Open AccessGENDERED URBAN SPACES AND STRANGENESS IN JEAN RHYS’ GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT (1939)
Author(s) -
Carla Martínez del Barrio
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
odisea
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2174-1611
pISSN - 1578-3820
DOI - 10.25115/odisea.v0i22.5485
Subject(s) - midnight , liminality , subjectivity , morning , aesthetics , sociology , gender studies , order (exchange) , history , visual arts , art , epistemology , philosophy , astronomy , medicine , economics , physics , finance
This article analyses Jean Rhys’ 1939 novel Good Morning, Midnight from the standpoint of spatial and gender theory. Firstly, it explores the portrayal of gendered spaces in the modern city. In order to do so, it examines how Sasha Jensen challenges spatial constraints but is then identified as a stranger to the social order. Secondly, a parallelism between the urban automatisation of production and the female body is established to explore how consumer culture affects Sasha. Finally, it examines how the influence that Sasha’s fractured subjectivity has on her social encounters, which situate her on a liminal space.