About the essay question and theme, of the representation of women in the city, I believe Rhys exposes the restrictive attitudes places upon women in the town rather than perpetuating them. Her novels, often showed women as underdogs out to exploit their sexualities, which shows they were ahead of their time. Once Good Morning Midnight was written she lived reclusively and was largely forgotten.
In ‘Good Morning Midnight’ Sasha’s story moves back and forth, her outlook shifting from her time in London to Paris. She remembers when she was married, to the time she was alone. Her life in Paris moves between a range of cafes and bars, places where she was known. And some she wants to stay away from, and areas…show more content…
For example, ‘the woman at the bar gives me one of those looks: what do you want her, you? We don’t cater for tourists here, not our clientele’. This sort of attitude is linked to stereotypes and prejudice. The barkeeps know nothing of Jensen personally by they automatically calculate the person she is from the way she appears. This could suggest that Rhys acknowledges that it is not just men who treat women unequally, but it is also women who degrade one another in the novel too. It also is a sudden example of female on female hostility. Sternlicht sees that 'women in her earlier novels are always hostile, and the protagonist is hostile in return or they repress anger or flee in tears'. (Sternlicht, 98). and throughout the novel in her sour encounters with other women, the reader see's Jansen's prosperity in all three
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