Jean Rhys: Voyage in the Dark

LMU München Institut für Englische Philologie Sommersemester 2011 Hauptseminar: Caribbean Literature Dozent: Prof. Dr. Helge Nowak

“Voyage in the Dark”, Jean Rhys’ Criticism of England’s Postcolonial Culture and Patriarchal System in the 1930s

Tanja Hillenbrand

Table of contents

1 Introduction 1-2
2 Structure 2
2.1 Fragmentary Structure 2
2.2 Geographical Structure: England vs. Caribbean 3
3 Narrative Style 3
3.1 Unreliable Narrator 3-4
3.2 Metaphors instead of Words 4-5
3.2.1 Colonial Metaphors 5
3.3 Dramatized Narrator 5-6
3.4 Monosyllabic Style 6
4 The Protagonist: A Victim 7
5 Autobiographical Parallels between Anna Morgan and Jean 7-8 Rhys
6 Female Dependence 8-12
7 The Protagonist’s Dilemma 12
7.1 Lost Opportunities 12
7.2 Hostility towards Immigrants 12-13
8 Dealing with the Dilemma 13
8.1 Coldness 13
8.2 Aggression 13-14
8.3 Desire to Be Black 14
9 Marketplace Culture and Fashion: A First Step towards Being 15-18 British
10 Conclusion 18-19
11 Reference List 20

1 Introduction

The aim of this paper is to show Jean Rhys' criticism of the postcolonial culture and the patriarchal system of England in the 1930s. Benefitting from the work of various scholars of Rhys, I will analyze how the author of “Voyage in the Dark” achieves to criticise those issues and their implementations. However, Dell’Amico argues that there are different scientific readings of Rhys’ novel. For instance, she contends that the author of “Voyage in the Dark” is not considered a colonial voice within the literary canon about colonialism. According to Dell’Amico, the majority of her novels are set in