The Voyage Out · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
Helen Ambrose
major
Also known as Helen, Ambrose, Aunt Eleanor, Eleanor, Mrs. Ambrose
Helen Ambrose moves through the ship and the South American hotel with an independence that unsettles the conventional English around her, offering Rachel books and unfiltered conversation instead of the insincerity she despises. Yet she would deny she influences anyone, and her own mind drifts into sudden, vertiginous questions about existence and dissolution. Her willingness to let Rachel think for herself makes her the quiet engine of the girl's awakening, and the novel's most clear-eyed witness to it.
Terence Hewet
major
Also known as Hewet, Mr. Hewet, old Hewet
Terence Hewet arrives in Santa Marina as a writer among talkers, more interested in human beings than in the earth swept clean of them, and drawn to Rachel precisely for the impersonality her music produces. He works at his novel and at understanding her simultaneously, scribbling queries about women's honour and optimism while she climbs Beethoven and ignores him. His courtship gives the middle of the book its tentative, hopeful center, and his writerly habit of observing everything makes him both Rachel's closest companion and a lens on her change.
Rachel Vinrace
major
Also known as Miss Rachel Vinrace, Miss Vinrace, Vinrace, Miss Rachel
Rachel Vinrace has been raised among aunts and Bach, handling written sentences as if they were wooden objects and taking modern novels with a seriousness no one around her shares. When Richard Dalloway kisses her, she is thrown into a strangeness of feeling she cannot name, and Helen's patient questioning begins to draw her out. Her voyage from passenger to person — through music, books, and first love — is the arc the entire novel leans toward.
St. John Hirst
supporting
Also known as Hirst, St., St. John Alaric Hirst, St. John Hirst, Poor old Hirst
St. John Hirst argues politics with the men, needles Helen with complaints, and treats the South American expedition as a holiday that stubbornly refuses to become one. He is impatient with Hewet and Rachel's silent self-absorption, half-annoyed to find them in love, and half-envious of any feeling strong enough to occupy a person. His restless, sardonic intelligence gives the novel's social scenes their edge and quietly measures how little the cleverest talk can do against real experience.
Mrs. Thornbury
supporting
Also known as Thornbury, old numskull Thornbury
Mrs. Thornbury seizes Rachel's arm to announce she guessed the match from the start, then folds the news into reminiscences of typhoid in Venice and the stricter courtships of her youth. She is endlessly kind and endlessly conventional, mothering the hotel's invalids and offering young people a happiness she insists will only improve with time. Her cheerful certainties form the social backdrop against which Rachel's more private, unclassifiable feelings stand out.
Mrs. Flushing
supporting
Also known as Mrs. Wilfrid Flushing, Wilfrid Flushing, Flushing
Mrs. Flushing joins the river expedition with an appetite for sensation, exclaiming over the hut where the explorer's body and notebook were found while her well-dressed husband supplies the facts. She befriends Rachel with the same unguarded enthusiasm she brings to everything, treating the sultry, alarming country as an adventure rather than a discomfort. Her vivid, slightly reckless curiosity throws the more restrained English travelers into relief and gives Rachel a glimpse of a woman who takes the world head-on.
Miss Allan
supporting
Also known as Miss Allen
Miss Allan belongs to the floating colony of English visitors who shuttle between the Ambroses' villa and the hotel, one of those acquaintances whose presence makes Santa Marina feel like a transplanted drawing-room. She teaches, reads, and watches, and her judgments carry a dry kindness that the more self-absorbed guests rarely notice. In a novel preoccupied with what people leave unsaid, she is one of the few who sees clearly and says little, a steady counterweight to the emotional weather around her.
Susan Warrington
supporting
Also known as Susan, Warrington, Susan Jane, Miss Warrington
Susan has spent years as unpaid companion to her selfish old aunt, Mrs. Paley, and her engagement to Arthur Venning transforms her from drudge to bride with a handsome present in view. The change floods her with warmth toward everyone, yet her diary entries and her anxious self-scrutiny reveal how much of her happiness is borrowed from others' approval. She matters as the novel's portrait of conventional English womanhood, content with the life Rachel will find herself unable to accept.
Mrs. Dalloway
supporting
Also known as Mrs. Richard Dalloway, Clarissa, Clarice, Aunt Clara
Mrs. Dalloway arrives on the ship in a stir of leather bags and compliments, a woman of a class where everything is specially arranged and everyone is known. Charming, worldly, and slightly theatrical, she turns her attention on Rachel and awakens in her a sudden, painful sense that her own face and life are not what she wants. Her brief visit is the first crack in Rachel's provincial innocence, and the novel's earliest glimpse of the larger English world waiting beyond the voyage.
Mr. Pepper
minor
Also known as Pepper, William Pepper, William
An elderly, pedantic scholar traveling with the Ambroses.
Arthur Venning
supporting
Also known as Mr. Arthur Venning, Venning, Mr. Venning, Arthur
Arthur is a conventional young Englishman whose courtship of Susan rescues her from years of being overlooked at her father's parsonage. His attentions are steady rather than passionate, and Susan spends her private hours puzzling over what he thinks of her rather than what she feels for him. He matters as the safe harbor the novel sets beside Rachel's unsettled longing, a reminder of the ordinary marriage plot this book keeps refusing to become.
Ridley Ambrose
supporting
Also known as Ridley, Uncle Ridley, Mr. Ambrose
Ridley Ambrose is a classical scholar whose edition of Pindar matters more to him than the social life his wife manages around him. He grumbles about the washing of his shirts, about the bore Hughling Elliot, about seeing too many people, yet he cannot simply turn anyone from the door. His distracted erudition and conjugal patter with Helen establish the villa as a place of books and unspoken tensions, the intellectual backdrop against which Rachel's education begins.
Willoughby Vinrace
minor
Also known as Vinrace, Mr. Vinrace
Rachel's father, a shipowner who arranges the voyage.
Mr. Perrott
minor
Also known as Perrott, old Perrott, Alfred Perrott, Alfred
A quiet, older gentleman who courts Miss Allan.
Mrs. Hughling Elliot
minor
Also known as Mrs. Elliot, Hughling, Hughling Elliot, Elliot
A gossipy, social-climbing passenger on the voyage.
Mr. Wilfrid Flushing
minor
Also known as Mr. Flushing, Wilfrid Flushing, Wilfrid
Mrs. Flushing's husband, a wealthy art collector.
Mrs. Chailey
minor
Also known as Chailey
The Ambroses' loyal, practical maid.
Mr. Bax
minor
Also known as Mr. William Bax, William
A clergyman who performs a wedding ceremony.
Dr. Lesage
minor
A French doctor consulted during Rachel's illness.
Evelyn Murgatroyd
supporting
Also known as Evelyn M., Evelyn, Evie, Miss Murgatroyd, Evelyn Murgatroyd
Evelyn Murgatroyd moves through the hotel in a whirl of crushes, causes, and sudden enthusiasms, from Alfred and Sinclair to a plan for abolishing prostitution within six months. She demands that Rachel join her Saturday Club and turn from art to life, and her ironic challenge—what do you actually do?—pricks at Rachel's passivity. She matters as the novel's study of restless modern energy that never quite settles, a foil to Rachel's slower, stranger inwardness.
Richard Dalloway
minor
Also known as Mr. Richard Dalloway, Mr. Dalloway, Dalloway
A conservative politician who briefly visits the ship with his wife.
Hughling Elliot
minor
Also known as Mr. Hughling Elliot, Mr. Elliot, Elliot
A pompous academic and husband of Mrs. Hughling Elliot.
Father Damien
minor
Also known as Father
A missionary mentioned in passing.
Mrs. Paley
minor
Also known as Old Mrs. Paley, old Mrs. Paley
An elderly, invalid passenger who requires constant care.
Dr. Rodriguez
minor
Also known as Rodriguez, Signor Rodriguez
A local doctor in South America who treats Rachel.
Mr. Grice
minor
A ship's officer who gives Rachel a tour of the vessel.
Nurse McInnis
minor
A nurse who attends to Mrs. Paley.
The Flushings
minor
Also known as Flushings
The couple who host an expedition into the jungle.
The Ambroses
minor
Also known as Ambroses
Helen and Ridley Ambrose as a couple.
The Dalloways
minor
Also known as Dalloways
Richard and Clarissa Dalloway as a couple.
The Elliots
minor
Also known as Elliots
Mr. and Mrs. Hughling Elliot as a couple.
The Thornburys
minor
Also known as Thornburys
Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury as a couple.
Lillah Harrison
minor
Also known as Lillah
A young woman mentioned in conversation, possibly a friend.
Aunt Lucy
minor
An elderly relative mentioned by Susan Warrington.
Theresa
minor
A deceased aunt of Rachel's, mentioned in passing.
Aunt Emma
minor
An elderly relative mentioned by the Thornburys.
Old Alice
minor
Also known as Alice
An elderly servant or relative mentioned in conversation.
Mrs. Parry
minor
Also known as Mrs. Raymond Parry
A society hostess mentioned by the Dalloways.
Lady Maud
minor
Also known as Maud
An aristocratic acquaintance mentioned in conversation.
Mrs. Jackson
minor
Also known as poor old Jackson, little Jackson, Jackson
An elderly woman mentioned as a neighbor or acquaintance.
Mrs. Hunt
minor
A woman mentioned in passing by the characters.
Mrs. Murgatroyd
minor
Evelyn's mother, mentioned in conversation.
Captain Richards
minor
A ship captain mentioned in passing.
Lola Mendoza
minor
A local woman mentioned in South America.
Raymond Oliver
minor
Also known as Oliver
A young man mentioned in conversation by the characters.
Maurice Fielding
minor
Also known as Fielding, Maurice
A friend of Hewet's, mentioned in letters.
Jenkinson
minor
Also known as Jenkinson of Peterhouse
An academic acquaintance of Hirst's.
Lord Glenaway
minor
An aristocrat mentioned in conversation.
Lady Barborough
minor
Also known as old Lady Barborough
An elderly society figure mentioned by the characters.
Lady Theo Bingham Bingley
minor
Also known as Lady Theo
A titled acquaintance mentioned in conversation.
Aunt Bessie
minor
An elderly relative mentioned by one of the characters.
Muriel
minor
A young woman mentioned in passing.
Alfred Perrott
minor
Also known as Alfred Perrot wo
Mr. Perrott's first name, used occasionally.
Sir Walter Elliott
minor
Also known as Sir, Sir Walter
A baronet mentioned in conversation as an acquaintance.
Rev. William Johnson
minor
Also known as William
A clergyman mentioned in passing.
Henry George
minor
Also known as George
A political economist mentioned in conversation.
Herbert Spencer
minor
Also known as Hubert
A philosopher mentioned in intellectual discussions.
Rev. Sidney Hirst
minor
A clergyman relative of St. John Hirst.
Hirst of Hirstbourne Hall
minor
A wealthy relative of St. John Hirst, mentioned in passing.
Dick
minor
A young man mentioned in conversation by the characters.
Hugh
minor
A man mentioned in conversation, possibly a friend.
Sinclair
minor
An acquaintance mentioned in conversation.
Bennett
minor
A servant or acquaintance mentioned in passing.
Sabrina
minor
A name used in a poem or song, possibly a character reference.
Euphrosyne
minor
The name of the ship on which the characters travel.
La Cousine Bette
minor
Also known as Betty, Elizabeth
A novel mentioned in conversation by the characters.
The English
minor
A collective reference to English people in the narrative.
Jane Austen
minor
Also known as Jane
The novelist, mentioned in conversation.
Shelley
minor
The poet, mentioned in conversation.
Shakespeare
minor
The playwright, mentioned in conversation.
Alexander Pope
minor
Also known as Pope, Sandy
The poet, mentioned in conversation.
Sappho
minor
The ancient Greek poet, mentioned in conversation.
Pindar
minor
The ancient Greek poet, mentioned as Ridley's scholarly focus.
Bach
minor
The composer, mentioned in conversation.
Cowper
minor
Also known as William Cowper
The poet, mentioned in conversation.
Burke
minor
The philosopher or statesman, mentioned in conversation.
Christ
minor
A religious figure mentioned in passing.
Sancho
minor
A name used in a literary reference or conversation.
Dear Bernard
minor
A person addressed in a letter or conversation.
Maria
minor
Also known as May
A woman mentioned in conversation by the characters.