ABSTRACT
The young Jean not only internalised the message but she recognised what it said about submission and humiliation as true, especially that she’d need to be punished. What makes Jean Rhys’ work so distinctive, and so unsettling, is that she has at once the unblinking insight and unarmed vulnerability of a child. Rhys’ mother had lost a baby daughter to dysentery and Jean’s birth was then intended to replace that loss – but the opposite seems to have happened, Jean becoming increasingly aware as a child that she was, especially after the birth of a more obviously loved younger sister, resented by the mourning mother. For a child of Jean’s hyper-sensitivity this is all too easily internalised in self-blame. The students loved the novel and were encouraged to love it further when Al Alvarez, the critic who had known Jean Rhys and championed her work, came to the school and talked about her.
