Virginia Woolf comes up with so many wonderful names for her books. The Voyage Out is exactly that, the voyage of Helen
coming out into her own. In the beginning she boards a ship to leave the country she is in and she wonders if it is the right thing. As we all do stepping into life and becoming our own lives. This book brings about so many questions that real people have in their lives and even societies. Is this the right choice? Will it make things better or worse for me or us? As you read thru this book questions like these continue to make you think and analyze your own
choices and democracies choices. Were they right for the majority or just the government? Helen arrives in a new place with new rules and new ediquette.
Changes are always so hard for anyone to make, but are we brave enough to make them. This book makes you think about bravery and change and the steps we take to make them. Is society brave enough to make the changes it needs to make the whole better, or do we hide behind the old ways because we are comfortable? Throughout the book Helen makes new friends from other countries and learns so much from them. A good thought would be to look at how listening and learning from other cultures how would it improve ours? This book would be a good quarter reading book. You could read a chapter at a time and have group discussions or short essays building to an end of the quarter paper. It is soft enough that it would be a good book reading club, discussion group book. It contains enough of life for you to really get involved with it. I would expect no less from Virginia Woolf.