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The mirror image Muda, G.E.

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Publication date: 2011

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Chapter 6

Life After Leaving Mr Mackenzie

If there is one hypocrisy I loathe more than another, it’s the fiction of the ‘good’ woman and the ‘bad’ one. Jean Rhys in “Vienne.” 1

6.0: INTRODUCTION

The last book under discussion in this study is After Leaving Mr Mackenzie by Jean Rhys (1890-1979). 2 Jean Rhys was born in Dominica, the daughter of a doctor of Welsh descent and a Creole mother. She came to England in 1907 and briefly attended the Perse School in Cambridge, and later the Academy of Dramatic Art in London. But after her father died, she discontinued her studies and went to work to support herself. She worked as a chorus girl, and a film extra, and, during the First World War (1914-1918), as a secretary and volunteer cook. In 1919 she left England to marry the first of three husbands, Jean Lenglet, and remained abroad for many years, living mainly in Paris, where she began to write and where much of her early work is set. The short story collection The Left Bank appeared in 1927 with an introduction by Ford Madox Ford. The novel that will be discussed here, After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, was published in 1930. I began this chapter with a quotation from one of Rhys’ short stories. Rhys evidently hated the division of women into stereotypical opposites because she was quite often stigmatized in her own life. However, it is clear that she found the division useful in the writing of fiction and, in spite of this statement, much of Jean Rhys’ work is organized around those split Jean Rhys (The University of Tulsa) or mirrored images. Her novel After Leaving Mr Mackenzie is no exception. In this novel,

1 “Vienne” is a short story by Jean Rhys. It was first published in the Transatlantic Review II.2 (December 1924): 639-645. 2 Some authorities give Rhys’ date of birth as 24 August 1894, but Diana Athill mentions in a ‘Foreword’ to Rhys’ posthumous autobiography Smile Please, 24 August 1890. Jean Rhys was born in Roseau, Dominica, in the West Indies. She was named Ella Gwendolin Rees Williams. She changed her name various times, but her novels and short stories were published under the name Jean Rhys.

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the sisters Julia Martin and Norah Griffiths are contrasted. Julia is the so-called ‘bad’ woman. She is pretty, she has style, and her marriage has enabled her to leave the drabness of home and move to Paris. Norah has denied herself excitement to stay at home with their ailing mother. Superficially, she is the ‘Angel in the House’ and the ‘good’ woman, but she is unmarried, embittered, and imprisoned in suburban Acton by poverty and the invalid mother. 3 The relationship between the two women is not good, and the resentment the two sisters feel is mutual (Athill, 11-12). Norah’s feelings cut deeper, though; she hates, whereas Julia shows only dry-eyed spite. It is especially in the middle section of the novel that the sisters are mirrored, but the limitation of the various social roles for women is shown throughout the book, and the comparison with Norah is important, because it shows an alternative to Julia’s existence and reveals what might have happened to her, if she had behaved in a more traditional way. A short summary may clarify the development of the story-line. In After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, the central female protagonist is Julia Martin. 4 She lives in Paris, and we enter the story on a Tuesday in the spring of 1929 or 1930. Since the previous October, when her ‘lover’ Mr Mackenzie left her, Julia has been living on the weekly three hundred francs which his lawyer, Henri Legros, sends her. Her life is characterized by little freedom, and the social and economic constraint she experiences is becoming worse. The allowance is suddenly stopped with a final payment of fifteen hundred francs. In a fit of rage, Julia seeks out Mr Mackenzie in his local restaurant, slaps him, and flings his money back at him. This incident is witnessed by George Horsfield, and after she leaves the restaurant, he tracks her down and approaches her in a nearby café. They have a drink, go to the cinema, and talk. When Mr Horsfield realizes that she has no money, he gives her fifteen hundred francs, and he also advises her to return to London. Julia goes there for various reasons; “to see her family (a dying mother, a jealous sister, a selfish uncle), to seek financial help from the wealthy older man who was her first lover (he had promised that they would always be friends), and to continue her affair with Mr Horsfield.”5 The mother is by now an invalid; and she dies while Julia is in London. After the cremation, Norah and her paternal Uncle Griffiths send Julia away. Julia briefly takes George Horsfield for her lover, but then returns to Paris. In Paris, she sticks to the same routines as before, and the novel ends with her asking Mr Mackenzie to lend her one hundred francs. Jean Rhys always denied being a feminist, yet her depiction of the available social roles for women, and the unequal and unfair division of power structures leaves no doubt that she was fully aware of the oppressive social structures of patriarchy. In After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, we find the bleakest depiction of the contemporary social system. Instead of being mildly ironic about society and the various social roles, as Edith Wharton would have

3 Diana Athill stresses this, calling Norah “the good sister, the one who has stayed at home and sacrificed her youth to caring for their mother.” Jean Rhys: The Early Novels (London: André Deutsch, 1984) 11. Many other critics mention the opposition of the “good sister Norah” and the “bad sister Julia,” as well, though. Lorna Sage refers to it in the “Introduction” to the latest Penguin edition (London: Penguin Classics, 2000) v. 4 The original title of After Leaving Mr Mackenzie does not have a period after Mr ; I have generally followed this form. 5 Arnold E. Davidson mentions this in “The Art and Economics of Destitution in Jean Rhys” Studies in the Novel 16:2 (Summer 1984) 215-227, 216.

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been, Jean Rhys can be downright sarcastic about the economic and social dependence of women. Perhaps this is also a sign of the times; After Leaving Mr Mackenzie is the most recent of all of the novels under discussion here, published in 1930. 6 By this time, women writers could be more outspoken about the social system; and the plight of the individual, also the female individual, had become an important issue. What is noteworthy about Rhys’ writing style is that it is less ‘realistic’ than the style of the earlier women writers. Many critics, amongst them Ford Madox Ford, regarded her as a modernist writer, because of the techniques that she uses. In general, modernist literature is characterized by a rejection of nineteenth-century traditions. The conventions of realism are abandoned and many modernist writers considered themselves an avant-garde upsetting bourgeois values. They adopted new forms and styles, ‘played’ with the chronological order and attempted new ways of describing the flow of characters’ thoughts in their ‘stream-of-consciousness’ styles. Many writers introduced new or forbidden subject- matters. Overall, it seemed to be their aim to shock the sensibilities of the conventional reader and to challenge the norms and values of bourgeois culture. This modernist revolt against traditional literary forms and subjects demonstrated itself strongly after the catastrophy of World War I shook people’s faith in the foundations and continuity of Western civilization and culture. 7 In her writings, Rhys experiments especially with the structuring of the story, with the juxtaposition of characters and events and with the introduction of risky subject matters. In After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, this sometimes leads to an almost grotesque portrayal of the female main characters and the representation of their plight borders on the absurd. Yet, her method to portray women’s struggle with contemporary society is very illuminating, and it is again the mirroring of the main characters that seems to develop into a consciousness- raising technique. To examine further the method used by Jean Rhys to represent what the text suggests as the limited options for women in contemporary society, I will first have a look at the gender and class specific socialization of both Julia and her sister Norah, and then examine their relationship with society.

6.1: THE REPRODUCTION OF POWER SYSTEMS

Like The Awakening , After Leaving Mr Mackenzie does not mention education in relation to the female protagonists. Yet, like Edna Pontellier, Julia Martin is in the middle of a learning process and, in that sense, the novel can be called a ‘Bildungsroman.’ With regard to the division of power structures and the expected social roles of both genders the novel implies that Julia comes to fully understand the oppressive social system. She also realizes that she cannot really change it, though. In spite of the fact that After Leaving Mr Mackenzie is the most recent novel of my four case studies, and contemporary society was beginning to change, it is only in relation to

6 Elgin W. Mellown, “Character and Themes in the Novels of Jean Rhys,” Contemporary Literature 13. 4 (Autumn, 1972): 474. 7 See: Richard Lehan, Literary Modernism and Beyond: The Extended Vision and the Realms of the Text (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009) 16-17, 41-42, 57.

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some of the male characters that education is mentioned. Mr Horsfield, for example, had a good education, and both Mr Mackenzie and Mr James had a traditional upbringing. This one-sidedness is surprising, because the period between World War I and World War II altered the shape of life in various contexts for women in Europe. Women were gaining more and more rights and opportunities. Soon after the end of World War I, these included for some the right to own property, the right to vote, and the chance of a higher education. During World War I, women from the middle classes went to work in place of men away at war, and many refused to give up their new-found financial independence after the war. 8 In Great Britain the Representation of the People Acts of 1918 and 1920 granted suffrage to women over thirty and to women over twenty-one, respectively. New technologies in the home added to the sense of freedom. Electric irons, pyrex glass which enabled food to be cooked and served in one dish, mass-produced clothing, and vacuum cleaners were among the many conveniences which by 1930 helped to free at least middle class women from full-time housework. 9 In addition, new fashions cut down the time spent on personal appearance; short hair and clothes without the corsets or petticoats of the Victorian and Edwardian periods gave women a previously unheard-of degree of freedom in movement. One of the most important factors in this social revolution was the opening up of higher education to women, a development that began in the late nineteenth century. Fighting the perception that education would render women ‘unfit’ for their traditional roles as wives, housewives, and mothers, pioneers of women’s education set up colleges where women and girls could learn in a structured environment and study what their brothers had been studying for centuries. Many women prepared there for careers, often in teaching. Although many others found their time at college to be a brief but welcome break before marriage, the social conditions for women seemed definitely changed. And by the 1930s, the traditional, unequal marriage where the woman was delegated to the private sphere and the man to the public no longer seemed the only option available for women. 10 One would expect writing from this period, at least that by women for women, to reflect some of these social and cultural changes. Yet, with regard to Jean Rhys’ work quite the opposite is true. In After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, the quest for knowledge or self- understanding is portrayed as a search for a partner, and is similar to the more traditional romance plot. Julia Martin still longs for the ideal of a man in whose arms she can sacrifice her independence for the sake of love. However, she does a bad job of choosing her men,

8 See also Chapters 2.4 and 2.5 of this dissertation for a detailed overview of these changes. 9 Elizabeth McMurray points out that the “new woman” absolutely freed from domestic work by appliances was in some sense a myth, though: “The time spent on domestic chores did not decrease, it was rather that standards of cleanliness were raised” ( At Home in the Thirties , 1). She adds that “it was predominantly the middle classes who purchased these new ‘labour-saving’ appliances in a period of transition away from the employment of live-in domestic help. [The trade catalogues] describing these products reflect the changing role of the housewife and elevate housework to a profession” (1-2). McMurray provides some noteworthy statistics on ownership: the high prices of washing machines meant that by 1938 only 3% of the households possessed one, while most continued to use a copper and portable wringer (9); by 1939 nine million households owned a radio (in Britain), but radios were very expensive, costing on average twice the weekly wage and many bought on hire purchase (10); Pyrex heat-resistant glassware was developed in 1915 by Corning Glassworks in America, and it was first produced in Britain in the 1920s (14). 10 Gage Blair, “Chapter 13: Great Britain,” International Handbook of Women’s Education, 285-323.

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and very often she does not seem free to choose at all, but is content merely to be chosen. Her search for love, communication, and respect does not result in a happily-ever-after marriage, but merely leads to alienation and depression. The overall impression given by After Leaving Mr Mackenzie is that, in spite of all of the contemporary developments in the 1930s, the underlying power-structures have not changed at all. The first thing Julia Martin discovers during the learning process she undergoes is that patriarchy is still quite an oppressive social system for women. Julia mentions the oppressive social system, already, in relation to her youth. In a chapter entitled “Childhood,” she states: When you are a child you are yourself and you know and see everything prophetically. And then suddenly something happens and you stop being yourself; you become what others force you to be. You lose your wisdom and your soul. 11 As an adult, Julia longs to get in touch with her ‘real self’ again. What she wants to learn is “the truth about myself and about the world and about everything that one puzzles and pains about all the time” (ALMM, 41). What she finds out is already depicted in the childhood story about butterflies: You were catching butterflies. You caught them by waiting until they settled, and then creeping up silently on tiptoe and squatting near them. Then, when they closed their wings … you grabbed them quickly … When you had caught the butterfly you put it away in an empty tobacco tin, which you had ready. … Of course, what always happened was that it broke its wings; or else it would fray them so badly that by the time you had got it home and opened the box and hauled it out as carefully as you could it was so battered that you lost all interest in it. … what you had hoped had been to keep the butterfly in a comfortable cardboard-box and to give it the things it liked to eat. And if the idiot broke its own wings, that wasn’t your fault, and the only thing to do was to chuck it away and try again. (ALMM, 115-116) The butterfly story represents what will happen to Julia later in life. She, too, is really only allowed to live in a box, or straitjacket of social roles. The social role that she is finally pushed into is the role of mistress, kept in a cheap hotel room, when she is still young and attractive, but chucked away when she is no longer wanted. Julia is never associated with the more acceptable social roles for women, such as wife, housewife, and mother. Rhys shows little joy for women in their rebellion against these roles. Julia always remains on the fringes of acceptable society, and so basically does her mirror image, her sister Norah. Both Julia and Norah belong to the lower middle classes, unlike the female protagonists discussed earlier; and their overall situation is less comfortable because of that.

11 Jean Rhys, After Leaving Mr Mackenzie 1930 (London: Penguin Classics, 2000): 115. Further citations from this novel will be indicated with ALMM, followed by the page number(s) of this edition.

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Norah Griffiths represents the woman who sticks to the expected social roles, who accepts her lower-middle-class life in all its drabness. She is among life’s defeated women. Throughout the story, she represents the ‘Angel in the House,’ but her depiction of this stereotype is quite different from the impression made by the ‘angels’ in the previous novels. It is mostly her correct behavior that can be considered ‘angelic.’ It is not her looks or her temperament; in fact, beneath her grim stoicism lurks an embittered, self-pitying woman. And the narrator’s opening description depicts her as follows: Her head and arms drooped as she sat. She was pale, her colourless lips pressed tightly together into an expression of endurance. She seemed tired. Her eyes were like Julia’s, long and soft. Fine wrinkles were already forming in the corners. She wore a pale green dress with a red flower fixed in the lapel of the collar. But the dress had lost its freshness, so that the flower looked pathetic. (ALMM, 51) We learn from her “cold” face that “warmth and tenderness were dead in her” (ALMM, 51). Norah has been beaten down in a way different from Julia, but the same social and economic forces have worked upon her. Norah is a woman with middle-class tastes “left without the money to gratify them … yet holding desperately to both her tastes and opinions” (ALMM, 53). These opinions lead her to criticize Julia for her shiftlessness, her conduct with men, and her failure to care for their dying mother. Norah is introduced as the incarnation of a woman who behaves in the proper way according to the prevailing social norms. She is socialized into the stereotyped role- expectations. There are some flaws in her character, but especially in the caring context, and in her role as daughter she behaves quite correctly. However, she does not really succeed in correcting Julia’s conduct, or in convincing the reader that the role of ‘angel’ is the preferable one. On the contrary, and Julia recognizes Norah’s defeat in Norah’s coldness and self-righteous moral superiority. Overall, the mirroring of the female protagonists in After Leaving Mr Mackenzie raises the socially acceptable and unacceptable behavioral patterns for women to a more conscious level of understanding, but the motif mostly helps the reader to gain a critical view of the contemporary social context. Yet, the reader is not the only one to learn something about the social system. Julia already discovered the oppressive tendencies of patriarchy and both Julia and Norah also learn two important other points in their confrontation with contemporary society. The influence of the social context is especially noticeable through the similarities between both sisters. 12 Norah, for example, is always “tired.” She thinks of herself as “a slave,” and as “buried alive”; she also “cries for her dying youth and beauty,” and even her “voice” is like Julia’s, they did not help. They just stood round watching her youth die, and her soft heart grow hard and bitter. They just sat there and said: ‘You’re wonderful, Norah.’ Beasts … devils … For a long time, she had just lain on her bed, thinking: ‘Beasts and devils…’ (ALMM, 75-76)

12 Carol Angier points out these similarities in her biographical study Jean Rhys: Life and Work (London: André Deutsch, 1990) 264-265.

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Norah comforts herself with thoughts about money and the inheritance, which is not like Julia; but soon she sounds like Julia again: And then she had felt very cold, and had pulled the bed-clothes over her. And then she had felt so tired that after all nothing mattered except sleep. And then she must have slept. (ALMM, 76) Norah is also like Julia in another way: she is “divided” (Angier, 264) She experiences a growing division between “warm and cold,” “soft and hard.” Once she was soft, she thinks, but now she is becoming increasingly hard and insensitive. After she and Julia have a row, she succeeds in forgetting Julia fairly quickly. Norah lay back, with her eyes shut. She thought: ‘My God, how hard I’ve got!’ Her lips trembled: ‘What’s happened to me?’ For a moment she was afraid of herself. (ALMM, 101) Yet, this is Julia’s story, too. Her last remaining pride is her empathy and her tender heart; but at the end of the story, she thinks, And it was funny to end like that – where most sensible people start, indifferent and without any pity at all. Just saying: ‘It’s nothing to do with me. I’ve got my own troubles. It’s nothing to do with me.’ (ALMM, 136) And so Julia gradually acquires the habit of not caring, too. The second thing Julia and Norah learn in their confrontation with society is that they should not care about other people and society too much, if they want to survive as an individual (Mellown, 466). As a reader this development makes you begin to wonder about the norm and value system presented in the novel, especially because the male characters have this attitude from the beginning. Right at the start of his relationship with Julia, Horsfield already thinks, “Once you started letting the instinct of pity degenerate from the general to the particular, life became completely impossible” (ALMM, 34). Overall, George Horsfield is depicted as the kind and understanding male character, but this sentence reveals how much he has been conditioned by the apparently harsh social context of the 1930s. At the same time, the narrator ridicules this type of thinking with such a comment, exactly because one cannot care about the general, if one does not take heed of the particular. The male character Mr Mackenzie gets involved with other people in only a very limited, usually businesslike way. Women he mostly sees as objects, and in relation to Julia he thinks: “Never again – never, never again – will I get mixed up with this sort of woman” (25). Mr James is depicted as only having been interested in sex with Julia: “I didn’t know anything about him, really. You see, he never used to talk to me much. I was for sleeping with – not for talking to” (125). And even her uncle, Uncle Griffiths, thinks, “Why should I have to bother about this woman?” (59). The men in patriarchy apparently find this a normal way of dealing with other people. Both female protagonists gradually acquire this type of behavior, but neither is really happy with it. At the beginning of her novel, Rhys separated the ‘soft’ from the ‘hard’ person, and put them into two different female characters. Yet, the more we progress into the story, the more similar especially the plight of both women becomes. Overall, the female main characters are in a way closer to each other, than the female protagonists of the other

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novels, because they are introduced as sisters. With this representation technique Rhys can show that there is a connection between them, even when there is not such a strong emotional bond between the two women. The likeness between them seems to be the family-background; but, for the rest, they are depicted as complete opposites. The shared family background between the two sisters also allows Rhys to express truths about the one through the other. At an important point in their learning process, there is even an actual confusion between them, so that for a moment the reader does not know which sister is referred to (Angier, 266). This happens when one of the main questions of the novel is asked. It occurs in Chapter 9, in Part 2. The family is traveling to Mrs Griffiths’s cremation. The third section ends: “Norah was silent, looking down at her hands clasped together in her lap.” Then the fourth section begins The car stopped. Everybody walked in a short procession up to the chapel of the Crematorium, where a clergyman with very bright blue eyes was waiting. That was a dream, too, but a painful dream, because she was obsessed with the feeling that she was so close to seeing the thing that was behind all this talking and posturing … In another minute she would know. And then a dam inside her head burst, and she leant her head on her arms and sobbed. (ALMM, 94) “She” must be Julia, not Norah because Julia is the one who cries, with her arms pressed over her eyes, while Norah watches the coffin “with eyes wide open” (ALMM, 94). But when “she” is first mentioned, the reader cannot be sure. The experience and the question seem like Julia, but “logically it should be Norah, the last one to be named” (Angier, 266). It is noteworthy that when Rhys leads the novel to the point of asking one of the heroine’s most important questions (“what is behind the nothingness that her life has reached?”) there should be this mix-up: “is it Norah or Julia who is asking? is it Norah or Julia whose life is nothing?” There is an instant when according to strict grammatical analysis Norah seems to ask what is really Julia’s question. 13 There is not a straightforward answer to the question, “What is behind all this nothingness?” It seems to lead to other questions, such as: What is the nothingness? Is the nothingness being nothing, or having nothing? Julia already gave part of the answer to this question herself in the chapter called “Childhood.” It is also indicated later on when she is trying to get in touch with her ‘real self’ again. The novel suggests that what prevents her from getting in touch with her ‘real self,’ is an oppressive social system which forces her to accept a certain pattern of behavior. In her rebellion to this she has chosen, or been chosen, for a social role in the fringes. Her sister Norah has acted a little ‘wiser,’ but, in the context represented in the story, she is still in the margin, too.

13 Angier believes that this confusion was an unconscious “slip” of the pen by Rhys; but I am not so sure of that, as Rhys was very much concerned with and conscious of structure and experimenting with form, 266.

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It is too limited to say that it is only Julia “herself” who is behind the nothingness. 14 And this is true for Norah, too. The contemporary social system does not really co-operate, either. This is perhaps the most striking resemblance between Julia and Norah, in spite of the different lives they lead. Within the bourgeois power structures sketched in the novel, the men have all the money, and thus the power, and the women have nothing. The idea that the main means for survival, money, belongs to men is apparent throughout the story, and it is the third thing Julia and Norah learn. With the money, the men also have the power in contemporary society, and perhaps the main similarity between Julia and Norah is their powerlessness and their poverty. Women seem to be able to get money only through men, if they are beautiful, or, more rarely, if they have something else that men want, as Uncle Griffiths’s wife has docility and companionableness. If they are plain and without any other marketable quality, they can get no power at all, only bare survival. In After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, the idea that men can be poor or powerless is absent. There are the “unknowns,” and the poor thin skeleton at the end, drooping in a doorway; but they are hardly presented as real people, and in any case they are outnumbered by similar, ghostlike, unnamed women. All the main male characters have money. Mr James has been very rich ever since Julia has known him; Mr Mackenzie is “comfortably off,” and even Mr Horsfield owns a business, though it is “small and decaying” (ALMM, 18, 31, 42). Mr James’ riches sound inherited (that beautiful house, that gentlemen’s club); and Mackenzie and Horsfield too have done without working hard, and do not work at all while Julia knows them (48, 79-80). Mackenzie was helped by his father, and by a “certain good luck which had always attended him”; Horsfield also inherited his business from his father, and during the six months that Julia has been alone in her hotel he has been spending a “legacy” on a holiday (18, 27-28). Uncle Griffiths, finally, has only irrational fears of poverty, and has been “the large and powerful male” of the family since Julia’s childhood (57). In this novel, men and money seem to belong together. The money is handed down from father to son, so that without any of them making any visible effort generations of men form a smooth wall of money, with no chink to let a woman in, thus perfectly reproducing the existing power structures. The women, accordingly, are all poor. Life says to them all the time what London says to Julia: “Get money, get money, get money, or be forever damned” (ALMM, 65). The whole novel is full of anxious, detailed, female calculations about money, most of all Julia’s (56). She gets three hundred francs a week from Mr Mackenzie (10). Her hotel costs sixteen francs a night, which means a third gone (7). The rest must pay for cafés, meals, and her bottle every night. Mr Horsfield gives her fifteen hundred francs; she spends most of it on clothes, and has the equivalent of thirty shillings left for London (36, 44). Her Bloomsbury hotel costs eight shillings and six pence a night. She pays for a night, plus a shilling for the meter and a shilling to the boy (47-48). The next day she has lunch at Lyons’ and goes to a film, after which she has only a little over one pound left (49-50). A boarding house (bed and board for a week) will cost two pounds; she gets one pound from Uncle Griffiths and another pound from Mr Horsfield, and moves (61, 68). Then she buys her mother a bunch of roses for six shillings and has only ten shillings left (91). This detailed account of her

14 Some critics state this in otherwise excellent studies of Rhys’ work. Angier points this out in Jean Rhys: Life and Work , 266. In her comment Angier focuses on the individual, but the text of the novel seems to stress the intertwining of the condition of the individual with the social context.

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financial situation goes on until after her return to Paris and the novel ends with her “borrowing” one hundred francs from Mr Mackenzie. 15 Norah is almost as poor. The first thing Mr Horsfield imagines about her is “No money. No bloody money,” and he is right: “Norah … was labelled for all to see. She was labelled “Middle class. No money” (ALMM, 42, 53). She has eight pounds to last a month: “count up for yourself” (53). When her mother dies she cannot afford a choir at her funeral. Norah’s being so poor must mean that Uncle Griffiths does not help her; and indeed we are told in the story that he does not. “[T]he truth is,” he says, “that I haven’t got any money” (though “if he had he would not give it to Julia, certainly not, but to her sister Norah, … because she was a fine girl and she deserved it”) (60). Within the text, that turns out to be not the truth, at all; but the result is that even the ‘good’ sister gets no money from the safe rich male of the family. The only money she will get will be female money, her mother’s and her Aunt Sophie’s (76). This is the usual female money, enough for the organist, but not for the choir. It will be enough for Norah “to do what she likes” or at least to go away, once they are dead; but it is not enough to pay for any help now, and free her from years of slavery. This third aspect both Julia and Norah come to realize in relation to society: that men have the money and the power, is repeated so often by the narrator, that its depiction becomes almost absurd. This is, of course, exactly what it is and the reader notices this, too. In the story, the men do not deliberately oppress and crush the women with the money issue, but they do not share their money either. They give women just enough to keep them alive, never enough to buy pleasure or freedom. In this way, the family “back their approval” of Norah, “but not in any spectacular fashion”; and so Mr Mackenzie gives Julia not the lump sum she asks for, but only the carefully judged allowance, “receipt of which” she must every week “acknowledge and oblige” (ALMM, 14, 16, 21). Men make the decisions, which women can only accept. Julia’s and Norah’s father similarly took their mother from her South American home to cold grey England, then promptly died and left her to his unhelpful brother. And, thus Julia herself is “let down” by all her lovers from the age of nineteen, “five or six times over” (79). With such a social structure, it is no wonder that both Julia and Norah experience a ‘nothingness,’ or that Julia finds it difficult to get in touch with her ‘real self’ again. In the bourgeois social system represented in the novel, genuine feelings are discouraged and sensitivity is resented; and, in spite of its supposed to be around 1929, most women still do not have access to money, freedom, or some kind of individuality. Rhys was unashamedly straightforward in her bleak depiction of the negative aspects of contemporary society. She

15 The examples in the rest of the story are as follows: Her mother dies and Norah gives Julia a ring worth one pound. Norah is always willing to give her a pound for it, if she needs money; this to prevent Julia from pawning it. The precise value of the ring is not indicated (96-97); the next example is that she gets through the following two days, because Mr Horsfield buys her suppers. Then Mr James sends her twenty pounds; she pays her bill and goes back to Paris (125); Mr Horsfield sends her ten pounds there, which once again she spends on clothes (130-131); at the end, she is completely broke again, and “borrows” one hundred francs from Mr Mackenzie (138).

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was also early in her emphasis on the importance of money. The feminist movements did not make this an issue in society in general until the 1960s. 16

6.2: MAKE-UP AND CLOTHES

Make-up The question that is thus raised by the novel is: ‘how can women brace themselves against such a society?’ In Rhys’ novel, the main character Julia is portrayed as using certain role- attributes to ward off unpleasantness. As with the other novels, it is especially these attributes that characterize the social roles of the female protagonists in relation to the class specific context. Clothes remain the main attribute referring to the social roles and the class divisions connected with them, but there is also another attribute that deserves mentioning within this context, namely make-up. That make-up has not been referred to before has historical reasons. Maggie Angelogou indicates that the cosmetic revolution only started around 1910, with the arrival of the Russian ballet in Paris. This ballet inspired audiences with its dancers’ made up faces. And in 1915 Marcus Levy invented the metal container for lipstick. The cosmetics industry began to flourish in the 1920s and onward, and then became one of the main growth industries in Western economies. 17 The wide availability of cosmetics in the twentieth century also introduces a change in thought about the nature and stability of identity, especially female identity. The most optimistic interpretation saw make-up as a sign of liberation. Kathy Peiss, for example, points out that “[s]ocial identities that had once been fundamental to woman’s consciousness, fixed in parentage, class position, conventions of respectability, and sexual codes, were now released from small swiveling cylinders.” 18 Overall, Peiss opposes a too limited feminist view which mainly stresses the fashion industry’s possible oppression of women. Instead, Peiss links the use of cosmetics with a positive development, namely the idea that identity may result from an individual style and become a matter of performance. New discourses of metamorphosis and self-realization emerged, as well. 19 Within this context, cosmetics was regarded as a feature of women’s liberation, part of an enlightened and rationalized narrative of social progress. There were also studies of cosmetic femininity that saw make-up as a mask. These interpreters of cosmetics did not embrace the cosmetic surface as a new and subversive site of female agency, but instead reflected on its ambivalence as a symbol of women’s modernity. The mask, namely, defines femininity as appearance, and as such it associates femininity with the rise of an alienated individualism, a modern fall away from an earlier,

16 Virginia Woolf was another female author of the time who stressed this. Some of her works in which this issue occurs are the essay collections Women & Writing (1925) and The Crowded Dance of Modern Life , and her two books of feminist polemic A Room of One’s Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938). 17 Maggie Angelogou, A History of Make-up (New York: Macmillan, 1970) 115-125. 18 Kathy Peiss, “Introduction,” Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture (New York: Henry Holt, 1998) 3-4. 19 Rishona Zimring, “The Make-up of Jean Rhys’s Fiction,” Novel (Spring 2000): 220.

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wholeness of experience. 20 The female mask represents both a more flexible female identity and the woman’s alienation in a market economy that thrives on women’s commodification and consumption. In After Leaving Mr Mackenzie , the cosmetic mask is used by characters to display, question, and protect the construction of female identity. The story makes visible the confrontation of existential and practical conditions concerning women’s modern urban existence, calling into question the make-up of women, but also considering the possible ambiguity one might create with an interplay of natural or made-up faces. The choice between the alternation of and the interaction between the various ‘faces’ a character may show allows a more flexible personality. Such an approach can protect and expose the individual, be deceptive or real, and may create a less fixed character than before. It can allow a more agile personality, who may adapt better to the more complex circumstances of society in the 1930s. 21 In the novel, it is the female protagonist Julia Martin who most often uses make-up. Julia herself is quite aware of the possible functions make-up may have. Early in the story, the narrator relates: She made herself up elaborately and carefully; yet it was clear that what she was doing had long ceased to be a labour of love and had become partly a mechanical process, partly a substitute for the mask she would have liked to wear. (ALMM, 11) The make-up items Julia most frequently uses are: rouge, powder, and make-up for the eyes. 22 There is not a day that she goes without make-up, though she sometimes forgets to take it off at night, with the result of looking awful in the morning. Yet, such a depiction of Julia might also say something about Julia’s personality. The contrast between the mask and Julia’s self seems to disappear. Very often, rather than have her moods decide how she feels, her feelings seem to depend on her looks. If Julia believes that she looks ugly, she immediately powders her nose, in order to look, and thus feel, better. Julia only feels confident, when the image is immaculate. It is noteworthy that in trying to find out “the truth about [herself] and about the world and about everything that one puzzles and pains about all the time,” Julia seems to resort to a mask (ALMM, 41). She thus seems to disconnect herself from her real self. Julia’s tendency to dissociate herself whenever she is humiliated or hurt seems to develop into a consciously used technique to protect her core being. Rishona Zimring believes that Rhys develops this strategy to, use the cosmetic mask in order to fashion a literary voice of sardonic distance and wry critique and constructs a female subject who can step

20 Terry Castle “Introduction” Masquerade and Civilization: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth- Century English Culture and Fiction (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1986). 21 The theme of the mask was also present in eighteenth century literature and in prose from the nineteenth century. I have already referred to Terry Castle’s study which examines literature from the eighteenth century. An interesting study that compares the Victorian blush with its modern opposite rouge is Mary Ann O’Farrell’s Telling Complexions (Durham: Duke UP, 1997). 22 Examples can be found on the following pages in ALMM: 8, 11 (kohl).

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outside and observe the economic system in which beauty plays a part. (Zimring, 217) The introduction of make-up gives Julia the possibility to develop a more distanced, critical, and independent personality. Instead of just symbolizing a certain social role, the role attribute seems to gather another layer of meaning when it is consciously used, not only by the narrator, but also by the protagonist. Throughout the story, Julia struggles with the opposition between her public, role-bound, made-up self, and her private, or ‘real’ self. This real self is not explicitly mentioned or described, but is referred to through a range of metaphors (childhood, nature, animality, flame). 23 All of these metaphors seem to refer to the core being of Julia, a part where she is (or was) still innocent, pure and undamaged by society. Julia is extremely sensitive concerning her ‘real self.’ To stress Julia’s vulnerability in this context the narrator frequently exaggerates the importance of make-up, until it becomes slightly absurd. Whilst talking to Mr Horsfield, her future lover, Julia powders her face, seeming to him as completely in control, even “furtive and calculating” (ALMM, 31). When they drive to his hotel in a taxi, she powders again, “carefully” (35). Worried and trying to get his attention, she makes “her inevitable, absent-minded gesture of powdering her face” (65). Concerned that Horsfield might think that she is ugly, she takes out “her little powder box, open[s] it and look[s] at herself in the mirror” (66). Horsfield even refers to make-up in the note he writes for Julia as he leaves her room after they made love: “I kiss your lovely hands and your lovely dark eyelids (what is the stuff you put on them?)” (112). Even now Julia cannot have a natural face. Julia’s habits are already suggested in the novel’s first scene. This scene opens with an panoptic impression of her room, showing the reader the mirror with its “toilet things – an untidy assortment of boxes of rouge, powder, and make-up for the eyes” (ALMM, 8). We witness Julia putting on make up quite regularly and the dramatic question that is gradually developed in the text is: will Julia become a mask or will the use of make-up set her free. In general, this question is especially relevant in Julia’s connection with the men in the story. As make-up can be used to make a woman more attractive to a man, Julia’s identification with the mask might mean her surrender to the role of kept woman. A more conscious and more subtle use of make-up might indicate her awareness of the available options make-up offers. Make-up might also give her a means to play with her personality, to consciously create various shapes with different functions. Such functions might range from display to protection. In any case, there will be a selection from the available options in which the desired, rejected, or created images may interact. This interaction may create a less straightforward, but also a more volatile or nimble personality that can adapt better to the complex circumstances Julia is confronted with. The irony in relation to the portrayed use of make-up is that the narrator sometimes seems to overrule Julia’s attempts to save herself by exaggerating Julia’s use of make-up. Rather than make her look more beautiful, and employ make-up to create an image of wholeness, symmetry, and idealized beauty, the narrator exaggerates Julia’s make up (lips too red, powder used too often); or by portraying her as making herself up badly. Instead of being a

23 Examples of these metaphors in ALMM can be found on the following pages: 52, 57, 77, 101, 112, 115, 121 (childhood), 97 (animality), 94 (flame).

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liberating force, the attribute then begins to limit Julia and causes her to be criticized. With all the make-up, and the irregular clothes, Julia is linked by most other characters to the social role of “mistress,” and even referred to as a “tart” (ALMM, 85). It is true that Julia has had an irregular career. After her arrival in London, Norah’s first comment on seeing Julia is, “She doesn’t even look like a lady now. What can she have been doing with herself?” (ALMM, 53). When she visits Uncle Griffiths, he can infer from the page-boy’s reaction that Julia’s appearance is quite the opposite of a lady (56-57). And at the end of the story, Mr Mackenzie notices how women can lose their looks quite suddenly: She looked untidy. There were black specks in the corners of her eyes. Women go phut quite suddenly, he thought. A feeling of melancholy crept over him. (ALMM, 137) These judgments would hurt such a sensitive character as Julia. The social role of mistress, namely, is completely unacceptable for bourgeois society, and people around her do not hesitate to show their disapproval. There is no longer the pretense of her surroundings or her family to accept or tolerate Julia; a tendency that we still saw in Edith Wharton’s novel, The Age of Innocence . Julia’s situation, of course, is quite different and she is also from another social stratum. She belongs to the lower middle classes. It is not stated what type of education she has had, but it is clear that she is not a member of a powerful family. On the contrary, Julia is hated by her family, ignored by her former lovers, and left without any social or economic protection. What is particularly striking about the description of the use of make-up in the development of social criticism is the way it reflects a conflict between the public and the private self. On the one hand, we see Julia powdering herself mechanically; but on the other hand, she is quite self-conscious about the use of make-up as a ‘mask,’ and thus as a metaphor for the public self, behind which stands the private. She reminisces about a Modigliani painting in the studio of a woman artist, A sort of proud body, like an utterly lovely proud animal. And a face like a mask, a long, dark face, and very big eyes. The eyes were blank, like a mask, but when you had looked at it a bit it was as if you were looking at a real woman, a live woman” (ALMM, 40) Julia even identifies with the painting, when she states: I felt as if the woman in the picture were laughing at me and saying: “I am more real than you. But at the same time I am you. I’m all that matters of you.” (ALMM, 41) It is true that in the role of mistress the mask and the lovely body are all that would matter of Julia, but Julia does not really want that. She is pushed into that role again and again, because she has no money. Yet, her real self seems to be protesting constantly against this stereotyping. It is too limited to state that the role-attribute make-up fully characterizes Julia and solely links her with a certain social role; Julia herself also consciously uses make-up in an attempt to rebel. Throughout the story there seems to be a discrepancy between Julia’s own attempt to save herself, and the narrator’s more objective interpretation of her position. Julia’s absorbed manner of applying make-up seems to be ‘overruled’ as a

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strategy to protect herself by the narrator’s interpretation of the effects of these efforts. The narrator stresses the frequency of the use of make-up, the wrong application or the exaggeration and the distorted image that results from that. Julia’s looks become more and more grotesque. Yet, this image finally evolves into a steady voice of irony and sarcasm which is mainly applied to criticize patriarchy. An explanation concerning the origin of this technique is given by Cynthia Davis. Davis studies the Caribbean influences on the work of Jean Rhys. 24 Amongst those influences are techniques such as parody, satire, and masquerade. She examines the history of these techniques and concerning masquerade she points out that within the Caribbean local women had only a few options to ventilate their anger against the colonizers. One of them was the carnival performances. Such performances were not simply entertainment, but were “modes of resistance to an unjust and exploitative system” (Davis, 5). As a child, Rhys would watch these carnival parades from the window, and she recalls that: In the afternoon, from four to six, the singing, dancing mobs thronged the streets. I used to hang out of an upstairs window and watch … Dancing, swaying people, dressed in every colour of the rainbow … the women- masks were powdered and scented. You could see the powder like bloom on the dark skin of their necks and arms … (the dancers) passed under the window, singing, headed by three musicians … I used to think, “Imagine being able to do that – to dance along the street in the sun … dressed in red or yellow, to concertina music; and to sing and shout your defiance. 25 One of the few options the poor black population had to express its anger was in this context. With white powdered faces and carefully chosen clothes the local women could express their frustration. In After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, Rhys uses the trope of masking for a similar purpose. The character Julia shows her defiance with a thick layer of make-up, and she also shouts her defiance, as we shall see later on (in section 6.3). What is noteworthy in the application of the technique is that Rhys also introduces a narrator who has a different point of view concerning the effects of Julia’s attempts at rebellion. As readers, we alternately zoom in to Julia’s desperate attempts to save herself or to the more general depiction of her plight by the narrator. We witness Julia’s plunging against her fate. Humor and parody are aspects of the masquerade technique that are used to underline the apparent hopelessness of Julia’s struggle. Though the representation of the use of make-up sometimes seems to lean towards a means to show sarcasm and aggression, the overall depiction of Julia’s situation remains quite desolate. The other female protagonist’s struggle with society is represented in a similarly bleak way, and Norah, Julia’s mirror image, does not even use a role-attribute to protect herself. Norah does not use any make-up, “She was pale, her colourless lips pressed tightly together into an expression of endurance. She seemed tired” (ALMM, 51, 75). Throughout the story she presents only one image, that of the hard-working and suffering daughter; a “slave” she calls herself (75-76). It is not that Norah is not aware of her own appearance:

24 Cynthia Davis, “Jamette Carnival and Afro-Caribbean Influences on the Work of Jean Rhys,” Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal 3.2 (Fall 2005): 1-22. 25 Jean Rhys, Lost Island ; cited in Davis, 10.

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Then she had got up and looked at herself in the glass. She had let her nightgown slip down off her shoulders, and had a look at herself. She was tall and straight and slim and young – well, fairly young. She had taken up a strand of her hair and put her face against it and thought how she liked the smell and the feel of it. She had laughed at herself in the glass and her teeth were white and sound and even. Yes, she had laughed at herself in the glass. Like an idiot.Then in the midst of her laughter she had noticed how pale her lips were; and she had thought: ‘My life’s like death. It’s like being buried alive. It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair. (ALMM, 75) In a scene similar to Julia’s watching of the painting, Norah judges herself in the mirror. In assessing her own mirror image, Norah notices the youth and the strength of it, but she also immediately recognizes the hopeless situation she is in. Her body, her person is used in a different way than Julia’s is. She is not an object of physical attraction to men, but her body is made subservient nonetheless. She slaves to take care of their ailing mother and gives up her freedom, youth, and happiness. Norah does not consciously use a role-attribute to protect herself. Role-attributes do not interest her; but she does use a technique to prevent herself from being injured. She protects herself and her status by doing the right thing. Everybody always said to her: ‘You’re wonderful, Norah, you’re wonderful. I don’t know how you do it.’ It was a sort of drug, that universal, that unvarying admiration – the feeling that one was doing what one ought to do, the approval of God and man. It made you feel protected and safe (ALMM, 75) Norah is aware that people assume that she should be doing this anyway; and, in practice, nobody really helps. Yet, throughout the story Norah fulfils the social role of caring daughter to perfection. The absence of make-up and the bleak and aging image underline the social role of caretaker. Yet, the narrator again seems to have a different interpretation of a character’s situation. Norah perfectly sticks to the accepted social roles; but instead of being grateful, the society depicted in the novel does not even react. It mostly ignores women like Norah and Norah herself is unhappy and frustrated and very conscious of the fact that she has not been able to develop her own individuality. The only real consolation she has is Aunt Sophie and her mother’s money: And then she had begun to think – in a dull, sore sort of manner – about Aunt Sophie’s will, and the will her mother had made. And that at long last she would have some money of her own and be able to do what she liked. (ALMM, 76) Norah is thirty-one and, so far, all her life has been spent in serving others. The lack of rouge and powder reflects her complete surrender to the caretaker role. Julia, at least, is depicted as having had a “shot at the life I wanted,” she has “had good times – lots of good times,” and when she was married, her husband “gave [her] lovely things – but really lovely things” (ALMM, 60, 82). This is what Norah envies her for, but she would never adopt such a life style herself. She does not like make-up, she refers to Julia’s “hateful, blackened eyelids.” She herself shows the world a “huge stupid face,” and she is treated without much respect, accordingly (98). Without any ironic distance, she is quite vulnerable and basically destined to be coaxed by others indefinitely.

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Clothes

Throughout the story, the impression made by the role attribute of make-up is supported by the use of clothes. The female protagonist Julia is very interested in clothes, but she does not have that much money, and when she buys clothes, she goes to second hand stores or to department stores like Galeries Lafayette (ALMM, 44, 131). The result of this is that her clothes are either old-fashioned, or too shabby (32, 44). Julia realizes this, and she is again very sensitive to people’s disapproval of her. When she visits Uncle Griffiths, she thinks: ‘Of all the idiotic things I ever did, the most idiotic was selling my fur coat.’ She began bitterly to remember the coat she had once possessed. The sort that lasts for ever, astrakhan, with a huge skunk collar. She had sold it at the time of her duel with Maître Legros. She told herself that if only she had had the sense to keep a few things, this return need not have been quite so ignominious, quite so desolate. People thought twice before they were rude to anybody wearing a good fur coat; it was protective colouring, as it were. (ALMM, 57) Again, the character Julia herself is very much aware of what, in this case, the function of

clothes may be; but she also simply likes Gabrielle Chanel Dress c. 1927 clothes: Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute Inv. AC 76 05 92-26-1

She thought of new clothes with passion, with voluptuousness. She imagined the feeling of a new dress on her body and the scent of it, and her hands emerging from long black sleeves. (ALMM, 15)

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She is familiar with the current fashion and realizes that a dress she has just bought is “too short for the prevailing fashion.” 26 Yet, she only has minimal resources and she still uses clothes in a better and more conscious way than Norah does. During their first meeting, Norah states: And who’s better dressed – you or I?’ said Norah. A fierce expression came into her eyes. Julia said, bursting into a loud laugh: ‘Yes, d’you know why that is? Just before I came over here I spent six hundred francs on clothes, because I thought that if I was too shabby you’d all be ashamed of me and would give me the cold shoulder. Of course, I didn’t want to risk that happening, did I?’ (ALMM, 54) In spite of her poor background, Julia has developed a better sense of taste, and a more conscious use of certain mannerisms than her sister. She wears silk dresses, she is very conscious about the correct wear of accessories such as expensive shoes, and matching gloves; and she almost always wears a hat, when she goes out. 27 Julia thinks about the use of clothing more than the other characters do; doubtless because of the unusual or special way in which it affects her in her dealings with the other characters. Julia is more of an outsider. At the same time, more than with the use of make-up, clothes make her happy: Anything might happen. Happiness. … In her mind she was repeating over and over again, like a charm: ‘I’ll have a black dress and hat and very dark grey stockings.’ Then she thought: ‘I’ll get a pair of new shoes from that place in the Avenue de l’Opera. The last ones I got there brought me luck. A ring with a green stone for the forefinger of her right hand. (ALMM, 131) Julia tries to use fashion to make her look like a lady. At the same time, clothes seem to offer her a form of consolation; and just as the use of make-up seems to acquire more functions in the course of the novel, we can see this tendency with clothes. The character Norah is not interested in clothes and the narrator stresses this fact by mainly depicting her in one dress, a “pale-green dress with a red flower fixed in the lapel of the collar. But the dress had lost its freshness, so that the flower looked pathetic” (ALMM, 51, 87). This phrase is repeated several times throughout the novel, and it emphasizes Norah’s shortcomings with the use of clothes. Norah does not have a sense of style, and she does not have that much money either. Most of the money that she has is used for the medical bills and the money that is left provides hardly enough to keep her in clean linen. She is “scrupulously, fiercely clean, but with all the daintiness and the prettiness perforce cut out” (53). Norah does not make a conscious effort to look and dress any better than she does. All of her energy is spent on caring for her mother. The only accessory that is mentioned in relation to her is a hat (70). But wearing the hat with her coat when she goes out is more a habit and an attempt to keep warm, than an effort to play with clothes, or to create a certain image.

26 ALMM, 44; Julia experiences something similar concerning a coat, 12. 27 Examples of this can be found in ALMM on: 29, 50, 86, 118, 131.

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The only jewelry that is described in connection with Norah is a ring. Norah gives this ring to Julia, after their mother’s cremation; it is “a thin gold ring with a red stone in it” (ALMM, 96). This seemingly kind gesture is followed by the hateful remark that Julia must never pawn the ring, and that, if she does, Norah will always give her a pound for it. The image that Norah presents is hardly that of an angel and it is as

cold, bare, and frigid as her behavior. With André Perugia Pumps 1920-30s such a depiction of Norah’s plight, the Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute narrator seems to want to stress the Inv. AC 8948 93-33 AB uneventfulness of Norah’s existence. The monotony of her daily routines becomes apparent and her frustration is shown, for example, in her behavior towards Julia. Yet, this overall depiction of the situation of both women raises the representation of the contemporary social context to a different level of understanding for the reader. The thematization of the contemporary norm and value system makes its limitations for women very obvious to the reader.

6.3: ANGRY YOUNG WOMEN

Julia and Norah present different types of behavior in contexts that are strictly coded. Neither woman presents the ideal picture of feminine behavior, but Norah’s behavior is presented as less socially criticized than Julia’s. Both women live on the fringes of bourgeois society. With regard to the space allotted to her, Julia always tries to transcend and stretch the limits of it as much as possible. Julia, for example, likes men and she likes sex. Between the 1860s and World War I, Britain passed a number of laws linked to the Contagious Diseases and Defence of the Realm Acts. Such legislation intended to control prostitution and venereal disease; but in reality discouraged the presence of single women in public. Because of such sexualized stigmatization, ‘respectable’ women married and accepted confinement in the home. According to William Harris, Assistant Commissioner of Police in late-nineteenth century London, “any woman who goes to places of public resort, and is known to go with different men, although not a common streetwalker, should be considered a prostitute.” 28 Such branding was used freely, because female promiscuity was supposed to be inherent. A London policeman in 1882, for example, argued that “in every large town without exception, where a woman has a chance of this course and runs no danger of serious loss or inconvenience … she will embrace it” (Emery, 96-97). As Rhys had learned from her own work experience, these laws disregarded the fact that women barely earned subsistence wages in legitimate jobs. In 1911, women made up less than 28% of the labor force, and of that, 66% worked in manufacturing or personal service

28 Mary Lou Emery, Jean Rhys at ‘World’s End’; Novels of Colonial and Sexual Exile (Austin: University of Texas, 1990) 96.

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(Emery, 92). During World War I, when clerical jobs became available, Rhys was one of the women who earned one-third the salary paid to men in the same jobs (Emery, 92). Her earlier jobs, as a chorus girl and artist’s model, were not only poorly paid, but were considered forms of prostitution. When Julia in After Leaving Mr Mackenzie rejects the traditional social roles for women, but insists on the right to be out of doors in cafés, streets, taxis, and restaurants, she threatens social stability and inspires disdain in her family, former lovers, landladies, and strangers. She still goes her own way; and, even though she does not find a man who will faithfully continue to fulfil her needs, a true love affair still seems to be one of her main goals. Julia’s need in this context is both psychological and physical. Rhys was one of the first women writers to express an unabashed, direct acceptance of woman’s desire for sexual love. 29 Julia is not very lucky in her choice of men, and there are too many social barriers to grant her happiness, even in Paris. Like Edna Pontellier in The Awakening, she finds out that it is just ‘not done’ for a woman to pick and choose a partner freely, or to enjoy sex. When she openly admits to Uncle Griffiths that she left her husband, he is astounded. “Nonsense,” he says; and later on: “Why didn’t you make him settle something on you?” (ALMM, 59). It is the practical side of marriage that is stressed, and within that context the social and economic aspects seem most important. If relationships are formed because of love, or worse, lust, such behavior is considered ‘deviant’ and severely judged. However, Rhys’ representation stresses that the male is criticized no less in such situations. When Mr Horsfield leaves Julia’s boarding house at five o’clock in the morning after they have made love, he is spotted by a policeman. When he lifted his head he saw a policeman, who was standing on the pavement a few paces away, staring disapprovingly at him. The policeman stood with his legs very wide apart and his mouth pursed, looking extremely suspicious. (ALMM, 113) The next night something similar happens when both Julia and Mr Horsfield are discovered on the staircase. Now it is the landlady who criticizes both of them. Norah’s behavior in relation to men is quite different. She does not have a sexual interest in men, and the only men she meets in the course of the story are Uncle Griffiths and a clergyman. Norah does like the company of women, though; and living in the flat in Acton with her is a Miss Wyatt. She is described as follows: The door on the second floor was opened by a middle-aged woman. Her brown hair was cut very short, drawn away from a high, narrow forehead, and brushed to lie close to her very small skull. Her nose was thin and arched. She had small, pale-brown eyes and a determined expression. She wore a coat and skirt of grey flannel, a shirt blouse, and a tie. …

29 Mellown (1972) 464. A similar openness about sexuality has in this dissertation already been noticed in relation to Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening , Chapter 4.

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She rolled herself a cigarette very quickly and neatly. Her gestures were like the gestures of a man. Her hands were small and thin but short- fingered and without delicacy. (ALMM, 68-69) Miss Wyatt is described as resembling a man, and seems to depict the typical lesbian. In this context Norah can hardly be seen as a correction to Julia. Both Julia and Norah show behavioral patterns that conflict with acceptable female behavior in the 1930s. Both women are also potrayed as being so unhappy from the beginning that it is their victimization rather than their deviant behavior that is stressed. 30 The mirroring of Julia and Norah in the public sphere is again quite complex. In spite of her tendency to lock herself up occasionally, when she is unhappy, Julia usually walks around freely in Paris and London. She likes shopping for clothes, eating out in restaurants, having drinks in cafés, or tea at Lyons’. In the 1930s, such behavior would be considered irregular. The Assistant Commissioner of Police quoted, already hinted at this; and men in Julia’s surroundings react in the same way. Twice in the story, Julia unconsciously attracts an unknown male: That night, coming back from her meal, a man followed her. When she had turned from the Place St Michel to the darkness of the quay he came up to her, muttering proposals in a low, slithery voice. She told him sharply to go away. But he caught hold of her arm, and squeezed it as hard as he could by way of answer. (ALMM, 45) When she tells him that he is “ignoble,” he answers, “Not at all. I have some money and I am willing to give it to you” (ALMM, 45). The second unknown male who approaches her is only a boy, and after he sees her face in the light of a lamppost he walks away, mumbling “Ah, non alors” (135). By now, the male thinks she is too old; but the point is that apparently a female walking about alone at night in Paris is indeed regarded as available commodity. Norah’s behavior in the public sphere is quite the opposite, she does not move about as freely as Julia does. She has lived in Acton for thirty-one years, staying mostly indoors, taking care of their ailing mother, as we have seen: And so she had slaved. And she had gradually given up going out because she was too tired to try to amuse herself. Besides, there was’t any money. That had gone on for six years. Three years ago her mother had had a second stroke, and since then her life had been slavery. (ALMM, 75-76) Norah’s behavior may seem to be some kind of ‘correction.’ She behaves in accordance with the accepted norm and value system; but the monotony and poverty of her existence make her life hardly attractive, and her jealousy of Julia is in a way a recognition of the fact that Julia’s bohemian lifestyle has its attractive aspects, too.

30 Athill indicates: “Norah’s life has been as cruelly ‘smashed’ by the pressures of conformity as Julia’s has been by the buffeting she has received for breaking out.” Jean Rhys: The Early Novels, 12.

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A third context in which Julia and Norah differ in their behavior is their way of communicating with the world and with men. Julia freely expresses her ideas and feelings. She is filled with hatred when she is alone. But on some days her monotonous life was made confused and frightening by her thoughts. Then she could not stay still. She was obliged to walk up and down the room consumed with hatred of the world and everybody in it – and especially of Mr Mackenzie. (ALMM, 9) She also does not hesitate to show her feelings in public. It is not that she is unaware of the division of power structures; to her “the combination of Mr Mackenzie and Maître Legros” represents “organized society,” in which she has “no place and against which she ha[s] not a dog’s chance” (ALMM, 17). Yet, when Julia is finally discarded by Mr Mackenzie; she looks him up in his favorite restaurant, argues with him, and slaps him in the face: A cunning expression came into Julia’s face. She picked up her glove and hit his cheek with it, but so lightly that he did not even blink. ‘I despise you,’ she said. (ALMM, 26) She only hits him very lightly in the face with her gloves, as if she is challenging him to a duel. But it is still an act of aggression, and a woman should not behave in such a way in public. When she has an argument with her Uncle Griffiths after her mother’s cremation, she calls him “an abominable old man” (ALMM, 99). Rather than swallow her tears and anger, she ventilates her anger, and does not dread a confrontation. While Norah privately thinks “Beasts. … Devils … (76), Julia openly judges society in a discussion with her: ‘People are such beasts, such mean beasts,’ she said. ‘They’ll let you die for want of a decent word, and then they’ll lick the feet of anybody they can get anything out of. And do you think I’m going to cringe to a lot of mean, stupid animals? If all good, respectable people had one face, I’d spit in it. I wish they all had one face so that I could spit in it.’ (ALMM, 98) Julia is furious and she ventilates her anger without too much reflection down to the most trivial seeming occasions. Even during a simple visit to a café, she is sarcastic to a waiter, when he does not bring her her brandy and the requested blotter fast enough: She ordered a brandy and a blotter. After what seemed an interminable time the waiter brought the brandy. ‘And the blotter, please,’ she said. After another long interval the blotter appeared. She felt that her nerves were exposed and raw. ‘Thank you,” she said in a sarcastic voice. ‘That’s quickly done, isn’t it?’ (ALMM, 134) Overall, this is not the kind, sweet, subservient behavior that is expected of women. Norah shows the world a different attitude, yet even she has a face that is “dark and still, with something fierce underlying the stillness” (ALMM, 53); but she does not ventilate her anger towards men, and she avoids a confrontation with them. She was “trained to certain opinions which forbid her even the relief of rebellion against her lot” (53). She is jealous of Julia and angry about the fact that Julia did not pay any attention to their invalid mother,

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but she does not rebel. She has Almayer’s Folly on her bed-table and the passage she is quoted reading is, The slave had no hope, and knew of no change. She knew of no other sky, no other water, no other forest, no other world, no other life. She had no wish, no hope, no love. …The absence of pain and hunger was her happiness, and when she felt unhappy she was tired, more than usual, after the day’s labour. 31 Rebellion against her lot seems to be out of the question for Norah. She does act as a correction for Julia in this context, but her sincerity seems doubtful. Norah has been conditioned by patriarchal society to behave in this way, and the division between her private, angry thoughts, “Beasts….Devils…” and her meek behavior suggests quite a layer of unexpressed frustration (ALMM, 76). A last context in which Julia and Norah differ considerably is their awareness of the oppression of women. Both in her conversations with men in the novel, and in a few descriptive passages, it becomes obvious that Julia realizes that society treats men and women quite differently. In her first conversation with Mr Mackenzie, Julia asks him the general question “Tell me, do you really like life? Do you think it’s fair?” In his mind, Mr Mackenzie admits “No. Of course life isn’t fair. It’s damned unfair really. Everybody knows that” (ALMM, 23). In her talk with Mr James, he admits that: ‘Women are a different thing altogether. Because it’s all nonsense; the life of a man and the life of a woman can’t be compared. They’re up against entirely different things the whole time. What’s the use of talking nonsense about it? Look at cocks and hens; it’s the same sort of thing.’ (ALMM, 83) Men and women are not only facing different problems in society. Society also reacts to them in opposite ways. This is symbolized in a fragment of a film Julia is watching: After the comedy she saw young men running races and some of them collapsing exhausted. And then – strange anti-climax – young women ran races and also collapsed exhausted, at which the audience rocked with laughter. (ALMM, 85)

31 Almayer’s Folly is the first novel by Joseph Conrad (Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, 1857- 1924) set on the east coast of Borneo; it was published in 1895. Kaspar Almayer is a Dutch merchant taken under the wing of the wealthy captain Lingard, whose adopted Malay child he marries, and he runs Lingard’s trading post. But the trading house fails, the marriage is unhappy and Almayer’s only daughter Nina marries a Malay prince and leaves. The loss of Nina and potential wealth stuns Almayer and he spends the rest of his life in the empty trading house as his sanity slips away. The quote mentioned appears in ALMM, 75 . Norah’s loss and unhappy lifestyle seem to have an equally ‘stunning’ effect on her life. Conrad’s bleak portrayal of the development from innocence to experience seems to be repeated in Rhys’ novel. A recurring theme in Conrad’s work is the human being who struggles with him-/herself. Guilt, penance, betrayal and self-deceit manifest themselves when the main character is confronted with the impossibility of ideals, and his/her true nature is revealed, as individual and as member of the community.

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In the society depicted in the novel, women do not seem to be getting much respect, especially when they age. When Julia watches Hot Stuff from Paris , the audience is described as follows: The girls were perky and pretty, but it was strange how many of the older women looked drab and hopeless, with timid, hunted expressions. They looked ashamed of themselves, as if they were begging the world in general not to notice that they were women or to hold it against them. (ALMM, 50) When Julia and Mr Horsfield leave a restaurant they encounter a woman who is described as follows: “A woman in a long macintosh passed them, muttering to herself and looking mournful and lost, like a dog without a master” (ALMM, 105-106). No man in the story is ever thus described. These images and questions expose contemporary society as being unfairly critical of women. Women are regarded as objects, and not respected as subjects. The exact social roles expected of the female characters are not always explicitly dealt with; in fact, most of the time they do not seem to be playing any role of importance, at all. In these passages the narrator stresses the disregard of women by patriarchy. The main female characters do not seem to be accepted or appreciated as individuals by men. In the novel, the character Julia realizes this; Norah does not. Norah does not have any intellectual conversations with men, and in the only talk with a man reported, it is Uncle Griffiths who holds a monologue: Uncle Griffiths sat in the arm-chair and went on talking, eagerly, as if the sound of his own voice laying down the law to his audience of females reassured him. He talked and talked. He talked about life, about literature, about Dostoievsky. (ALMM, 96) It is only Julia who questions his opinions, but none of the other women join in the conversation. Julia is open, outspoken, and modern in her behavioral patterns. Her quite original behavior for the time exposes Julia to a lot of criticism, but it also shows great courage. Norah’s behavior, however, is the one that is more acceptable at the time. Norah’s passive adoption of the imposed social duties, her uneventful existence, her acceptance of being dominated by men such as Uncle Griffiths reflect the still omnipresent oppressive tendencies of patriarchy. Her inability to see that Uncle Griffiths is not a kind man, at all, shows how much she is still indoctrinated by the contemporary social context. Throughout the novel Norah at first seems intended to portray the ‘angel,’ but in the course of the story this image becomes blurred. The writer Rhys seems to have wanted to expose, question, and to criticize the stereotypical roles. There is nothing ‘angelic’ about the role of ‘Angel in the House,’ on the contrary, it seems more like slavery, and the women in the society depicted seem to begin to realize this. Norah is very frustrated about her own existence. So much so, that she is unkind to Julia and mostly seems to withdraw from real life altogether. Julia, the pretty woman, is supposed to represent the ‘monster’ image. Rhys’ modernist portrayal of this monster woman does show some irregular traits, but Julia is a disappointed and irritated character, as well. What is noteworthy about Julia is that with all the apathy and passiveness she shows, she does rebel. She is extremely angry, and she ventilates her fury. Perhaps not always in the most clever or strategic fashion, but she no longer compromises. In spite of

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the risk she may run, she does not hide and remain largely unnoticed. On the contrary, she spits society in the face. It is the mirroring of the main characters that makes the reader wonder whether either woman can be referred to as ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ and basically it is the conduct of society that is really criticized.

6.4: THE MIRROR IMAGE

In After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, Jean Rhys depicts a society in which most people shun to show their real feelings, and where men have all of the money and the power, and the women have nothing. In her bleak depiction of contemporary society, Jean Rhys, too, employs the images of the ‘Angel in the House’ and the ‘monster.’ Within the novel, the sisters Norah Griffiths and Julia Martin portray these images. The sisters are most consistently compared and contrasted in the middle section of the novel, but the quite extreme portrayal of the opposed images affects the whole book. Rhys’ style of writing is different from the style of the women writers discussed earlier. This leads to a more extreme depiction of society and an almost grotesque portrayal of the images of the ‘angel’ and ‘the monster.’ The immediate social context in this novel is also quite different from the society depicted in the earlier novels. 32 Rhys describes the 1930s, the post World War I society in which many people were disillusioned. There was a severe financial crisis and right wing political organisations played an important role. Contemporary society seemed to be populated by damaged and hurt people, but Rhys notices a difference between what men and women have suffered since the war. The men in the novel, wounded as they are, still maintain positions of power and control. They dominate and humiliate those weaker than themselves in an attempt to satisfy their desires. The women, both Julia and Norah, are confined to lives of giving others what they want in a feeble attempt to have their own needs met. In this post war society, all of the characters seem to live in conditions of unhappiness and despair. Yet, some varieties of despair are more profound than others, and it is the women who suffer most severely because of their powerlessness and their poverty. Both female protagonists in After Leaving Mr Mackenzie are angry and frustrated. The conduct of both women often seems unusual, and their lives take place outside ordinary bourgeois society. Rhys compares and contrasts the two women to underline the unnatural effects of contemporary patriarchial society on their lives; and she thus succeeds in thematizing the norms and values of that society. What is noteworthy is that the character Julia seems to be very much aware of the oppressive forces of society, so much so that she deliberately develops strategies to deal with the inflated hegemony presented by men. Her sister Norah is portrayed quite differently. She accepts the imposed behavioral patterns, and she is allowed bare survival because of it. The rebel, Julia, openly questions the norms and values of patriarchy. She is worried about losing her feelings and her sense of empathy, a tendency that she sees, especially, in the men in contemporary society; and she is angry about the division of power structures. She knows that as an unmarried and ageing woman she should remain

32 See for an elaborate discussion of the influence of the First World War on the development of new writing styles: Lehan, Literary Modernism and Beyond (2009) 38-42, 185-186, 278-279.

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unobtrusive, realizing that she has no place in and not a “dog’s chance” against organized society (ALMM, 17). Julia keeps trying and she even attempts to take more practical measures. Yet, as Julia considers applying for a job as governess or lady’s companion (and then remains inert), she looks out from her hotel and sees: The houses opposite had long rows of windows, and it seemed to Julia that at each window a woman sat staring mournfully, like a prisoner, straight into her bedroom. (ALMM, 129) The chapter in which this happens is called “Ile de la Cité,” thus calling attention to Julia’s isolated state and the inaccessibility of any who would offer her means of reparation. Instead, she is alone, islanded, surrounded by women who mirror her state of imprisonment. The modern novelist and critic V. S. Naipaul stresses the absurdity of Julia’s situation, especially of the emotional and financial dependence of a woman like her on a man like Mr Mackenzie: He isn’t mysterious or very far away. Absurdly, he lives just around the corner; and when he is encountered in a nearby restaurant … he turns out to be a man of fifty, middle class, correct, “of medium height and colouring,” with “enough nose to look important, enough stomach to look benevolent.” Almost Dickensian in that description, hardly an object of passion, a nobody, … it is the absurdity of her dependence. Julia’s energy leaves her; the scene that seems to be preparing fades on a feeble climax. She strikes Mr Mackenzie with her glove, but lightly. 33 Naipaul’s more recent interpretation is in accordance with the views of most present-day critics. It offers an interesting contrast to the behavior of the men in Julia’s immediate social context. In the 1930s, the position of a woman like Julia would be awkward, and the woman herself would not have much power to change her state or to consciously steer her own life. The character Julia seems defeated for a while, until she learns to hide her real feelings. The ending of the novel runs as follows, The street was cool and full of grey shadows. Lights were beginning to come out in the cafés. It was the hour between dog and wolf, as they say. (ALMM, 138) So far, this ending has mostly been explained in a negative way, as depicting Julia’s final downfall or ruin. Davis, however, gives another possibility whilst referring to the Caribbean influences on the work of Rhys. Such influences as the depiction of dissimulation, or the use of ghosts, and shape-shifting appear frequently in Rhys’ work. The female protagonists often have a double nature; and her meek and seemingly passive protagonists are usually deeply angry women who fantasize about revenge. Throughout

33 V.S. Naipaul, “Without a Dog’s Chance,” The New York Review of Books 18. 9 (18 May 1972): 3. The sentences are quoted from ALMM , 17.

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After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, dogs are associated with the subjugated, with those who bend to others’ will and suffer for it (ALMM, 105-106). Dogs are also linked with England. In her journey to London in “The First Unknown” Julia remembers the lines of a popular song that exemplify the connection between canine imagery and England “England … English … Our doggy page …” (ALMM, 46). Whereas ‘dog’ functions as metaphor for the feeble and domesticated, Julia’s location at the novel’s end “between dog and wolf” seems to suggest a transitional stage. She seems ready to transform into the symbolic and aggressive figure of the ‘wolf;’ here, Rhys’ image of a devouring, primitive aggressor who strikes back. In one of her other novels, Good Morning, Midnight , Rhys has the female protagonist state: “One day the fierce wolf that walks by my side will spring on you and rip your abominable guts out.” 34 Keeping in mind both the attitude and the masquerading of Julia throughout the novel, these aspects may also suggest a future that is not as docile as Julia’s present life has been. Julia has already acquired the habit of speaking her mind and of asking for money straightforwardly. Considering Mr Mackenzie’s reaction to her last request, such behavior might be equally successful. Rhys does not actually depict the transformation, thus preserving the option that Julia may still work toward her own destruction. Yet, bleak as it may seem, an escape from fate is not impossible, though hope, such as it is, remains under erasure from the text’s beginning to its end. Rhys’ depiction of contemporary society in After Leaving Mr Mackenzie is not simply a ‘slice of life.’ It is Rhys’ modernist interpretation of society in the 1930s. Her depiction shows us a bleak, brutal, and sometimes grotesque view of that society. However, with this interpretation, she raises the understanding of the contemporary norm and value system to a different level. Her quite original use of the images of the ‘Angel in the House,’ and the ‘monster,’ and the mirroring of their ‘good’ and ‘bad’ aspects in the course of the story raise both the (accepted) social roles for women, and the norms and values of contemporary society to a more conscious level of understanding. In this way, Rhys first questions the fiction of the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ woman. In the story, both women show acceptable and deviant traits; so much so, that a strict division between both qualifications no longer seems possible. Rhys’ portrayal of contemporary society also underlines the absurdity of the fact that women have no money and no power. And, lastly, her depiction of society may aid readers to opt for anticipation to a future in a differently organized world, themselves. Without overtly passing on a feminist message the novel thus seems to have a consciousness-raising effect, because of this. Whether contemporary readers did indeed notice the emancipatory tendencies of the novel will be examined in the next subsection.

6.5: PRAISE

The novel After Leaving Mr Mackenzie was first published in England by Jonathan Cape at the end of 1930. Jonathan Cape’s edition was made of apple-green linen with dark green on the spine. It appeared in the shops in February 1931 and cost seven shillings and six pence. 35 The first American edition was issued in 1931 by Alfred A Knopf in New York. This version was blue with maroon lettering and was sold from June onwards for $2.00 (Mellown, 25). The novel was not published in large numbers and Rhys did not earn that

34 Jean Rhys, Good Morning Midnight in The Early Novels (London: André Deutsch, 1984) 389. 35 This information is mentioned by Elgin W. Mellown in Jean Rhys: A Descriptive and Annotated Bibliography of Works and Criticism (New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1984) 23.

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much for it, but it was well received. Jean Rhys herself had the following explanation for her meagre income from literary texts: I think that I have had little success because I did not want it. Not in that way. Not really. Even now I cannot connect money or publicity with writing, though I adore money and need it badly, very. For me, these things are different – and opposed. Bitterly. I can only write for love as it were. 36 Unlike the earliest reviews of Brontë’s Shirley, the articles on After Leaving Mr Mackenzie generally do not contain sample extracts. Some reviews summarize the novel, but most focus on an analysis of the text and the narrative strategies used by Rhys. In general, these early reviewers are intrigued both by the originality of her style, and by her obsession with the more disagreeable aspects of society and womanhood. This novel about cheap hotels in Paris and gloomy bedsitting-rooms in London is recognized by many of them as a story of social criticism. Her female main characters are understood to be stereotypes, depicting the opposition of the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ woman. Seven British and nine American contemporary reviews of the first publications of After Leaving Mr Mackenzie in England and America are still available. 37 Compared to the novels examined earlier this is a slightly smaller number. In my examination of these articles, I wanted to learn what the reception of the novel had been like and whether readers and critics had noticed the use of stereotypes and the feminist elements in the novel.

Artistry A close look at the contemporary reviews reveals one of the British articles to be quite negative in tone. Even given the fact that Rhys’ writing style is not straightforward realism, but shows many structural characteristics that can be associated with modernism, and that the portrayed characters are not ‘real’ people, the contemporary Times Literary Supplement reviewer seemed so discouraged by the subject matter that the reviewer states it is all “a waste of talent,” and summarizes the novel as follows: This book is an episode in the life of a prostitute. Julia Martin followed her inclinations with comparative ease and pleasure until Mr Mackenzie had finished with her. It is difficult to see why leaving so unattractive a person as Mr Mackenzie should have broken Julia’s spirit. Least of all did Julia herself seem to understand it, living as she did entirely without plan, led by her emotions and resigned to her fate. After the break she goes from man to man. They are sorry for her, but they no longer want her. They give her a pound or two to go away, and she takes it and goes. The

36 Francis Wyndham and Diana Melly, Jean Rhys Letters 1931-1966 (London: André Deutsch, 1984) 171. She states this in a letter to Wyndham of September 14 th 1959. 37 For an overview of all of the contemporary reviews I collected at Colindale and examined, please see the Appendix.

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sordid little story is written with admirable clarity and economy of language. But it leaves one dissatisfied. It is a waste of talent. 38 This review is not only the most negative one, it is also the briefest one. It is only one paragraph long and the reviewer does not contemplate the use of any kind of motif or technique and seems to remain unaware of the social criticism in the novel. This article also ignores her modernism. Ford Madox Ford, on the other hand, judges her especially concerning her use of that style and he praises her for “the singular instinct for form possessed by singularly few writers of English and by almost no English woman writers.” 39 Most of the early reviewers who examine After Leaving Mr Mackenzie do identify Rhys with modernism, and some even compare her to the Imagist poets, to Hemingway, or to Katherine Mansfield. 40 The reviews in the Times Literary Supplement and the Nottingham Journal & Express are the only anonymous British reviews. With the other reviews the names of the reviewers are clearly mentioned. The other British reviews are much more positive than the aforementioned articles. Gerald Gould states in a review in the Observer that After Leaving Mr Mackenzie is “a hard, clean, dry, desperate book, so rigid in its economy that its impressiveness seems almost contemptuous.” He also points out that while it is not a “pleasant” novel, “it has more important merits.” In his article he summarizes the plot and quotes the ending of the story, and he concludes that “Of its kind, and within its limits, this book is a flawless work of art.” 41 In the regular weekly review of new books, Rebecca West is equally positive in her article in the Daily Telegraph . Parts of her review were quoted in the publisher’s advertisement in the Sunday Times of February 8 th 1931, because of its positive view. In the original article, she points out that “Miss Jean Rhys has already in “The Left Bank” and “Postures” quietly proved herself to be one of the finest writers of fiction under middle age, but she has also proved herself to be enamoured of gloom to an incredible degree.” The sadness of the book worries West, but she also stresses the book’s quality: “It is a terrible book about the final

38 “After Leaving Mr Mackenzie,” Times Literary Supplement 1518 (5 March 1931): 180. Angier mentions that the same review was also published in The Times on the same day, but I was not able to find any trace of it (Angier, 279). Besides, sections on ‘New Books’ or ‘Books of the Week’ were usually published in The Times on Tuesdays or Fridays, not on a Thursday, the day the TLS appeared. 39 Ford Madox Ford in his “Introduction” to the short story collection The Left Bank and Other Stories from Jean Rhys (London: Jonathan Cape, 1927). Ford (formerly Ford Hermann Hueffer; 1873-1939) was a British author who collaborated with Conrad on various works, including novels; they were united by their faith in ‘the novel as a work of Art.’ Ford published over 80 books, and developed his own theory of ‘Impressionism’ in the novel. He had a great influence on the development of Modernism and did much to shape the course of twentieth-century writing. Margaret Drabble (ed.), The Oxford Companion to English Literature (Oxford [etc.]: Oxford University Press, 1993) 359. 40 Elgin W. Mellown, Jean Rhys: A Descriptive and Annotated Bibliography of Works and Criticism “Introduction,” vii-xxvi. Mellown mentions the comparison to the Imagist poets and to Hemingway, xvii-xviii. Lorna Sage, a later critic, elaborates on the comparison with Katherine Mansfield, “Introduction” to After Leaving Mr Mackenzie by Jean Rhys (London: Penguin Classics, 2000) viii. 41 Gerald Gould, “ All Sorts of Societies,” The Observer 7289; section entitled: New Novels (8 February 1931): 6.

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foundering to destruction of a friendless and worthless but pitiful woman. It is terrible, but it is superb.” 42 American critics were similarly impressed. The New York Bookman ’s critic, Geoffrey Stone stresses that the “sordid” nature of the story results from Julia’s character, for “it seems that under any conditions Julia’s life would have been sordid.” He is impressed by the brilliance and “economy” of the novelist’s style and is struck by the paradox that “Julia’s existence and the existence of those with whom she came in contact are somehow made meaningful by these very meaningless odds and ends of observation.” In spite of the “hopeless course” of Julia’s life, “one is surprised to find that the meaning of the book as a whole appears just as clearly, and is much the same, as in any tale with a moral. It is no defect in the work.” 43 Just like the other authors, Rhys received quite a lot of letters and ‘fan-mail.’ Wyndham remarks in this context “she made a point of answering every fan letter she received.” 44 Not too many of these letters are still available, but a few are printed in Wyndham’s collection of her letters. One of the first complimentary letters Rhys received in relation to After Leaving Mr Mackenzie was by Peggy Kirkaldy, who became a friend for life. Rhys’ response to her letter was quite brief, but very grateful, “I was most awfully pleased to have your letter and to know that you like my book. It gives one a very nice feeling, you know, to get a letter like yours.” 45 Another fan letter came from Evelyn Scott. 46 In her letter, Scott states: On our way back from London to America, my husband and I are carrying with us, as our happiest recent impression, the pleasure we had in reading After Leaving Mr Mackenzie . Within the circumference chosen by the author, it seems to us a perfect book. The quiet irony kept us in perpetual chuckles. The beautiful and exact measure of character delighted us. The flawless ending, which so completely avoided the sentimentalization of a situation full of poignant suggestion, was a joy … I feel so keenly that stumbling upon After Leaving Mr Mackenzie in a Salisbury Library (Smith’s) was an important discovery that I should like to spread the good news. I want to talk about it, and I shall, and I wonder if you would be willing to give me more data about your work … it may be that you have never essayed America. My husband and I are writers and at least have the acquaintance which should learn (if it does not already know) of the existence of such a rare, subtle and sensitive talent.

42 Rebecca West, The Daily Telegraph ; section: “Books of the Day,” a weekly contribution on new novels by West in the Friday issue; title of the article (concerning amongst other novels, After Leaving Mr Mackenzie ) “The Pursuit of Misery in Some New Novels” Friday Issue (30 January 1931): 7. 43 Geoffrey Stone’s article originally appeared in Bookman (New York) 74 (September 1931): 84; cited in Mellown 1984, 27. 44 Wyndham & Melly, 11; in the “Introduction” written by Wyndham. 45 Rhys in a letter to Peggy Kirkaldy dated March 1 st 1931; cited in Wyndham & Melly, 19. 46 Evelyn Scott, letter written on board the Aquitania on 9 June 1931; cited in Wyndham & Melly, 21.

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It is interesting to see that Scott found the novel in a library. This shows that it was generally available, at the time. Scott and her husband John Metcalfe were also not ‘average’ readers. They were authors themselves and Rhys highly valued their praise. 47 She replied to it in the following way: I had your letter about “After Leaving Mr Mackenzie” this morning … I like Mackenzie better than anything I have done yet, and I am hoping that it will have some luck in America where it is to be published by Knopf on the 26 th of this month. Both the books I wrote before, “The Left Bank” and “Quartet”, were published in America … but neither of them did much though they had some kind reviews. I am always being told that until my work ceases being “sordid and depressing” I haven’t much chance of selling. I used to find this rather stupid but through much repetition I have come half to believe that it must be so. 48 Most of the contemporary reactions to this novel, either in the form of reviews or letters are positive and praiseworthy. 49 It was also just unfortunate that the second World War was approaching. During the war there was a scarcity of paper and many books were not reprinted. The result of this was that during the years 1940-1960, the modest reputation of After Leaving Mr Mackenzie slipped away. 50 Between the wars Rhys’ novel was considered problematic but artistic, yet in the postwar period it remained mostly unread. The twenties and thirties turn out to be, on the whole, more appreciative of innovative literary styles than the postwar years. Characterization Another aspect of Rhys’ work that received a lot of attention was the depiction of the main characters. Frank Swinnerton, one of the most influential of the London critics, is again very impressed by After Leaving Mr Mackenzie . His review appeared in the Evening News in February 1931. Because of the enthusiastic tone of his review, it is quoted in the publisher’s advertisements in other newspapers like the Times and the Observer . In the initial review, he is especially intrigued by the characterization of Julia:

47 Scott had published a book of verse, an autobiography and six novels of which The Wave: Narratives of the Civil War had been highly acclaimed. Born Elsie Dunn in 1883, she was brought up in Tennessee among the Southern aristocracy. At the age of twenty, she eloped to Brazil with Frederick Creighton Wellman. They changed their names to Cyril Kay Scott and Evelyn Scott. She became a leading figure among the bohemian intelligentsia in Greenwhich Village throughout the 1920s, interested in every ‘modern’ movement in politics, literature and art. She left Scott for the painter Owen Merton. Since 1926 she had been living with John Metcalfe (they married in 1930). Metcalfe’s best works are his ‘tales of unease’ collected in The Smoking Leg (1925) and Judas (1931). He was in poor health throughout the 1930s and his increasing depression culminated in a nervous breakdown. 48 Letter by Rhys to Evelyn Scott (23 June 1931); cited in Wyndham & Melly, 20-21. 49 Angier mentions two other early fan letters: a letter by Ivan Bede, Ford’s secretary on the Transatlantic Review who recognized himself in Mr Horsfield; and a letter by the novelist and biographer Morchard Bishop, whose real name was Oliver Stoner, 280. 50 Elgin W. Mellown points out in his bibliography that “during the 1939-1945 war Jean Rhys’s books went out of print, and the novel-reading public forgot her,” “Introduction,” xix.

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If the character of the heroine were to affect the critic’s judgement … After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys would be uniformly received with obloquy. For Julia Martin … is really quite terrifying. … [She] is what is known to the good as a ‘trial.’ But he admits that she is also “something more than a trial,” and he is intrigued by her experiences: We watch her straying vaguely from misery to misery, ignominy to ignominy. It is a terribly sharp picture, drawn by an artist whose ruthlessness is as great as her gift of understanding. Julia’s helpless state, her indifference, the squalor and indignity amid which she lives, are shown without the waste of a word. 51 He also mentions that the other characters are only represented with regard to their relationship to Julia. Swinnerton is especially impressed by the narrative techniques Rhys uses in the novel to make the characters come alive, and the manner in which this story of social criticism is told and he adds: “It is the more terrifying because it is so calm.” The writer of the last British review discussed here, Alice Herbert, also admires the techniques used. In her article in The Yorkshire Post of February 1931, she focused on the contrasting of the heroines. She describes the depiction of Julia as follows: The extreme matter-of-factness of poor Julia’s tragedy makes it heartrending. She has the British dislike of a ‘scene’ and the British inhibition against explaining herself. A strong touch of pride, as well, gets in her way; so that you see her, with a story that would melt a stone, unable to make any use of it where it would help. She is equally worried about Norah’s plight, and she recounts her situation as follows: “The envious, righteous younger sister is as tragic as Julia, in the reverse way.” She stresses “Every character is as real as reality.” But the reality depicted in the novel alarms her, and she ends her article: “It is difficult to class such a book, so carefully keyed down to the drabness of life.” She admits that “Miss Rhys has something of her own to bring to fiction.” 52 Overall, the critics interpret her style differently, some calling it unrelenting realism and others modernism or even impressionism. Some critics consider her work autobiographical projections, whilst others examine her novel as a work of fiction. These discussions continue in the reviews by American critics. Some British reviewers seem “uncomfortable with the subject matter,” in spite of the fact that they acknowledge “the literary merit of the novel” (Mellown, xvi). American reviewers, who apparently have less strict notions of what could and what could not be the subject of a novel, are not too worried about the fact that one of the female main characters is a depiction of the ‘monster’ image in its most extreme form. The anonymous reviewer of

51 Frank Swinnerton, “Give me a Tale with a Real Plot,” The Evening News , in a section called: “A London Bookman’s Week” Friday Issue (6 February 1931): 5. 52 Alice Herbert, “Julia’s Tragedy,” The Yorkshire Post Wednesday Issue (4 February 1931) in a section called “Novels of the Week:” “Two Original Newcomers,” 6. This review has been recorded as anonymous by most studies so far, in the original version of The Yorkshire Post Alice Herbert’s name is clearly mentioned, though.

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the New York Times Book Review gives a detailed account of the plot of the novel, and pays special attention to the analysis of Julia’s character. This reviewer points out that: Miss Rhys tells her story sparely. She attempts by small devices to make you see and feel with Julia – to make you understand her. But she never intrudes on the narrative or touches it up with sentimentality or bitterness. Julia is Julia, an individual who, in a broad sense, may also stand for a type … [One] may or may not like Julia. The author has no interest in achieving anything except a portrait of a certain woman. The sister is also briefly mentioned but the focus throughout the article remains on the character of Julia and the techniques used by Rhys; and the article ends with: Miss Rhys’s study, slight and certainly oversimplified as it is, contains many of the merits of its species. It succeeds in bringing to the reader a small fragment of a life which is in turn an infinitesimal fragment of all life. 53 All of these reviews reveal that times and reading-strategies are changing. Novels are no longer read largely for their moral messages, as they had been in the nineteenth century. Critics and readers are still looking for ‘messages,’ but of a different kind. They seem to understand that the traditional way of ordering and interpreting a literary work does not accord with the intricate situation after World War I. The contemporary social order was no longer as coherent and stable as it had been before. Contemporary readers were part of this panorama of futility and anarchy and their perspective was influenced by contemporary history. Their understanding of literature evolved alongside the new emerging literary styles. After Leaving Mr Mackenzie is consciously structured in three parts with many events happening in Part 1 repeated in Part 3 and with an exaggerated use of the mirror image; but it is still a logical, chronological and coherent story. Contemporary critics would be familiar with the development and realization of new techniques. They have parallels in the adaptation of representational conventions in painting as well as in adjustments of standard conventions of melody, harmony and rhythm in new types of music. Critics and readers did not take the story literally, as they had done with The Awakening ; rather, they respect what Rhys tries to express, though her almost postmodern focus on the ‘meaninglessness’ of existence and the underlying ‘nothingness’ does concern them. More general contemporary criticism on the work of Jean Rhys praises especially her use of images and her social criticism. The American critic Herbert Gorman, whilst commenting on her style, points out: There is no doubt about the power of Miss Rhys’s characterizations. She knows these characters with that peculiar intimacy that always suggests prototypes, and, because of this surprising verisimilitude, the painful reality of the situation is raised to a higher plane than that of mere story

53 This anonymous review appeared under the heading “Twice-as-Naturalism,” New York Times Book Review (28 June 1931): 6.

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telling. Her prose is staccato and purposeful and calculated to bring out clearly the essential note of her theme. 54 This critic recognizes the thematizing strategy of the novel. He is aware of the comment on contemporary patriarchal society that is expressed through the representations of the main characters. Gladys Graham, the American reviewer of the Saturday Review of Literature is again intrigued by the portrayal of the character Julia. In a review with the title “A Bedraggled Career,” she writes an intense and appreciative study of Julia’s character type. She indicates that: There have been enough bad women, weak women, and victimized women in novels since novels began, yet where will one turn to find so bedraggled and impotent a creature as this Julia Martin of Miss Rhys? … Julia is the quintessentially supine, but she has the devastating stubbornness of the will-less. … [She] has become an expert at dulling the edge of life. Feeling darkly, without ever letting herself quite face it, that she is no match for reality, she lies in her room and dreams of places … Never able to get a foothold in the conventionally notched ways of life that ordinary people take for granted, Julia slips little by little down the shabby incline that leads to no kindly specific hell but to that much hollower one – nowhere. The book is written with something of the balance and beauty of verse. The shifting of a phrase would be a threat against the whole. … Phrases and words that are lovely and beguiling in their form but ruthless and explicit in their content march the pages undeterred. Slight in scope, minor in key, it perfects itself within its spherical intent. 55 Graham also sees a feminist element in the novel as, indeed, do many later critics and readers. 56 In spite of Rhys’ terse style and absence of emotionalism, critics and readers get very much involved in the events told in the story. Iser’s phenomenological interpretation of the reading process is useful in the studying of the reception of this novel, too. It is noteworthy to see that most critics and readers do feel engaged with the events going on in this novel and are worried about Julia’s plight, but at the same time they do not lose track of the way in which the story is told. The combined style of realism and modernism seems to enrich the reading process. The modernist aspect provided extra gaps in the text, thus ensuring the involvement from the reader and stimulating the imagination of the reader. The terse writing style and the stance from the narrator, on the other hand, created more distance.

54 Herbert Gorman wrote this passage in a review of Ford Madox Ford’s work. The article is called: “Ford Madox Ford: A Portrait in Impressions.” It can be found in Bookman 67 (March 1928) 56-57. 55 Gladys Graham,“A Bedraggled Career,” Saturday Review of Literature 8 (25 July 1931): 5. 56 Some examples of modern feminist studies of Rhys’ work are: Molly Hite, The Other Side of the Story: Structures and Strategies of Contemporary Feminist Narrative (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1989); and Laura Niesen de Abruna, “Jean Rhys’s Feminism: Theory Against Practice” World Literature Written in English 28:2 (1988): 326-36.

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Rhys’ writing style seemed to enhance the reading process possibly even more than the styles of the earlier authors had done. Social criticism Quite a few American critics focus more directly on the social aspects of After Leaving Mr Mackenzie . In this context, too, many are again convinced that they are dealing with a masterpiece; minor, perhaps, but still a masterpiece. Margaret Cheney Dawson declares in an article for the New York Herald Tribune that she is impressed by the feminist element in the novel; she writes in her review with the heading “Unbearable Justice:” It is surely true art that makes this long-eyed, alcoholic woman of consequence to us. For Miss Rhys hardly allows Julia to play the heroine at all and yanks her out of the victim role ‘whenever’ melodrama looms (it is the only novel on this subject that I can think of that does not drag death in by the tail to supply a strong enough climax). But she writes with a miraculous balance between cold dry realism and the tender, introspective vein. She never attempts to fetch our sympathies with an overdose of grimness or a flood of intimacy. She does not make the mistake of supposing, as so many authors have done, that a segment of consciousness is fascinating no matter to whom it belongs or in what manner it is exposed, and she weighs her subjective material nicely against the stubborn physical appearances. But the effect is more devastating than any amount of intensity; it is her balance and justice that make the whole business seem so unbearable. The opposition between Julia and her sister Norah is pointed out: “In London she saw Nora, a sister younger than she, but bitter with the martyrdom of nursing their sick mother, and implicitly censorious.” She ends her review with “It’s not much of a story. But with it Miss Rhys has managed to give an artist’s definition of life and a rebel’s criticism of it.”57 Dawson underlines that Rhys distances herself from certain conventions of “melodrama” and romance plot through which women’s stories had traditionally been told. This results, according to her, in a very straightforward and bleak depiction of the position of women in contemporary society. The reviewer from the New Republic refers to the representation of social criticism in a more general way. This critic again draws attention to Julia’s predicament: “[Julia’s] subtlety of temperament and simplicity of intention were inexpressible in the code language of organized society, especially of middle-class society.” The reviewer summarizes the events of the novel and concludes: This faithful book, with its spare, suggestive method, is more profoundly destructive of hypocrisies – social and esthetic subterfuges – than would be volumes of diatribe less beautiful in complete restraint. 58

57 Margaret Cheney Dawson, “Unbearable Justice,” New York Herald Tribune Books (28 June 1931): 7. 58 This anonymous review appeared in the New Republic 68 (16 September 1931): 134; cited in Mellown 1984, 28.

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In focusing on the depiction of Julia’s state and behavior and the terse style in which the story is told, this reviewer becomes especially conscious of the social critique implied in the novel. Rhys’ thematizing strategy is again recognized as developing into a consciousness-raising technique. Helen Carr stresses that, even though there are some ambivalent critical responses, the novel achieves “a small audience of appreciative readers.”59 However, Rhys’ early work is not taken up by literary critics who specialize in contemporary literature. It is only in later studies that a more detailed examination of the shifting viewpoints, the mirroring of the main characters and events, and Rhys’ style occur. Many later critics see After Leaving Mr Mackenzie as a modernist novel which relates Julia’s sliding away from contemporary patriarchal society by means of the character’s own techniques of detachment and alienation.60

Francis Wyndham After the second World War, there were still a few enthusiastsic supporters of her work and foremost among these was Francis Wyndham. In 1950, he wrote a lengthy appreciation of Rhys’ work for the Labour Party’s independent weekly, the Tribune , in a series on “Neglected Books.” He entitled the essay on Rhys “An Inconvenient Novelist” and attempted to explain why she had “not yet received the wider recognition that is her due:” She is, perhaps, too uncompromising to be a best-seller, or even moderately popular at the lending-libraries. Most subscribers like to be able to place a novelist’s characters in convenient categories, but Miss Rhys’s heroines have an equivocal position for which there is no accurate descriptive word. “Prostitute” or “tart” over-simplify; “courtesan” is too exalted, “kept woman” too vague. All these terms have become literary clichés … Miss Rhys writes about women who are often found in life but seldom in books, and she describes their experiences from the inside. Her treatment of the subject is unconventional, her understanding of it unique, but an utter lack of vulgarity in her writing robs it of the shock-value, the cheap sensationalism that it might easily have had. Were she either cruder or more sentimental her novels might be more successful commercially if in no other way. Wyndham continues to summarize the novels, and he expresses the wish that her novels should be “reprinted.” 61 After this article, Rhys did come into the public eye again. A reprint of After Leaving Mr Mackenzie was published in England by André Deutsch in May 1969. Like many authors, Rhys uses parts of her life as the basic material from which she

59 Helen Carr, Jean Rhys (Plymouth: Northcote House, 1996) 2. 60 In terms of chronology Rhys is a younger member of the modernist group, but the technique of her novels can be closely linked to the experiments made by these writers. Thomas F. Staley examines her work in this context in Jean Rhys: A Critical Study (London: Macmillan, 1979); as do Jane Neide Ashcom “Two Modernisms: the Novels of Jean Rhys,” Jean Rhys Review 2:2 (Spring 1988): 17-27; and Marie Veronica Gregg “Jean Rhys and Modernism: A Different Voice,” Jean Rhys Review 1:2 (Spring 1987): 30-46. 61 Francis Wyndham, “An Inconvenient Novelst,” Tribune 721 (15 December 1950): 16, 18.

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creates her fiction. The process of transformation is a long and difficult struggle for her, because, she believes “a novel has to have a shape and life doesn’t have any.” 62 Overall, readers and critics continue to express strong approval for Rhys’ interpretation and understanding of shape and form. But when Rhys is getting a great deal of public attention in the 1960s “the autobiographical content of her writing” is sometimes seen as “confession” rather than “problematic starting point,” and “her relation to her central characters treated very differently from that of other,” especially “male modernist writers” (Carr, 3). Another more recent scholar, Judith Kegan Gardiner, points out: When a writer like Joyce or Eliot writes about an alienated man estranged from himself, [such a figure] is read as a portrait of the diminished possibilities of human existence in modern society. When Rhys writes about an alienated woman estranged from herself, critics applaud her perceptive but narrow depiction of female experience and tend to narrow her vision even further by labelling it both pathological and autobiographical. 63 Some critics seem to assume that when Rhys uses elements of her own life, she does so, because that is “all she ha[s] to write about, not because she ha[s] something to say about the kind of world in which such a life could happen”(Carr, 3).64 After Leaving Mr Mackenzie sometimes comes to be read as the retelling through stereotypical female images of Rhys’ own sad story of defeat, whether this defeat was caused by society or the result of her own incompetence. Such a focus results in a blindness to the “range and intelligence of her work.” It also overlooks the social, cultural and political aspects of her fiction, and disregards her humor (Carr, 5).65 Whilst it is true that Rhys uses stereotypical images and writes about women who are very conscious of their “lack of power, unsure of how to act, feeling themselves silenced or unheard,” what she does in writing novels like After Leaving Mr Mackenzie is “to assert the right and power to speak on their behalf” (Carr, 6). Carr is right when she stresses that

62 Jean Rhys in her autobiography, Smile Please which was published posthumously (London: André Deutsch, 1979) repeated in the “Foreword” by Diana Athill, 10. 63 Judith Kegan Gardiner, “Good Morning, Midnight; Good Night, Modernism,” Boundary 2.11 (Fall- Winter, 1982-3): 242. 64 Even Athill expounds this more limited view in her “Introduction” to the early novels: “[Rhys] thought – or said- that she chose to use [her own experience] because it was the only thing she knew well.” Jean Rhys: The Early Novels, 8. 65 Later critical studies have indeed focused on various aspects of her work. Studies concentrating on feminism or modernism have already been mentioned. Some investigations focusing on the Caribbean background of her novels are: all of the articles published by Elaine Campbell in World Literature Written in English and Kunapipi ; Louis James “Sun-Fire-Painted Fire: Jean Rhys as a Caribbean Novelist,” Critical Perspectives on Jean Rhys , ed. Pierette Frickey (Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1990); Mona Furgeson Colonialism and Gender Relations from Mary Wollstonecraft to Jamaica Kincaid: East Caribbean Connections (New York: Columbia UP, 1993); Judith Raiskin Snow on the Canefields: Women’s Writing and Creole Subjectivity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Elaine Savory Jean Rhys (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998); and Mary Lou Emery Modernism, the Visual, and Caribbean Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007).

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“passive victim,” whether in the shape of the ‘angel’ or the ‘monster,’ are as inadequate a description for her protagonists as for Rhys herself, and not only because she often depicts the female characters as “angry and as badly behaved” (Carr, 6). Woman as ‘angel’ or ‘monster’ have been traditional stereotypes. Rhys is aware of the power of such images, but that does not mean that that is all the female main characters are. In fact, her emphasis on those stereotypes makes it possible to recognize the acuteness of Rhys’ attack on the injustices of contemporary patriarchal society. Her use of them implies that angelic or monstrous are not simply characteristics of those particular female protagonists: but that there are cultural, economic, social or historical conditions which have molded the female main characters into those shapes. This insight can, in fact, be stated in relation to all four novels. Brontë, Chopin, Wharton and Rhys have all deliberately used the traditional stereotypical images in their writing, but they have used them in such a way as to achieve a certain effect. The most obvious effect seems to be to make the (contemporary) reader more socially conscious, at least as far as the position of women in society is concerned. Each author has a different focus in this context ranging from educational, to economic, to sexual or to social aspects. As the investigations of the reception of each individual novel show, most contemporary readers clearly understood the ideas expressed in their texts by means of these representations.

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