Subversive Wanderings in the City of LoveConstructing the Female Body in Jean Rhys’s «Good Morning, Midnight»

  1. Laura de la Parra Fernández 1
  1. 1 Universidad Complutense de Madrid
    info

    Universidad Complutense de Madrid

    Madrid, España

    ROR 02p0gd045

Journal:
ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies

ISSN: 2531-1654,  2531-1646

Year of publication: 2018

Issue: 39

Pages: 215-232

Type: Article

DOI: 10.24197/ERSJES.39.2018.215-232 SCOPUS: 2-s2.0-85078244017 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDialnet editor

More publications in: ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies

Abstract

In this article I analyse the deconstruction of the public/private dichotomy in the city of Paris in Jean Rhys’s «Good Morning Midnight» (1939). Through the exploration of Sasha’s aimless wandering through Paris in her failed quest for romantic love, this paper aims to explore Rhys’s Paris as a city which is hostile to women who fail to perform conventional standards of femininity. These standards are in turn encouraged and set by the promise of happiness; thus, the mimicry of femininity —whether intentional or not— exposes ongoing power dynamics in gender roles, the construction of the bodies of others through political ideals of happiness and love, and the subversive potential in Rhys’s novel, even if the protagonist is crushed at the end by the private side of the emerging totalitarian regimes on the eve of the Second World War.

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Data source: Dialnet