Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Voyage in the Dark, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Homesickness, Memory, and Belonging
Sexism, Love, and Power
Race and Identity
Money and Happiness
Summary
Analysis
At the restaurant that night, Laurie asks Carl if he likes Anna—didn’t Laurie find “a nice girl” for him? He graciously says that Anna is nice, but Joe talks about how he doesn’t like the way British women dress. Carl seems to agree, though he’s a little less straightforward about it. Still, he makes it clear that he doesn’t like the dress Anna has on, which slightly offends Laurie, since it belongs to her. In fact, Laurie is becoming quite drunk and a bit rude, yelling at the waiters and generally causing a scene by telling a woman dining at a nearby table not to look at her. When Carl and Joe ask Anna to chime in by saying what she thinks of the woman at the other table, Anna admits that she finds her judgmental expression frightening.
When Laurie asks Carl if he thinks she found a “nice girl” for him, it becomes clear that she invited Anna in the hopes of pleasing Carl—whom she appears to have met while working as a sex worker, though this is never made explicit in the novel. Either way, it’s obvious that Laurie’s relationship with both Carl and Joe is transactional: they pay for a fancy dinner, and she provides them with company. Whether or not the transactional nature of this setup will extend beyond dinner remains unclear. For now, Carl, Joe, and Laurie spend their time objectifying Anna and talking about her as if she’s not there, which is yet another indication that none of them care much about her feelings.
Themes
Before leaving the restaurant, Anna goes to the bathroom—not because she needs to use the toilet, but because she’s so drunk that she needs a moment to collect herself. When she returns, she discovers that Carl has left. Joe claims that an urgent matter arose to take Carl away, but Laurie says it’s obvious that Carl left to gamble. Joe doesn’t challenge this idea, instead saying that Anna and Laurie don’t need to worry about Carl’s departure, since they still have Joe for the night.
Carl’s departure suggests that he was not, in the end, all that taken by Anna. Instead of spending the evening with her, he would rather gamble. In either case, he is using his money to chase pleasure.
Themes
