Outside the Machine (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Jean Rhys
- First Published: 1960
- Type of Plot: Psychological
- Time of Work: The mid-twentieth century
- Setting: A clinic near Versailles
- Principal Characters: Inez Best, Madame Tavernier, Pat, Mrs. Murphy
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction
- Subjects: Alienation, Pain, Surgery or surgeons, Hospitals
- Locales: Versailles, France
The Story
The story is divided into five parts, all told from the point of view of Inez Best, who lies in a clinic in pain, awaiting an operation. The cold, institutional nature of the clinic is established on the first page in an exchange with the matron, who criticizes Inez for bringing her makeup with her. Inez is weak and bewildered, a sympathetic figure.
Madame Tavernier, an old woman, strikes up a conversation from the next bed. She tells Inez about her two husbands, now deceased, and shows herself to be a woman of feeling and sentiment, although Inez is somewhat...
[The entire page is 1588 words long]
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