What does London represent in the novel, The Voyage Out?

London represents the past and future which our characters are suspended in between. In the opening pages of The Voyage Out, sleepy, crowded London is invoked vividly as Helen and Ridley make their way to the docks to board the Euphrosyne and start their journey to Santa Marina. Helen is upset to be leaving her children behind. For the Ambroses, London is their past, where they met friends and talked, where they were educated, where they were children, where they married and had children of their own. London is the old world, while Santa Marina and the foreign South America is the new world. London represents the English society of manners and education, while they seek to discover something new in leaving it.