I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys

Product Information

In I Used to Live Here Once by Jean Rhys we have the theme of struggle, connection, freedom, change, acceptance and loneliness. Narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator the reader realises after reading the story that Rhys may be exploring the theme of struggle. As the narrator is describing the stepping stones that the woman once walked across Rhys appears to be using each stone to suggest that at times the woman has struggled to get from one side of the river to the other. Symbolically Rhys could be using the river. In particular the water to suggest that in life the woman has also struggled. She has had both good times and bad times. Though it is interesting that the woman does successfully manage to navigate her way across the river. This could be important as Rhys may be suggesting that the struggles that the woman encountered no longer hinder her. She is free. The fact that the road is also wider could be important as Rhys could be highlighting the fact that there have been changes in the woman’s life. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? In this passage we understand that the main character is familiar with the house to begin with and have noticed several changes, this sets a doubt to the reader where the question is raised on what is the relation between the main character and this house. There have been some interference in her writing due to personal problems work as considered by Castro (2000), these interruptions have caused Jean Rhys’ novels to be highly influenced by her perils, she had reached a period of hiatus in her writing life due to alcoholism and financial status. These are several hints in connection to some of the traumas Jean Rhys had experienced in her life, as said by author Maren Linett (2005) “consider Rhys’s exploration of the dark subject of/in female masochism – not, as has been argued by some critics, as an individual psychological kink from which Rhys suffered…” these traumas has therefore raise more questions on Jean Rhys’ writing influence. Furthermore, her incorporation of the two kids in front of the house shows a lot on what and how the author thinks.

That intimacy is important. It ties Phillips’ novel into a legacy of Caribbean writing about and in response to Rhys. This includes work by writers such as Derek Walcott, Lorna Goodison and Jamaica Kincaid, who valued Rhys’ engagement with the particularities of loss and language and imagination, because they stood “on the periphery of the English-language tradition”. The woman ignored her outstretched hand and walked past her down the hall to the kitchen. She clearly knew her way around. All that effort to rearrange the spare room and she wasn’t even interested. Ray had been right all along. This was a big mistake. Ray slept well, despite the roar of Storm Brenda battering the trees against the windows. Sandra woke several times in the night. Once she fancied she heard the stairs creak. Later she saw Rosalind climbing into the wardrobe. She knew she was dreaming, but was glad of Ray’s comforting bulk beside her. One day in early spring, Sally invited them down for a weekend. Ray looked forward to trying out the new second hand BMW on the motorway. .When Seymour does make interesting pronouncements, there's no evidence offered: for example, she claims that the short stories are more autobiographical than the novels - proof, please? Sandra had set aside Sunday morning to clear the hall and study some colour charts. They were freshening up as she liked to call it. Only very recently have I read any fiction by Jean Rhys ( Voyage In the Dark -- an incredibly good book) but I have heard about Rhys for a long time. Most of what I'd heard had to do with her alcoholism and the resulting bad behavior. Rhys' drinking does play a big part in this biography (how could it not?) but Seymour never sensationalizes it or judges Rhys. Considering that Rhys destroyed much of her correspondence, was very reluctant to give interviews and that many of the people who knew about Rhys' early life died a long time ago, it's amazing that such a readable, insightful biography of her could be written. Seymour has done a fine job in gathering all the stories she could from people who actually knew or met Rhys, doing a deep dive into Rhys archives and, most important of all, letting Rhys' own words, both in fiction form and not, illuminate the life of this brilliant, complicated, often difficult writer. Her chapter describing Rhys’ 1936 return to Dominica is full of fascinating detail, but again there are omissions. She tells, as Angier did before her, of Rhys’ brother Owen Williams, who fathered two children to Dominican women. The children came to visit Rhys when she stayed on the island, but Seymour gives little detail of the meeting beyond noting that they asked for money. It is a brilliant move. The words of the song charge the dark sexuality of Rhys’ writings with the irreducible trace of her early years, the threat of waywardness, the path to the devil.

What a talent, what a career, what a life, and what a treat to relive it all with this most down-to-earth of demigods. Of course not! The whole thing has been ridiculous from start to finish. I wish I’d never asked her in.’ Probably 3.5 stars, but I rounded down because this felt kind of sloppy in the end. It's a mixed bag, and I agreed a lot with Dwight Garner's review in the New York Times, so I'd definitely suggest reading that.For years, I kept hearing about this Jean Rhys and this novel Wide Sargasso Sea. I found a copy of the novel and finally read it, riveted. I loved her reimagining of the ‘mad wife’ in Jane Eyre, Bronte’s story turned into a social commentary about colonialism and the rejection of female sexuality. Much has been written about her time as an exile in 1920s Paris and later, England, but through the biography’s eight sections, which almost mirror movements in a symphony, and provide a chronological thread, Seymour recontextualises her. Rhys has often been cast in melancholy tones, with a focus on her experiences of poverty, alcohol and drug-dependency, and tormented emotional life, and while Seymour is unstinting in her exploration of these factors, she doesn’t let it define the woman who gave us iconic protagonists such as Antoinette Cosway.

I expect it’s changed a lot since you lived here,’ said Sandra searching for a vase. Why is it you can never find the right vase. ‘My husband Raymond built the extension himself.’ Who Knows What's Up in the Attic?": A vacationer in south-east England comes face-to-face with a clothing salesman. Each reappearance seemed to be as a different writer: a woman, a modernist, and finally a West Indian. Crossing the waterOverture and Beginners Please": In this first of four consecutive stories about a pre- World War I Caribbean immigrant named Elsa, the young girl starts at Perse School then becomes a stage star in the midst of an unwanted life. The fact that the woman is in constant movement till she reaches her old home may also have some significance. Rhys could be using the woman’s constant movement to highlight how important it is for an individual to keep moving forward. Though the reality may be that the woman’s destination is most likely the after-life. Something that becomes clearer to the reader by the fact that despite calling out to the two children the woman is not heard or seen by the children. Which adds an element of loneliness to the story. It may also be a case that Rhys is highlighting the fact that the transition from the real world to the after-life can be a lonely journey. Just as the woman may have once struggled on the stepping stones when she was younger. Now in death she may also face a struggle making the transition from the real world to the after-life. It is also possible that the woman is attempting to make an impossible connection with the children. Impossible because she is dead and they cannot see her. Seymour’s approach to the celebrated author of novels such as Good Morning, Midnight and Wide Sargasso Sea is rooted in similar clarity, yet underpinned by an acute empathy that drives her into less obvious corners. The result is an exhaustive, definitive ride around both the idea and the reality of Jean Rhys, and what emerges is a portrait of a contrarian woman, with “the haunted life” that Seymour writes of brought on by tragic and transformative experiences, and Rhys’s own sense of being a ghost haunting her own life. Recontextualised He was glancing past her as she spoke, as if expecting to see his mother’s bag among the old magazines and broken umbrellas.