Style as Characterisation in Jean Rhys’ Novels

Abstract

Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams was born, it is thought, in 1890, in Dominica, West Indies, and died in England in 1979. Jean Rhys came to England in 1907, studying at the Perse School, Cambridge and the London Academy of Dramatic Art, before taking odd jobs as chorus girl, artist’s model, and mannequin in order to earn her living after her father’s death. In 1919, at the age of 29, she left for Holland, afterward living in Paris and Vienna. In 1923, Rhys was introduced in Paris to Ford Madox Ford, who encouraged her writing and helped her to publish her short stories in 1924. Four novels were published over the next fifteen years, most receiving some critical notice and some even considerable praise, but never gaining the attention of the reading public. Finally, in 1966, Wide Sargasso Sea won Jean Rhys an acclaim that also rescued her earlier work from obscurity. All her earlier novels, two new collections of short stories, an unfinished autobiography, and a fascinating selection of her letters were published over the next two decades.