Category Archives: Rhys

Dialect in Rhys and Hurston

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Zora Neale Hurston is know for her intriguing dialogue choice in Their Eyes Were Watching God. She contrasts beautiful and high caliber “proper” English with a 1920s Black dialect. This striking verbal contrast helped to propel her novel into literary acclaim. By proving that she could access and craft the language of white publishers she was able to draw them into reading a story of and about Black people. This striking contrast helped to illuminate the racist disparities felt between white America and Black.

Rhys uses a similar concept in “Let Them Call It Jazz”. The entire story is written in working class British English. However, her other stories are all written in “proper” English. This distinction feels so slight that your eyes almost glance over it on the first page. It is as if there were just a few typos before you begin to see the pattern of grammar. This dialect helps the reader to take on the identity of the speaker and begin to see how the world seems constantly stacked against her.

Both Rhys and Hurston use their natural dialects compared to “proper” English to help manifest the difficulties of their characters and themselves for the reader. While Rhys uses slight verb changes, and Hurston transliterates a completely different dialect, these points of language work to internalize the reality of time and oppression by creating distance between the characters and those in power, meanwhile drawing the reader into these different experiences in a unique and compelling way.

Rhys vs. Feminism

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I found myself puzzled by Rhys. In class we discussed that she was considered to be a major feminist. She was “rediscovered” by second-wave feminism in the same way that Zora Neal Hurston was. However, in her writing, Rhys is hostile to her female characters. Her protagonist is the modernist new woman though struggling with class issues. However, it seems that every other woman in these stories is vicious, trying to tear other women apart without much provocation. Frankie is described as a bitch and vilianized by both the men and Petronella. It feels almost as if Frankie is kept around for entertainment, Not having a full role within the group. The neighbor woman in “Let Them Call It Jazz” is cruel and mean. She is seen as a woman who hates based on race and class. This woman is the villain who creates most misery.

This hatred of women seems counter-intuitive to most understandings of feminism. It’s not that women can’t be mean. The idea is to write complex and deep characters. To look at all parts of a person as well as humanity. To characterize every woman either as a mean and slutty bitch or as an uptight and repressed hag is counter-productive to a larger goal of seeing women be valued in society. I am both curious about and frustrated with this characterization of Rhys as a strong feminist writer.

New Women

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The character of Sally in The Berlin Stories helped me to gain a better understanding of Modernism’s New Woman. As I was reading I began to see the essence of Sally in several of the female characters in modernist literature. I thought of Sally Seton from Mrs. Dalloway, Daisy Buchanan from the The Great Gatsby, Kitty Baldry from The Return of the Soldier, Lily from The House of Mirth, Lady Brett Ashley from The Sun also Rises, Petronella from “Till September Petronella.” (Although not within the modernist time frame, I also thought of Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s because of the parallels in the relationship between Holly and the narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the relationship between Sally and Chris.)

Notwithstanding the individuality of these women, to varying degrees they share very similar characteristics and personality traits. They are sexaully liberated and are very aware of the power of their bodies to their male counterparts and even to themselves. They are explicit in their desires. They are outspoken. They are at times selfish. Their personalities are sometimes dramatic and purposely exaggerated as if they constantly have to perform to an audience. They are also clever and skilled at manipulation if not checked by other characters. One thing that is important to note is that they are also all seemingly white.

Is Emma Lou a New Woman? Are there Black female characters in modernist literature that are New Women? We have discussed in class the supposed responsibility put upon Black writers to be representative of their race. There were damaging stereotypes that plagued Black women at the time. These writers must “uplift” the race. Does that mean not including women characters that share the characteristics of New Woman? I think Emma Lou is a type of New Woman.

 

Public Spaces in Rhys’s “Till September”

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{I’ve finally gotten back to my computer over break—apologies!}

One thing that very much impacted me on my way back through Rhys’s stories, especially “Till September Petronella,” is the way that public space is treated. Or rather, how public space treats the protagonist. There are explicitly antagonistic moments, like “No Models, No Hawkers”—a definite statement about how the metropolitan anonymous environ categorizes, simplifies, and excludes its outsiders.

But there are also more atmospheric moments, like in the story’s opening, when there “was a barrel organ playing…all the tunes I liked.” We realize shortly that this is actually a moment of reprieve, a brief oasis: the protagonist likes music, finds small bits of solace there, but in general has the sense that her colorless London is “spiteful.” Being in public is a continual performance for the speaker—maybe the accompaniment of church bells and barrel organs is something like a soundtrack emphasizing that performance. London is home—“And just for a while [being glad to be back] bears you up”—but not a home where the protagonist can be at ease. “You get round the corner,” she says, “and it lets you drop.”

The sense of ongoing, draining public performance is one of the underlying betrayals in the story: even the members of the small, disintegrating party on their retreat aren’t really in private. They’re performing class, privilege, power over one another, and in that context, there’s no real chance for intimacy. The story’s most intimate moments are probably the protagonist’s kiss with her reflection, or her silently moving through the house with her memories of Estelle. Her private self is dominated by the imperative to achieve that public performance successfully—and the failure in one literal performance is a telling tether for the rest of her public identity. The ways in which women were allowed to present and perform their identity publicly—putting on makeup in public, riding bicycles—was only recently shifting, and Rhys’s women characters feel painfully mired in past standards, performances, and limitations, even if they have been ostensibly revised and relaxed.

Hidden Queerness in Rhys

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I found myself continuously puzzled by the consistent hidden queerness in Rhys’ short stories. We began with “Illusion” which has this hidden relationship between two women. However, it feels increadibly awkward. There is this frantic feeling of urgency that things must happen very quickly and in a strong manner. It doesn’t have the feeling of a relationship (even one in it’s final stages) or casual sex. Instead it feels like pressuring someone to take an exam or to finish packing to catch a train. While clearly being sexual, there is so much tension that it feels unusual for even the most awkward and introverted of relationships.

I see this again in “Till September Petronella”. While Petronella has a relationship that clearly ended negatively with Estelle, there is this bizarre intensity between her and Frankie. While we talked about numerous sexual relationships in class, we did not mention anything between Petronella and Frankie. There is one scene in which Frankie is in Petronella’s room that feels incredibly strong and uncomfortable. In some other texts including “Illusion” this implied a sexual relationship.

This incredibly intense but seemingly hidden relationships in Rhys’ work puzzle me. Woolf wrote explicitly about queer female relationships in Orlando and other texts. Additionally, Rhys was criticized for so many other things that she had nothing to lose by including more explicit queerness.