Voyage in the Dark is about a young woman named Anna who falls on bad times. When her father dies, her stepmother keeps the inheritance. Anna is suddenly thrust into a life of poverty without any real family or community. This isolation, coupled with the systemic issue of misogyny, causes Anna's life to spiral into hell. By the end of the novel, Anna is shamed, injured, and hopeless. In other words, the novel does justice to its title.
When Anna wants a lover, she can only find men who think she is a whore. Her options are limited in other ways as well. When she tries to support herself, she can only find a job where she is expected to moonlight as a whore. When she tries to find an apartment, the landladies all assume she is a whore. When she tries to fall in love, she learns that she means nothing to Carl.
Then she becomes pregnant. Pregnancy represents a lot, symbolically speaking. In many ways, the continuation of the species is the ultimate aim of adult life, so this represents Anna's ability to bring new life into the world. She decides to abort the baby (under considerable influence from Laurie), but she ends up injured when the doctor botches the abortion. It seems that even her ability to choose the fate of her own pregnancy falls outside Anna's control.
The questions that end the novel are the same ones that begin the novel. What could life be like? Anna realizes that she is on a path to repeat this life cycle in England. She is faced with a serious dilemma about her future, and although a solution is not offered, she remembers the Caribbean. Perhaps one day she will find herself back home where she feels peaceful. The novel is about suffering, but more than that, the story is about a warrior woman who faces her fate in stride.
