Rhys, Jean (Vol. 21) - Laura Neisen De Abruña (essay date 1988)
Laura Neisen De Abruña (essay date 1988)
SOURCE: "Jean Rhys's Feminism: Theory Against Practice," in World Literature Written in English, Vol. 28, No. 2, Autumn, 1988, pp. 326-36.
[In the following excerpt, De Abruña argues that Rhys's views, as demonstrated in her fiction, were anti-feminist.]
Despite recent attempts by feminist critics to read all of her fiction as a portrait of oppressed women, Jean Rhys's "heroines" are unco-operatively anti-feminist. They dislike and fear other women, while hoping for love and security from men who, they anticipate, will finally reject them. Her women—Anna, Marya, Julia, Sasha, and Antoinette—expect, often fatalistically, that these relationships will fail; and their predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies that legitimize their fears and preserve them from responsibility. The only exception to this is Wide Sargasso Sea (and, to a lesser extent, Voyage in the Dark). . ....
[The entire page is 3671 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
