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 rebuffed. For most the bottle becomes the only solace. The title story [of Sleep It off, Lady] starkly reflects this theme. Old Miss Verney, living alone in her country cottage could be Sasha Jensen of Good Morning, Midnight thirty years on. The vaguer fears of the younger woman are now concretised for Miss Verney into a large rat, real or imaginary, in the dilapidated garden shed. Forcing herself to replace a dustbin near the shed the old lady slips and cannot get up. A local girl leers at her, refusing her appeal for help. 'Sleep it off, Lady', she jeers, referring to the village gossip that Miss Verney drinks. Paralysed with fear, terrified of the rat, she is left alone in the dark. The postman finds her dead there next morning. The doctor says she died of shock and cold. He was treating her for a heart condition, he says.
This nightmarish quality of alienation—the difference between what one knows and feels and what others see and understand—permeates not only the other stories but all the author's work. Madness, guile, deceit, are never far away; yet at the heart of all her characters there is a core of innocence that prevents them from degenerating into sodden sluts or mean-minded maniacs. The world, she implies, is too ready to sneer, to think the worst of people, to hate those who, for whatever reason, be it birth or misfortune, do not conform. This, in Miss Rhys's canon, is particularly true of the English, never more so than when the person of their cold dislike is down and out. For lack of money is one of the great afflictions that runs through all her books, forcing girls to prostitution and men to greed. Yet, however impoverished they are, there is always the flicker of hope that tomorrow will be better….
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