46 pages • 1 hour read
Voyage In The Dark
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Part 2: Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary
Anna spends her days drinking and writing unsent letters to Walter as she attempts to grasp her situation: “every time you put your hand on my heart it used to jump well you can’t pretend that can you can pretend everything else but not that it’s the only thing you can’t pretend…” (90). The letters exhibit a sort of inebriated form of stream-of-consciousness and illuminate Anna’s alcohol-driven depression.
She tells her landlady she is ill and that she prefers to keep to herself. A woman from the upstairs floor introduces herself as Ethel Matthews and asks about Anna’s health, as Ethel has heard Anna may be ill. Although Anna wants Ethel to stay, as she “was a human being”; Anna further describes her as a woman who knew “her own cunning, which would always save her, which was sufficient to her” (92).
Ethel asks if Anna would like to join her for the cinema and comments on her lovely fur coat. Together, they go to see a show called “Three-Fingered Kate.” Afterwards, Ethel comments on the main character of the show, lamenting on the choice of the actress: “Couldn’t they have got an English girl to do it? It was just because she had this soft, dirty way that foreign girls have” (94).
Anna pays no heed, however, and accepts Ethel’s invitation to her room. Ethel inquires as to what is wrong with Anna and that Ethel may be able to help her. Anna assures her it has nothing to do with being pregnant and that she only wants a drink at that moment. Ethel goes on to call herself a Swedish masseuse and expresses her hatred for men. She is surprised when Anna does not agree with her and tries to find out more about her. Ethel wonders why with a fur coat “like that,” Anna stays in Camden Town, to which Anna retorts: “‘Well, what are you here for then…if you think it’s as awful as all that?’” (96).
Ethel mentions that she is only here until her own flat is fixed, and she can move in. She then proceeds to offer Anna a spare bedroom in her flat and the opportunity to start a business as a manicurist with her. Anna leaves to sleep; Ethel says she will drop by her room before Anna leaves.
Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary
Anna leaves her lodging so that her room can be cleaned and happens to run into Laurie and two American men, Carl and Joe, who accompany her. Laurie invites Anna to her flat for drinks; Anna accepts after much initial reluctance. The men also invite her to go out that night.
After the men leave, Laurie describes her life to Anna—she travels around and almost never pays for her own meals because of her skills: “‘I can tell you…I get along with men. I can do what I like with them. Sometimes I’m surprised myself’” (99).
Laurie asks about Anna, as Anna does not appear well, and Anna bursts out crying: “There was a man I was made about. He got sick of me and chucked me. I wish I were dead” (99). Laurie consoles her by pointing out that her state could have been “much worse” (99) and advises her to get more money while she still can.
Laurie shows Anna her flat and tells her to come with her in the evening. Anna has no dress to wear as hers is torn. Laurie offers her a dress, and Anna asks for a bath. Afterwards, Anna momentarily appears to feel slightly better: “emptied-out and peaceful—like when you’ve had a toothache and it stop for a bit” (101).
Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary
Laurie and Anna meet Carl and Joe for dinner and drinks. Laurie tries to promote Carl’s interest in Anna, and he places his hand on hers. Laurie’s attitude is rambunctious, which embarrasses Joe, and she is indifferent as a woman stares at her behavior with apparent disapproval: “‘What right has a woman with a face like a hen’s—and a like a hen’s behind too—to look at me like that?’” (102).
Anna is drunk and goes to the lavatory for a long time. Meanwhile, Carl leaves to gamble. Inside the taxi, with Laurie and Joe, Anna asks, “‘Did I seem drunk as we came out?’” (104).
Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary
They arrive at a hotel and Joe gets two rooms. They have more drinks even though Anna knows she feels “awfully sick” (106) as Laurie helps her out of her dress. Anna lays down on the bed and becomes aware of the conversation between Laurie and Joe, who are laughing and discussing her young age. Joe reaches for Anna’s hand and Anna says, “‘I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say it’s cold and clammy. Well, it’s because I was born in the West Indies and I’m always like that’” (107).
Joe pretends to have travelled there and to have known her father, and she notices him winking at Laurie. Anna reacts by calling him a “liar” (107) and telling both that she finds them irritating and wishes to go home. Laurie and Anna fight over the dress she is wearing, as it belongs to Laurie, while Joe intervenes and tells her she can sleep in the opposite room.
Joe later comes in the room to apologize and kisses Anna, to which she protests. Joe asks her, “‘Why do you go around with Laurie? Don’t you know she’s a tart?’” (109).
Anna is at first unfazed but as Joe speaks to her further, she begins to cry. Joe goes to place an eiderdown over her. Anna falls asleep. When she wakes up, Joe has left and Laurie is waiting for her. Laurie takes Anna back to her apartment so Anna can take her own dress and seems to have forgiven Anna for the previous incidents of the night: “I’m a good old cow really. You know I’m fond of you” (111).
Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary
Anna leaves Laurie’s flat that afternoon but does not want to return to her room in Camden Town. She becomes mesmerized by the dress shops and then she decides to take a taxi to the address Ethel provided.
Anna mistakenly rings the wrong bell and an elderly man named Denby opens the door. He is the owner of the building and has the first floor as his office. Ethel takes Anna to her flat on the second and third floors and shows her around.
She offers Anna the same deal as before: to share her flat and assist in her business. Although the room is expensive for Anna, Ethel offers it for “eight quid a month” (114),with other additional activities to be required, such as housework and tending to patients.
Anna has limited money left, but she goes to Camden to bring her things to the new flat. Upon returning, Anna wants to go to bed. Ethel brings her food and speaks of herself as a “respectable” woman: “‘I’m the best masseuse in London. You couldn’t learn from anybody better than me. It really is a chance for you’” (115).
When Ethel leaves, Anna thinks of Francine and imagines telling her, “I’ve had such an awful dream,” and that she will awake again to her “lovely life” (115).
Part 2, Chapters 1-5 Analysis
Anna lives as if in a comatose state: “‘There’s one thing—I do sleep. I sleep as if I were dead’” (97). Everything around her appears bleak and exaggerated. For her, the certainty of England is irritating as she observes another landlady, a prominent presence in her life: “This one had bulging eyes, dark blobs in a long, pink face, like a prawn” (89).
In her hysteria, she writes sometimes-incoherent messages to release her feelings and denial but when she cannot handle it any more, she slips into her memories of the West Indies again, with her homeland functioning as her haven. In addition, she “walls” herself into her room, as her window does not open, and keeps the curtains drawn, so the darkness can protect her. The final item that furthers her descent into misery is her taste for alcohol, as she increasingly reaches out for a drink to stop her thoughts or be less aware of her reality.
The two women that define her in this portion of the novel are Ethel Matthews and Laurie Gaynor. Ethel meets Anna at Ethel’s boarding house and later gives her an offer to share a flat and a role as a manicurist. Laurie is a chorus girl that Anna worked with before, and someone Anna likes.
Both are smart, independent women that know their way around the world, and they try to assist Anna, or at least provide opportunities for her to move on with her life. In fact, both assume that Anna must be depressed because she is pregnant, which she is not, as of yet. Nonetheless, they know pregnancy could be the worst thing that could happen for a single, struggling woman. Despite their similarities, the major difference between Ethel and Laurie lies in their authenticity and self-acceptance. Laurie does not hide who she is—she has a knack for charming men and receiving money from them; during dinner with the Americans and Anna, she even proudly addresses her “peasant blood” (103). On the contrary, in their first meeting, Ethel defensively responds to Anna that she does not need to be in this boarding house because she has her own flat and overemphasizes her “respectability,” even though she appears to want Anna to bring more “clients” for her business (115).
In Part 2, Laurie invites Anna out with two American men, Carl and Joe. She has become fully dependent on alcohol by this point and is unable to handle herself maturely. In fact, seeing her drunkenness, Joe infantilizes her by calling her “kid” (107) and treating her in a juvenile manner when he winks at Laurie and pretends he has been to the Caribbean. A pattern can be noticed in that Anna’s age and her ingenuous manner draws men to desire to at once protect her and tease her because it allows them to feel masculine. Later, Joe apologizes and even places an eiderdown and her coat over Anna to keep warm. While this can in one light be seen as sympathetic, in another light, it can be viewed as further infantilization of Anna.
Despite Anna’s behavior with Laurie, she defends her when Joe asks Anna why she hangs out with a “tart” like Laurie, to which Anna responds, “‘It’s just as good as anything else, as far as I can see’” (109). Anna shows that in a world where women are disposable, no work is beneath oneself and that women must have strong bonds with each other in a male-dominated society if they are to survive and thrive.
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