With Sasha Jansen, Jean Rhys created in Good Morning, Midnight a female character who does not have a place in the world. Sasha walks the streets of Paris, commenting, reflecting, remembering. Her few coping-mechanisms show how deeply she is already alienated from the world, even from herself. As a reader you get this fed bit by bit, in fragments, jumping between the actual narration, memories and inner monologues.
As a woman in Paris in the late 1930s Sasha Jansen is far ahead of her time. In her book about Jean Rhys, Elaine Savory says about Sasha: "She lives in the 1930s, when women were supposed to gain social standing through marriage to a man (preferably of means), or, if they remained single, to hold onto respectability even in hard times." (p68) Sasha is on her own, her former husband left her at some point in the past, she lives in rented rooms, has very little money and is definitely having a hard time as she is very aware of and does not feel well with her own ageing. Instead of 'holding on to respectability' she drinks. Sometimes she cries in public. She takes men back to her hotel room and has random sex.
Her drinking habits seem to be old, it seems that she has been drinking for a long time, regularly. Drinking is one of her main coping mechanisms. Every time she finds herself in an emotionally challenging situation, she longs for a strong drink to soothe herself, to feel less of the pain that is her life. After she started crying in the house of an artist-friend she says: 'I have an irresistible longing for a long, strong drink to make me forget that once again I have given damnable human beings the right to pity me and laugh at me.' (p. 78)
While she lived in London, she tried to drink herself to death an...
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...ally it wouldn't be too bad to be happy, to be in a better place within herself or just in a lighter, nicer room.
But the end of the book is so shockingly bleak that it takes away all hope. She agrees to the one man on her floor she loathes and fears, she invites him in, into her bed, into her body: 'Then I put my arms around him and pull him down on the bed, saying: 'Yes – yes – yes…' (p. 159) She finally reaches this place of indifference where nothing matters, where she does not care if she lives or dies, as the stranger in the dressing-gown could just easily kill her.
Works Cited
Rhys, Jean. 2000. Good Morning, Midnight. London: Penguin Books
Savory, Elaine. 2009. The Cambridge Introduction to Jean Rhys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
A. L. Kennedy. 2000. Introduction. In: Rhys, Jean. 2000. Good Morning, Midnight. London: Penguin Books
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Wilentz, Sean. "Kennedy, John Fitzgerald." The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago, IL: World Book, 2009. N. p. Print.
Abrams, M. H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993.
Another way these characters avoid living their life is by drinking continuously, in a way to make the time pass by faster and forget. ?Haven?t you had enough? She loses count after 10 cocktails,? (pg.11) proving to the audience her own self denial, and how she wastes every day. Unfortunately, there are many, who in society today, do the same thing to get out of a situation they?re trying to hide or a difficult time they?re going through. This relates back to their affair which they?re obviously hiding and trying to get through this time in their life.
Updike, John. “A & P.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Eds. Alison Booth and Kelly
2nd ed. of the book. New York: St. James Press, 1995. Literature Resource Center -. Web.
M.H. Abrams, et al; ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume I. W.W. Norton & Company, New York/London, 1993.
6th ed. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Harper Collins, 1995. 118-29.
Hunt, Jonathan. "In Darkness." The Horn Book Magazine Mar.-Apr. 2012: 111+. Academic OneFile. Web. 29 Apr. 2014
Abrams, M. H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993.
Mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York: W.W Norton &, 2012. Print.
of the book. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print. The. Ferguson, Niall. "
Theme of Alienation in Literature A common theme among the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne is alienation. Alienation is defined as emotional isolation or dissociation from others. In Hawthorne's novels and short stories, characters are consistently alienated and experience isolation from society. These characters are separated from their loved ones both physically and psychologically. The harsh judgmental conditions of Puritan society are the cause of isolation for these characters and eventually lead to their damnation.
Updike, John. “A&P.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. Eds. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2010. 409-414. Print.