Rachel Vinrace

Rachel is the daughter of the ship’s captain, Willoughby. She has spent most of her youth in isolation from people her own age, raised by her spinster aunts in Richmond. This deficit becomes obvious when she is on the ship with the Ambroses and Dalloways. She is shy and described as plain and unattractive. However, she is highly skilled at the piano, and her love for music is one of the most defining attributes of her character. While Rachel does a poor job of communicating verbally, she seems to find it easier to express herself through music or through comparisons of situations or concepts to music. Rachel is arguably the main character of the novel. While Woolf explores the interiors of many different characters, the central events most closely follow Rachel, and the book ends with her death.

Richard Dalloway is Rachel’s introduction to sexuality...