Biography EssayJean Rhys claimed to have been born in 1894, but it is more probable that she was born on 24 August 1890. The daughter of Rhys Williams, a doctor, and Minna Lockhart, Ella Gwen Rhys Wil...
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Jean Rhys (1890-1979 ) is best known for her novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, which was published in 1966 when she was 76. Rhys's life was profoundly marked by a sense of exile, loss, and alienation--dominan...
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Jean Rhys claimed to have been born in 1894, but it is more probable that she was born on 24 August 1890. The daughter of Rhys Williams, a doctor, and Minna Lockhart, Ella Gwen Rhys Williams was born...
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Jean Rhys is a significant writer who lived a difficult life full of personal tragedies, setbacks, and self-doubts: three marriages, the loss of her first child and the absence of her second one for l...
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Although Jean Rhys has been recognized as an important, if not a major, figure among twentieth-century British fiction writers, this critical evaluation came only at the end of her life, long after ...
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In the following essay, Howells elucidates the defining characteristics of Rhys's late short fiction—particularly her central themes of gender and colonialism—through an examinati...
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In the following essay, O'Connor delineates the connection between Paul Theroux's short stories “Zombies” and “The Imperial Ice House” and Rhys's unpub...
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In the following essay, Tiffin asserts that a few of Rhys's short stories—“Again the Antilles,” “The Day They Burned the Books,” and “Rapunzel, Rapunze...
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In the following essay, Thomas utilizes Rhys's “Let Them Call It Jazz” to discuss the tension between the West Indian colonial milieu of her writing and the modernist European per...
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In the following excerpt, Gregg offers thematic analyses of two of Rhys's West Indian stories: “Again the Antilles” and “Fishy Waters.”
“again the Antilles&#x...
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In the following essay, Carr discusses Rhys as an autobiographical writer.
Although I have criticized those autobiographical readings of Rhys's work which identify her literally with her heroin...
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In the following excerpt, Malcolm and Malcolm outline the defining characteristics of Rhys's short stories.
Narrators and Narration
One of the most striking aspects of narration in Rhys'...
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In the following essay, Savory traces Rhys's development as a short story writer and describes her revision process.
I will post you the story tomorrow nearly three weeks too late … Its ...
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In the following appreciative survey of Rhys's works, Alvarez maintains that the "purity of Miss Rhys's style and her ability to be at once deadly serious and offhand make her boo...
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Here, Chase praises Rhys for her ability to "bring to keen life the spiritual and physical atmosphere of the locales and eras she is writing about. "
Jean Rhys's stories fall into...
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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 ...
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In the following excerpt, Gregg compiles letters and autobiographical sources in which Rhys comments on the craft of writing.
Writing gave shape and meaning to Jean Rhys's life: "Until I...
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In the following excerpt, Wilson explores the impact of Rhys's exile on her work.
The question of identity in Jean Rhys' life and fiction is inextricably bound to the condition of exile ...
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In the essay below, Casey explores the development of strong female characters in Rhys's later short fiction.
Jean Rhys is best-known for her Wide Sargasso Sea, a novel that places her among W...
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In the following essay, Morrell examines Rhys's world view as presented in four short stories that span her career.
Jean Rhys's world, as seen in her three volumes of short stories, is ...
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In the following interview, which was conducted shortly before her death, Rhys discusses her life and writing career.
[Rhys]: We moved here [to Devon] because I wanted a place of my own. We bought it&...
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In the following excerpt, Staley examines the depiction of feminine consciousness in Rhys's later short fiction.
Wide Sargasso Sea was both a critical and popular success and its publication ha...
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In the following essay, Lindroth studies the symbolic use of color in Rhys's short stories.
The ultra-refined aestheticism of Whistler's Peacock Room or his "Arrangements" ...
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In the following excerpt, Davidson discusses the importance of Rhys 's short fiction within her overall body of work.
Jean Rhys, it will be remembered, wrote short stories as well as novels. He...
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In the following essay, Nebeker discusses the presentation of female archetypes, mythic patterns, and shifting perspective in After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie.
In her second novel, After Leaving Mr. Macken...
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In the following essay, Thomas examines the narrative structure and psychological dynamics of the relationship between Rochester and Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea.
Antoinette Bertha Cosway Mason is ...
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In the following essay, Tiffin discusses the portrayal of exploitative male-female relationships, distorted female self-identity, and imperialism in Rhys's fiction.
Since Wally Look Lai'...
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In the following essay, Baldanza provides analysis of the recurring themes, narrative strategies, and female protagonists in Rhys's fiction.
In discussing the seeming monotony of tone in the wo...
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In the following review, Pool offers negative analysis of Smile Please, citing flaws in the book's lack of structure and Rhys's unreflective content.
"Smile please," the m...
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In the following essay, Bamber provides an overview of Rhys's fiction, literary career, and critical reception.
Jean Rhys, who died in 1978 at age eighty-four, lived long enough to ride the whe...
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In the following essay, Davidson offers analysis of the characters, narrative structure, and thematic concerns of After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie.
Jean Rhys published her first four novels to little notic...
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In the following excerpt, Miles discusses the depiction of female alienation and social subjugation in Rhys's fiction. "In the work of Jean Rhys," writes Miles, "female sel...
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Critical Essay by Michael Wood
The possibility of being substantially right in [one] way while being specifically wrong entails a stable world and a steady viewer…. Jean Rhys is many miles from...
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Critical Essay by Robie Macauley
Probably the most gratifying literary rediscovery of the 1960's was the revival of Jean Rhys…. And, thanks to that, we now have those fine, somber Rhys n...
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Critical Essay by Peggy Crane
Nearly all [Jean Rhys's] short stories and novels centre on a proud, sensitive woman, timidly putting out a hand for love and friendship and being continually rebu...
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Critical Essay by Elizabeth Abel
Although some articles on Rhys have appeared in popular magazines, she has received little critical attention, especially from women, despite her exceptional technical...
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Critical Essay by A. C. Morrell
Jean Rhys's world, as seen in her three volumes of short stories, is a unified one. In every story a central consciousness, whether narrator, implied narrator, o...
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Critical Essay by John Updike
Though many facts seem not so much got down as left discreetly floating [in Jean Rhys's "Smile Please"], this truncated effort at self-revelation is ...
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Critical Essay by Ronald Blythe
[Jean Rhys's Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography, a] slight, initially rich and finally sketchy book is partly an autobiography; partly an attempt to put s...
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Critical Essay by Gabriele Annan
[Jean Rhys] must have been one of the most autobiographical novelists there has ever been, and it is impossible not to believe that the psychological truth about her l...
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Critical Essay by Helen Mcneil
In Rhys's autobiographical fragment [Smile Please], as in her fiction, life is outside, an indefinable and elusive otherness. Whether she longs to lose herself in...
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Critical Essay by Diana Trilling
[Jean Rhys's life is] a terrible story but an uncommon one in our century, which is more notable for the falls from glory that follow on a too eager appreciatio...
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Critical Essay by Anatole Broyard
It is sad to have to report that, after reading "Smile Please" and comparing it with Miss Rhys's autobiographical novels, one gets the impression...
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Critical Essay by Samuel Hynes
There are two explanations for Jean Rhys's extraordinary obscurity. One is simply the life she lived. (p. 28)
As a literary life it was, one may say, unusual; and...
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Critical Essay by Phoebe-lou Adams
Jean Rhys thought that it was "idiotic to be curious about the person" of a writer, so when she embarked upon [Smile Please] at the age of eighty-six, ...
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Critical Essay by Phyllis Rose
[Jean Rhys's] heroines may be called Anna Morgan, Julia Martin, Marya Zelli, Sasha Jensen, but they are always Jean Rhys…. They are victims, of whom it wou...
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Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys
