[1] It tells of the semi-tragic descent of its young protagonist Anna Morgan, who is moved from her Caribbean home to England by an uncaring stepmother, after the death of her father.

The title Rhys chose for her depiction of European modernity recalls another work of modernist literature, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (first serialized in 1899).

Through the character of Anna, Voyage in the Dark presents the tension between wanting to be integrated into English society and simultaneously resisting it, a trait it shares with other works of modernist literature written by Anglophone authors such as the Māori writer Witi Ihimaera, whose characters express a desire to engage with and absorb the best of the colonial legacy, yet simultaneously seek to assert their own identity and to avoid becoming absorbed by the culture of the colonial power.

Anna's alienation and subordination is caused not only by her heritage but also by her sex, and it is possible to read her mistreatment at the hands of men as a metaphor for rejection of traditional values.

Anna is represented as being caught between worlds: finding herself isolated socially and emotionally from those around her, she is unable to comfortably reconcile her West Indian and her British heritage.