Voyage in the Dark Literary Elements

Contemporary fiction

The action in the novel takes place in London during the duration of a few months.

The action in the novel is told from the perspective of a first-person subjective point of view.

The tone and mood in the novel is a violent and depraved one.

The protagonist is Anna and the antagonist is Walter.

The major conflict in this novel is an internal one and is the result of Anna's inability to find her place in the world.

The novel reaches its climax when Anna decides to have an abortion.

Early in the novel, Anna describes how she was unable to find an apartment because she was seen as a prostitute. This foreshadows the later instances when Anna will use her sexuality and will offer herself to men in exchange for money or financial support.

Walter's claim that he is in love is Anna is an understatement, and the young woman later discovers she was used by him and Walter was only interested in her body.

One of the main allusions we find in the novel is the idea that women are worthless without a man by their side. This makes many women characters in the novel to enter abusive relationships just because they are afraid they will not be taken seriously if they do not have a man by their side.

Anna comes from the Caribbean, and because of this origin she is seen as a depraved woman in England. The people she comes into contact with see her as a prostitute almost immediately and try to convince her to have sex with them in exchange for money. Through these experiences, Anna portrays the British as a proud nation who sees itself above everyone else and who automatically assumes that those who are different from them must submit to their desires and whims.

One paradoxical idea in the novel is the way in which Anna is abandoned by her family, the institution which was supposed to protect her. Because she no longer has a family to depend on, Anna finds herself in the dire situation of needing a protector and thus turning to predatory men who only pretend to want to help her.

A parallel can be drawn between the main character in the novel and the author since there are many similarities between the two. Both women find themselves in a strange land they do not understand completely and where they feel alienated. Because of these feelings, both the author and the character end up doing unspeakable things just to fit in or to survive.

Sex becomes used in the novel as a general way to express both the idea of being taken advantage of and the idea of power.

We have a personification in the line "and the trees swayed in the gentle breeze while the sand embraced me tenderly".