachel.

1.2. Theme

We find several topics. For example, nature, because it describes a landscape. Also, American
history in lines 9 and 10 and physical attraction and love, especially in line 47. In fact, nature
represents what is inside the character’s thoughts.

Narrowing focus, from general to more specific topics.

1.3. Cohesion and communicative intention

There are many elements which contribute to the cohesion of the text.

Grammatical cohesion: LINKING WORDS and PRONOUNS and ADVERBS.

 Endophoric reference:
- Anaphora (points to something mentioned before): line 3 (“them”: Hewet and
Rachel), line 4 (“there”: England), lines 6 and 14 (“here”: South America), line 11
(“their”: Hewet and Rachel’s), line 12 (“that way”: the vast expanse of land)
EXOPHORIC? line 14 (“itself”: the sea), line 15 (“its”: the sea), line 16 (“this sea”:
South America’s sea), line 18 (“he”: Hewet).
 - Cataphora:
 Exophoric reference: line 6 (“here” refers to South America, but it is not mentioned
anywhere in the text).
 Substitution: line 6 (“one”: view), line 24 (“so”: it substitutes the sentence in lines 22-
23: “the water was very calm […] at the bottom of it”).
 Ellipsis (nominal, verbal or clausal): line 4 (“however extended”: verbal ellipsis), line 21
(“and [Rachel] parted”: nominal ellipsis), line 31? (“But England”: verbal ellipsis?), line
34 (“[I want] My friends chiefly”: clausal?).
 Conjunctions: line 4 (“and”: coordinating conjunction), line 13 (“though”:
subordinating conjunction), line 18 (“as”: subordinating conjunction), line 21-22 (“so
that”: subordinating conjunction).
 Lexical cohesion: repetition of words: lines 4 and 5 (“hills), lines 6 and 8 (“earth”), lines
12 and 13 (“sea”), line 17 (“Thames”), lines 1, 19 and 23 (“cliff”), lines 9 and 10 (“dark
savages”), lines 31 and 35 (“absorbed”).
Also synonyms or near-synonyms: line 29 (“freshness” and “newness” express the
same connotation), line 14 (“surge” or “anger”), line 7 (“widening” and “spreading”).
Antonyms: line 47 and 48 (“unattractive” and “attractive”), lines 9 and 10 (“dark” and
“white” and “savages” and “civilized”).
Many words that refer to the sea and the water: sea, water, wash, dolphins…
Positive words are used to refer to South America and negative words are used to
describe the English people and the landscape is negative. The only reason why
Hewett wants to be in England is because their friends are there.
 Sea is a personification of Rachel.

The communicative intention is that of describing, to provide a mental picture of a

scene/landscape, and also the thoughts of one of the characters. The main intention is to
portray the character’s minds joining them to landscape.

1.4. Imagery

We can find different rhetorical resources: SIMILES and PERSONIFICATION

- Lines 4 and 6: contrast (“there”: England, “here”: South America).

- Lines 6 and 7: parallelism (“pointed in pinnacles, heaped in vast barriers”: to add
balance and rhythm giving ideas a smoother flow).
- Line 7: simile (“like the immense floor of the sea”: to exaggerate the vastness of
the earth). This description presents South America in a POSITIVE view as
 compared to England. It gives the feeling that there is nothing within kilometres,
whereas in England you can find villages and hills everywhere, and you can even
see the sea from almost everywhere.
- Line 7: repetition (anaphora) (“away and away”: again, it emphasizes the vastness
and the great distance without anything to see in the horizon, except for “earth”).
- Lines 6 ad 8: anaphora (“earth”: the repetition of this word contrasts with the
word “sea”, which symbolizes England, whereas “earth” symbolizes South
America).
- Lines 9 and 10: antithesis (“dark savages” and “white civilized men”. This contrast
is used to present the history of America: the Indian people versus the European
people. Again, it establishes a contrast between the two territories. South America
is represented in a negative way, by “savages”, whereas England is “civilized”). The
anaphora “dark savages” emphasizes this negativity. This is also an allusion.
- Lines 12 and 13: anaphora (repetition of “the sea”, together with the verbs
“turned them to the sea” and “looking at the sea”. As the sea represents England,
they are looking towards their country, maybe missing it).
- Line 18: personification (“Hewet’s thoughts had followed…”: to add vividness and
draw our attention). Line 17: “the mouth and the Thames washed the roots of the
city of London”.
- Line 23: simile (“so clear that one could see…”).
- Line 24: parallelism (“so it had been at the birth of the world and so it had
remained ever since”: it emphasizes the idea that America is a new continent and
it has always stayed the same, without changes).
- Line 26: contrast (“she determined to mar that eternity of peace”: it establishes a
contrast with the calm that expressed the previous lines. Rachel represents
England and Europe, which arrives to America to alter everything and put an end
to the peace and quiet that existed until their arrival).
- Line 27: anaphora (“out and out”: the ripples spread like the Europeans spread in
the New World, reaching more and more territories).
- Lines 37-42 and 44-46: visual imagery (the description of the dress, of Rachel and
the hand).
- Line 42: simile (“as if she were watching for a fish to swim past over the clear red
rocks”. She is associated with this calmness of the sea).
- Lines 47 and 48: oxymoron (“unattractive” and “attractive”: to emphasize Hewet’s
attraction).
 1.5. Rhythm

The rhythm is smooth, and is achieved by means of using short sentences, linked by means of
juxtaposition and coordination, mainly. The repetition of words contributes to creating this
rhythm. At the beginning, the rhythm is slow, with a lot of description, adjectives, imagery and
description. But then, from lines 29 to 34, we have a scene there and the rhythm changes.
Then again, in the end we have description of the character’s thoughts. It begins with
something very wide, the sea, and in the end, the author refers to the idea of love and passion.

Sentences are generally long.

2. Asses the effectiveness of the linguistic means employed by the writer in relation to
her aims. RHETORICAL RESOURCES.

The author uses a great number of resources to express meaning and bringing us closer to the
world she is describing.

For example, from line 35 onwards, the use of free indirect speech (“stream of consciousness”
as Modernists called it) lets us know Hewet’s thoughts and feelings about Rachel. It provides a
very vivid description of Rachel and her dress, and it seems as if we were there watching her,
as if we were Hewet.

In the first paragraph, the use of rhetorical resources such as parallelisms, contrasts and
similes contribute to provide a realistic description of the landscape, and in our minds, we
imagine the place and compare it to England, which is the objective.

To portray the immesity of the sea  adjectives

Rhyme and alliteration (line 10)  useful to make the reader pay attention.

All this, the feelings and the landscape, introduces us into the scene, as if we were a third
character observing in the distance.

3. How would you exploit the paragraph from line 9 to line 14 in a Bachillerato group?

Perhaps their English blood made this prospect uncomfortably impersonal and hostile to them,
for having once turned their faces that way they next turned them to the sea, and for the rest
of the time sat looking at the sea. The sea, though it was a thin and sparkling water here,
which seemed incapable of surge or anger, eventually narrowed itself, clouded its pure tint with
grey, and swirled through narrow channels and dashed in a shiver of broken waters against
massive granite rocks. It was this sea that flowed up to the mouth of the Thames and the
Thames washed the roots of the city of London.

3.1. Morphological-syntactic level:

When I work with my students, I divide the class in three parts: pre-reading, while-reading and
post-reading. In the pre-reading stage, I am going to… Explicar cómo haríamos la clase. In the
while-reading stage, I would work on the morphological-syntactic level, focusing on relative
clauses. In the post-reading, they are going to continue the story or read the following part of
the text and ask them to write a summary.

We can ask them to recognise the different clauses in the text and separate them. After that,
we have to analyse which is the main clause and which are the subordinate clauses. GOOD For
example, “The sea, though it was a thin and sparkling water here, which seemed incapable of
surge or anger, eventually narrowed itself”. The main clause is “The sea […] eventually
narrowed itself”, and there are two subordinate clauses: “though it was a thin and sparkling
water here”, which is a clause of contrast or concession introduced by “although”, and “which
seemed incapable of surge or anger”, which is introduced by the relative pronoun “which” and
it is a relative clause. GOOD This would be especially useful for Segundo de Bachillerato.

PREFIXES AND SUFIXS

PAST TENSES AND PASSIVE VOICE

LINKING WORDS

3.2. Lexical-semantic level

First, I would start by checking comprehension, asking students what they have understood
about the text and telling me what it is about. Then I would ask them how is the sea described
and whether it is presented as something positive or negative. I would ask them to give me
reasons from the text, namely adjectives, but also any word that could carry a negative or
positive connotation. For example, the water is thin and sparking, incapable of surge (ola,
explosión) or anger (anger and surge have negative connotations, but together with incapable
they become positive). Then the description becomes negative (narrow, grey, swirled
[arremolinarse], broken waters, massive, shiver [escalofrío, temblor]).

After this, I would brainstorm more words with positive and negative connotations that could
be used in this context. And after that, they will need to select five of those words and write a
small paragraph contrasting something including those words.
It can also be used to teach how some words can belong to different categories. We can ask
them to read the text and try to identify verbs which can also belong to another category,
preferably preserving their meaning: turned (to turn, turn), narrowed, clouded, swirled and
flowed.

It can be used to teach this aspect of the English language, introducing more examples such as
perfect, challenge or record.