Rhys, Jean (Vol. 4) - Rhys, Jean 1894–
Rhys, Jean 1894–
Jean Rhys was born in Dominica, West Indies, and has lived in England since 1910. She is a novelist and short story writer whose work has been called "among the most original and memorable of our time." (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 25-28.)
After Leaving Mr. McKenzie, originally published in 1930 (one is tempted to say before its time), depicts with cool mordancy what it is like to try to cope as a woman, irremediably past a petted prime, in a world for the comfort of men….
Perhaps it is because she is a woman, a lady, that Miss Rhys eschews the strongest colors in depicting Julia Martin's "humiliation" after leaving Mr. McKenzie….
The very style of writing fights back against a smug dominant masculinity. Uncle Griffiths is pictured as a "large and powerful male," with subliminal suggestions of a gorilla, and is neatly brutalized as a man in whom selfishness and neurotic fear of penury are...
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