Presentation of Dialogue

Something I noticed throughout the novel “Voyage in the Dark” was the strange way Rhys structured dialogue throughout the novel. It was fairly inconsistent; while I can’t recall any exact examples, there were numerous times where the dialogue of multiple characters was all in the same paragraph. At other times, the dialogue was more spread out. Not only would the lines of other characters be separated, but a character’s sentences may be divided into several different new lines.

                Personally, I thought that the strange presentation gave the reader a look into Anna’s current frame of mind. When the dialogue, regardless of character, was jumbled into the same paragraph, it gave a frantic sense to everything. At these points, it gave the impression that Anna wasn’t paying complete attention and was a bit apathetic to everything that was going on around her. When the dialogue was more separated, it gave the impression once again that Anna wasn’t paying attention, but in a different way. While the jumbled dialogue was Anna in more of a “daydream” state, the separated dialogue gives the sense that time is passing, that the character who is speaking has said more which Anna has missed or wasn’t conscious to hear. It seems to point more toward a health problem than Anna’s mental state of mind.

                The strange use of dialogue made reading “Voyage in the Dark” more interesting and intriguing. It wouldn’t have quite been the same if the dialogue was set up in a more uniform manner.