Rhys, Jean (Vol. 6) - Rhys, Jean 1894–
Rhys, Jean 1894–
Jean Rhys, born in the West Indies, is a British novelist and short story writer. A. Alvarez has said that her fictional world seems "strangely unprecedented, glassy clear yet somehow distorted as though she were looking up at things from the bottom of a deep pool." He considers Miss Rhys "quite simply, the best living English novelist." (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 25-28.)
Jean Rhys's limitations do not have the look of being self-imposed for an esthetic aim. They have the look of being the effects of an obsession. She has one character and one subject: the tribulations of her heroine in a cruel world of selfish men and respectable women.
In four novels and a collection of short stories written during the 1920's and 30's, the heroine differs from novel to novel and from story to story in name and incidentals, but not much. In "Wide Sargasso Sea" (1966) she reappears as Mrs. Rochester, Jane Eyre's husband's...
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