14/10/2024
‘Good Morning, Midnight’ - Lecture 5
● Sustained depiction of anxiety, solitude and depression.
● Speaks directly to the reader and the language is highly charged. Intriguing piece of
writing in its dramatic impact.
Jean Rhys
● Born 1890 - Dominica in the Caribbean. Sent to England in 1906. Married 1919.
Divorced 1933.
● Lived in Paris, Vienna, Budapest - outsider who travels to many places but belongs
nowhere.
● Meets Ford Maddox Ford - who supports her writing and she becomes his mistress.
Perhaps, sexually exploited by powerful, male literary figure.
● ‘Good Morning, Midnight’ is a culmination of 4 novels: ‘Quartet’ (1928), ‘After Leaving
Mr. Mackenzie’ (1931), ‘Voyage in the Dark’ (1934) = apprenticeship in depicting
solitude, anxiety, sadness, depression and a sense of hopelessness which pervades
her writing.
● Semi-autobiographical novel ‘Quartet’ echoes disastrous affair with Ford Maddox
Ford depicted as H J Heidler.
● ‘After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie’ is set in Paris and London. Protagonist, Julia Martin,
precursor to Sasha Jansen in ‘Good Morning, Midnight’.
● Third novel, ‘Voyage in the Dark’ continues her focus on rootless, semi-destitute and
mistreated women.
● Focus upon anxiety of the self and this endless introspection. How she uses location,
place and landscape to compartmentalise, accentuate and exaggerate the sense of
inner-turmoil that the character actually feels.
● Four female protagonists in Rhys’ novels all seem to be interrelated.
A Modernist Psychology of Failure
● Samuel Beckett - belief that failure was central to the work of an artist or writer.
● ‘…you must on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on’. (The Unnamable, 1953)
● ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better’. (Worstward Ho,
1983)
● Rhys: ‘I would never be part of anything. I would never really belong anywhere, and
I knew it, and all my lif would be the same, trying to belong, and failing. Always
something would fo wrong. I am a stranger and always will be, and after all I didn’t
really care.’ (Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography, 1979). Sense of
negating the self or neutralising one’s emotion, seems to be rooted in the way her
narratives progress.
‘Good Morning, Midnight’ Like Musical Variations upon the Theme of Failure by Sasha
Jansen. (Introspection upon the self).
● ‘Every word I say has chains around its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with
heavy weights. Since I was born, hasn’t every word I’ve said, every thought I’ve
thought, everything I’ve done, been tied up, weighted, chained?’ - Self-conscious
statements about her identity as a writer. Interaction of the writer and the reader is a
‘Good Morning, Midnight’ - Lecture 5
● Sustained depiction of anxiety, solitude and depression.
● Speaks directly to the reader and the language is highly charged. Intriguing piece of
writing in its dramatic impact.
Jean Rhys
● Born 1890 - Dominica in the Caribbean. Sent to England in 1906. Married 1919.
Divorced 1933.
● Lived in Paris, Vienna, Budapest - outsider who travels to many places but belongs
nowhere.
● Meets Ford Maddox Ford - who supports her writing and she becomes his mistress.
Perhaps, sexually exploited by powerful, male literary figure.
● ‘Good Morning, Midnight’ is a culmination of 4 novels: ‘Quartet’ (1928), ‘After Leaving
Mr. Mackenzie’ (1931), ‘Voyage in the Dark’ (1934) = apprenticeship in depicting
solitude, anxiety, sadness, depression and a sense of hopelessness which pervades
her writing.
● Semi-autobiographical novel ‘Quartet’ echoes disastrous affair with Ford Maddox
Ford depicted as H J Heidler.
● ‘After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie’ is set in Paris and London. Protagonist, Julia Martin,
precursor to Sasha Jansen in ‘Good Morning, Midnight’.
● Third novel, ‘Voyage in the Dark’ continues her focus on rootless, semi-destitute and
mistreated women.
● Focus upon anxiety of the self and this endless introspection. How she uses location,
place and landscape to compartmentalise, accentuate and exaggerate the sense of
inner-turmoil that the character actually feels.
● Four female protagonists in Rhys’ novels all seem to be interrelated.
A Modernist Psychology of Failure
● Samuel Beckett - belief that failure was central to the work of an artist or writer.
● ‘…you must on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on’. (The Unnamable, 1953)
● ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better’. (Worstward Ho,
1983)
● Rhys: ‘I would never be part of anything. I would never really belong anywhere, and
I knew it, and all my lif would be the same, trying to belong, and failing. Always
something would fo wrong. I am a stranger and always will be, and after all I didn’t
really care.’ (Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography, 1979). Sense of
negating the self or neutralising one’s emotion, seems to be rooted in the way her
narratives progress.
‘Good Morning, Midnight’ Like Musical Variations upon the Theme of Failure by Sasha
Jansen. (Introspection upon the self).
● ‘Every word I say has chains around its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with
heavy weights. Since I was born, hasn’t every word I’ve said, every thought I’ve
thought, everything I’ve done, been tied up, weighted, chained?’ - Self-conscious
statements about her identity as a writer. Interaction of the writer and the reader is a
