Clothing

For me, one of the most interesting quotes of the novel would have to be “It's funny, he said, have you ever thought that a girl's clothes cost more than the girl inside them?”. Clothing in the novel seems to be a big thing, where some of the girls described are judged based upon some of the gowns that they are wearing. The pictures that I chose are more upscale gowns that would be worn for a night out. 

Stockings in the 1920's

Stockings are talked about a few times throughout the book. The second time we read about stockings is when Anna is buying stockings at the store with Maudie, Walter, and Walter's friend. Anna says ¨I said I wanted two pairs- lisle thread with clocks up the sides- and took time choosing them. The man I had been walking with offered to pay for them and I let him."(11). Walter references the stocking shopping in the first letter that he sends to Anna. One of the things that she buys with the money from Walter is a pair of silk stockings.
I couldn't find an ad for Lisle thread stockings, but there were many advertisements for both silk and non-silk stockings. Stockings were a very important part of a woman's wardrobe in the 20's, and the kind that one wore showed status. The silk stockings are aimed at upper-class women, and women who are glamorous and have sex appeal. Non-silk stockings were for the everyday housewife and middle and lower class woman

Sentimental Prints

"There were stags' heads stuck up all over the dining-room of the hotel. The one over our table was as big as a cow's. Its enormous glass eyes stared past us. In the bedroom there were prints-'The Sailor's Farewell', 'The Sailor's Return', 'Reading the Will', and 'Conjugal Affection'. They had a calm, sleepy look, as if they were drawings of stuffed figures-the women very tall and plump and smiling and tidy and the men with long legs and bushy whiskers; but the placid shapes of the trees made you feel that that time must have been a good time" (77). 

Throughout the novel, Anna misses her home in the West Indies and is treated poorly by men. She finds herself drifting, and her days are made up of streets, bars, and rooms in hotels, many of which have drawings on the walls. In this scene, Walter has brought her to the country and she is observing the drawings hanging in the bedroom. I think being able to see these pictures and understand what they are of better helps us read the character of Anna. With the exception of Reading the Will, all of the pictures are rather intimate portrayals of either lovers or a family; all things which Anna longs for. So having these pictures be the ones that are hanging in her bedroom and what she sees may help us to better understand what she is going through. 

The Sailor's Farewell was produced in 1790 by British landscape and genre painter George Morland.  Young lovers are shown bidding farewell on the seashore, with their forms set against a dramatic background. 

The Sailor's Return was produced by Thomas Stothard and the engraver on the piece was William Ward in 1798. 

Reading the Will was produced by Sir David Wilkie in 1819. 

Conjugal Affection was produced by Robert Smirke in 1799. 

                                                                                                                                                                                 

The Sailors Farewell, c. 1790

Conjugal Affection, c. 1799.

The Sailor's Return, c. 1799

Reading the Will, c. 1819

Voyage in the Dark and the Book of Dirty Pictures

In Voyage of the Dark, there is a time near the end when Anna stayed with Laurie for several days around the time of her abortion. Several men visit them during this time, including a French man named d'Adhémar who Laurie refers to as Daddy around this time. He tells Laurie that he has "a marvellous book of dirty pictures" (170). However when they actually look through it, Laurie says, "I'm disappointed . . . I don't call that hot stuff. Is that book really worth a lot of money? All I say is, some people don't know what to do with their money" (170). 

Upon looking up Aubrey Beardsley, whom the book of dirty pictures is by, I found that his works were not necessarily supposed to be dirty so much as a parody of Victorian art. Although most of the images are extremely vulgar and inappropriate, it is simply because of the body parts which are visible, not because it actually showed many sexual acts or scenes. One of these such books was called A Book of Fifty Drawings and came out in 1897. It featured grotesque erotic and enormous genitalia, along with images of mythology and demons.

One of the drawings the girls might have looked at and thought that it was not "hot stuff" is called Mysterious Rose Garden. It features a naked woman and a man in flowery robes and winged shoes. However, the art style seems to be making the woman a somewhat strange shape, not entirely realistic, which decreases her attractiveness. It reminds me of Greek mythology because of the man's robes and shoes and Hermes was said to wear winged sandals. 

Many of these drawings showed problems with society so Anna and Laurie looking at them was ironic, because of the fact that they could have been seen as some of the women in these drawings. Anna became pregnant from having coitus before marriage, which is a possibility for this young woman as well, as you can assume that she and the man had sexual intercourse in the "mysterious rose garden."

Anna's Recollection of a Biscuit Advertisement (Huntley & Palmers Co)

Anna is lying in bed and thinking of an advertisement featuring “Biscuits Like Mother Makes, as Fresh in the Tropics as in the Motherland.” She proceeds to give a very detailed description of how this advertisement looked. Her recollection was very precise, direct and accomplished the goal it was set out to do. The visual imagery created from this scene was very effective. The children and how they were dressed, the surrounding environment, the colors of the clothes and nature in general, every feature, even down to the little boy looking over his shoulder…she did not fail to cover every minute detail. The reader cannot see the actual tangible picture, but through her description, the reader is able to achieve the parallel and linear connection she is attempting to form. Anna then makes sure to point out the wall and the darkness it represents. The representation is then further taken to stand for England itself and how she saw the country. She does not see herself as native or part of the country, in fact the wall (England) is the barrier that precludes her from really embracing her true identity. The picture gives this one perception of infinite possibilities where the sky is the limit; however it carries this double meaning where your limits are only as far as the motherland allows and your identity is really not your own.

One major biscuit company in Britain was known as The Huntley & Palmers Co. They started in 1822 as a small bakery in London Street, Reading. By 1900 it was the largest biscuit manufacturer in the world, employing over 5,000. Reading became known as the “biscuit town.” By 1903 it was producing over 400 different varieties. This would suggest that the taste of the British people was in a constant state of change and the company made sure to keep up with the demand. They even went international (you will see this displayed from the Chinese advertisement). By the 1930’s they were advertising on the radios and they even had pocket calendars, diaries and envelopes (see below for images). They were very aggressive advertisers. It was no wonder that Anna recalled this image. They were everywhere. They legacy is still around today but under a different name. They are no longer a Reading company. In 2004 the brand was re-launched after being sold by Danone to a new company.

Voyage in the Dark, Jean Rhys, pgs. 148-149 

http://www.huntleyandpalmers.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.exe?a=file&p=huntley&f=huntley.htm

Picture 1 - Pocket Calendar in French

Picture 2 - Advertisement in Chinese

Picture 3 - Advertisement in English

Picture 4 - Advertisement Leaflet

Picture 5 - Pocket Calendar in English

Longman Magazine and other things

Jean Rhys' character Anna Morgan when having a meal with her step-mother, Hester, observes a stack of magazines. Rhys writes, “There was a chest in the corner where the drinks were kept and a sideboard ranged with glasses. And the bookshelf with Walter Scott and a lot of old Longmans’ Magazines, so old that the pages were yellow” (70).It is significant that Rhys mentions these magazines. Longmans Magazine is a magazine that ran monthly beginning in 1882 by C.J. Longman and ended in 1905. The magazine was under the publication of Longman, Green and Co. of London. (wikipedia). The Magazine heavily published men such as Thomas Hardy, James Payn and featured Andrew Lang. The one notable female contributed that they published was Margaret Oliphant, a Scottish writer characterized as a domestic realism. Overall the Magazine featured a lot of writers influenced by Romanticism and other literary movements that pre-dates modernism. I believe that it is significant that Rhys is making note of Longmans Magazine because it is a magazine that heavily are relent on members of pase literary movements compared to Rhys' time and that are heavily controlled by men. The two things in Morgans’ life that seems to be oppressing her. Additionally Rhys make note of Walter Scott, and late 18th-century Scottish writer. In Rhys referring to these writers that are outside the mainland Britian she is hinting to the alienation of Morgans. Finally, when Rhys adds the detail that they are yellow, Rhys demonstrates the traditional nature of patriarchy, movements like realism and romanticism along with alienation of a non-mainland British citizen still experiences. 

Oddenino's and Melvin Giddeon

Oddenino's was a hotel and restaurant located at 62 Regent Street, London. From the looks of it it was pretty fancy and upscale. I found a reference to this on page 118 in Voyage in the Dark, where it says "We met Carl and Joe at Oddenino's. Melvin Giddeon was at the piano; he was singing rather well."
Finding the images of the hotel restaurant gives me an idea of just how fancy some of these places were that Anna was getting gentlemen to take her to. It honestly gives me a slightly different opinion of her. Before looking up the images, I kind of felt sorry for her, she really seems very depressed. Admittedly I feel less sorry for her after seeing where these guys are taking her.

Melvin Giddeon was an American ragtime musician who composed music for Broadway musicals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melville_Gideon). There is a youtube clip of him from 1933 right before he died that I will attempt to embed at the bottom. Gideon had an upbeat jazzy sound, which also gives me a slightly different impression of Anna. Hearing the music this character was listening to, creates an image all its own. This is a trendy, hip, restaurant bringing over this star from America. I am now more picturing Lorelei Lee from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes- who was truly a stereotypical gold digger of the same era only in America. I guess I am now seeing Anna as less pathetic and more of a gold digger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oK_XvCO7Ak

Cries of London

     Part Three of Jean Rhys' Voyage in the Dark begins with the protagonist Anna visiting Miss Ethel Matthews. The section of the book begins "There were the Cries of London in the dining room. I remember the way they hung, and the bowl of water in front of the gas-fire, and always a plate of oranges in the middle of the table, and two armchairs with chintz cushions..." (139). In her memory of Ethels' house Anna remembers the Cries of London hanging on the wall which were a series of prints published between 1792 and 1796 (http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~awoodley/cries/) by William Marshall Craig and later engraved by Edward Edwards (http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-cries-of-london). The subjects of these prints were street traders/venders in London who were pictured "hawking" cherries, mackerel, oranges, strawberries, matches, roses, chair mending services, and knife sharpening. The prints are called the "cries" because the venders would typically sing out songs about the product they were selling in an attempt to attact buyers (http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~awoodley/cries/chairs.html). I think this is very interesting as our discussion of Voyage in the Dark has centered on the ideas of material culture, commodification, and the exchange of money. I can imagine that Anna’s necessary fixation of her next endeavor to earn money would cause her to pay special attention to prints that represent economic exchange. Since these prints were fairly common as reproduced engravings one can imagine that Anna would have experienced these images numerous times which parallels her fixation of the acquisition of wealth. Also, in the novel Anna quickly acknowledges the paintings of people earning an honest living before refocusing her attention on the conversation with Ethel about finding a job as a masseuse. I believe there could be some commentary on the fact that the thought of earning a living on her own merit, rather than sleeping with men for money, seems unattainable to Anna which causes her to switch her attention to a new topic so quickly.  Rhys presents the ideas of professions of street vending and massaging in the same page which seems to overwhelm Anna. 

        

Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys

Anna Morgans obsession with wanting to be black, I believe stems from her being from the West Indies and immediately being “othered” once she lives in the mainland British. Anna tries to find if she has a little bit of black in her by claiming that her mother was black. Voyage in The Dark with having his aspect in the story very much remains me of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre character Bertha.  

            Voyage in the Dark clearly speaks  the alienation that one feels once they become a part of the mainland British Empire. The novel speaks this idea because Anne much like Bertha is placed in the mainland British Empire, used by the men there and then in the end, is placed as a sexual outcast. We see the begins of Anna’s alienation when women call her a “Hottentot” which refers to the name give to Africans. However, because Anna was referred to as a Hottentot because she is women it conjures up the idea of the “Hottentot Venus”, a African woman that was put on displayed during this time period and very much stereotyped as a sexual being and later denounce in British culture. Therefore, it is not hard to understand why Anna became a “whore”. In essence, Anna because of her alienation her adheres to her friends’ belief of what a relationship and becomes that in essence. In the end, Voyage in the Dark is not a simple romantic novel, like Jane Eyre has been originally interpreted as, it is a novel about imperialism much like Jane Eyre. 

On the back of the copy of Voyage in the Dark that I have, one critic says "...so remote from mainstream idiom of English social fiction that it seems miraculous that they should be able to write like that and be British too. Jean Rhys is such a writer."

This in particular stood out to me because I could not agree more. Thus far, we have not experienced a character that has grown up in a colony and moved to England, only to face their demise. However, in Rhys' novel, that is exactly what we get. The title of the novel, Voyage in the Dark, to me, seems very reminiscent of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness that we read earlier in the semester. However, instead of traveling from England to the dark and savagely described colonies, Anna Morgan travels through darkness and despair in England. The colonies in the West Indies where she grew up are described in a light and innocent way while England is described in a foreign and depressing way.

Anna's character represents the tension in the relationship between wanting to be integrated into modern, English society and wanting to maintain ones own identity. Anna is clearly caught between two worlds: finding herself isolation emotionally and socially from those around her, making it difficult for her to reconcile her heritage in both the West Indies and England. The way the novel is narrated, through first person, bring together both the past and the present in Anna's world. In addition, Anna's interior thoughts and narration convey a sort of dreamlike stream, which both detaches and destabilizes the narrative. In turn, putting an emphasis on Anna's detachment from English society.

Anna and self expression

Anna narrates her story in a linear fashion from the beginning, when she meets Walter, to the end when she has an abortion and falls ill. However, Anna interrupts the progression with recollections of the past, usually from her own thoughts, but also from her conversation with Hester in Part 1, Chapter 6. These interruptions fill in some of the holes in Anna’s past and give the reader a better sense of the experience of Constance Estate as Anna and Hester remember it differently. The recollections and breaks into the past are described with a syntax that resembles Virginia Woolf’s style of writing. For example, on page 41, Anna begins thinking about her home in a series of run-on sentences and fragmented descriptions and dialogues that represent a personal description. The same occurs in Part 3, Chapter 2 when Anna recollects the road to Constance Estate. The descriptions are narrated almost “colloquially”, as far as literature can be considered colloquial, which is interesting because Anna’s participation in dialogue with other characters is more formal and not nearly as descriptive. During her conversation with Walter about Constance Estate in Part 1 Chapter 5, Walter concedes, "I'm sure it's beautiful", to which Anna responds simply, "Yes," and then changes the subject, "On the other hand, if England is beautiful, it's not beautiful. It's some other world. It all depends, doesn't it?" (52). Anna not only changes the subject from the Estate to England, but is not very clear about what she wants to say. In her narrative descriptions, however, Anna is more descriptive. She remembers the moss on the Estate house, as well as the roses, orchids and honeysuckle. She even remembers a specific slave's name, "Maillotte Boyd, aged 18, mulatto, house servant", but only reckons to Walter that "I saw an old slave list at Constance once", and "All those names written down, It's funny, I've never forgotten it". It is almost as if she has these thoughts constantly running through her mind, which the reader has limited access to through her narration, and which the other characters have even less access to because of her cautiousness and self-conscious behavior in formal conversation. This is precisely the case in the fourth and final part of the book, when Anna’s thoughts and observations are lengthy and italicized, but all she can manage to say to her peers is “I’m giddy” and “I fell”.

I’m wondering how the way Anna struggles to put her thoughts into words and therefore her inability to turn her words into actions can be attributed to her being a woman, psychologically, socially, geographically, etc.?

Disorientation in Voyage in the Dark

I didn't think anything could possibly be more confusing than Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. I was wrong. The streams of consciousness here mixed with conversations in the present tense are really disorienting. In the beginning of chapter 5 Rhys starts off with "Next evening we got back to Green Street about eleven o'clock" --I had no idea who she was talking about at first.  She had left off chapter 4 with Anna talking to Maudie. Rather than set the reader up for a piece of the story or the next plot move, Rhys dives right into it and leaves the reader to piece it together. It feels a bit like a cubist painting - fragmented and disorienting. What interests me most about that though is the way it makes the character seem very real.  Anna as a character is not a perfect person. She's not good, and I feel sort of sorry for her, and sort of not - she just seems real. People think she is lazy and using men, but I think she is just doing what she has to do. There is also a disorientation to the wealth Anna seems to have come from - though Hester tells her Morgan's Rest was a money pit, and the degraded station in life she is forced into in England.  Even though she was working- it was clear that it was work for the lowest of the low. So often it seems that novels are about young girls rising in class not lowering in class. This novel seems to take a nose-dive into this dark depressing poverty that goes out of control with the pregnancy and abortion and the drinking. In the last part of the novel so much of it feels like a drunken haze to me. 

Who is Anna?

      Anna would seem like a woman who is using whatever means necessary to obtain what she needs, especially by way of men. But my concern comes in when society paints the woman as the major culprit and does not place any responsibility on the man. It is a pandemic that has plagued the world since Adam blamed Eve in the garden. Although she has her part to play in her situation and is solely responsible for her actions as an adult, for it only to be seen as her and not the men who are actively participating as well and not tagging their reputations and scarring their names is something that is an ever growing problem. Both parties are equally accountable for the choices they make and should be held as such. I am not saying that Anna should not have made better decisions. There is always a better way of doing things. At first Anna had real genuine feelings for Walter. When things fell off and her friends started talking to her about how she should deal with men, she changed her perspective. Some people are more easily influenced and more susceptible to suggestion and Anna was one of these individuals. After being heartbroken, her friends advice sounded like wisdom and she learned to operate under this premise. Anna is a woman who finds herself in a situation that is bleak and dire. Her acting career is not taking off like she wants it too, her love life has taken a dive and now she yearns for what she is missing. The easiest way to do it was through the tactics suggested by her friends, which ended up in an unwanted pregnancy, of which she took care of by way of abortion. The doctor even went as far as to tell her that it was not the end of life for her and that she would be able to pick herself up and move past it. Anna's story is like the typical lifetime movie special on a Sunday Night.

Skilless or Lazy?

When we first meed Anna she is touring with a theater company. At first she seems like a girl who is working hard to make a life for herself, but that view of her quickly changes. Once she meets Walter she becomes almost like a leech. She decides not to go back on tour because she has Walter to pay for everything. Her land ladies throughout the novel seem to always complain about her and often eventually kick her out for one reason or another. Often they don't agree with Anna's lifestyle, the way that she treats her landladies like servants, or how she keeps her room. Anna seems to take this in stride, not really caring and just finding a  new place to live. She is happy as long as she has a man paying her way, but once she is on her own she sulks. She complains about being tired all the time, stays in bed late, and makes no effort to pay her own way. Often she doesn't even find her new man on her own. Usually one of her friends introduces them. Even once Anna is living with Ethel ans supposed to be helping with the business she does as little as she can, and again Ethel gets fed up and she is sent away yet again. Once she is pregnant she continues to leech off of others. She stays with Laurie, who finds her the woman to perform the abortion, she gets the money from her first man, Walter and his brother. The last part was slightly confusing, and I had to re-read it, but one thing that was clear was that right up to the end of the book she is relying on others to help her.

Mistresses in Novels

If it hadn't been for the recent look at some modernist journals, I would have thought that this novel told a very risqué story for the time period in which it was written. However, the journals made me realize that people from the past were far more accepting than we think today.

The book also gave insight into the life of a mistress. I have read several books in the past that include and/or mention mistresses, but I don't think I've ever read a book from the point of view of one of those mistresses. This novel sheds light on the woes of the many women who were seen as upper class women in sense of status, but money-wise, they were at the bottom. Women like this who are pretty enough would sometimes manage to snag a husband who had enough money or a decent paying job, but otherwise, women were often tossed around among the unmarried upper class until they got pregnant, found some sort of decent job or house to latch onto, or maybe died.

Considering the circumstances, it might have been a good idea to try to get pregnant in order to guarantee money from a guy, however men would not always acknowledge their child which would put the mother in an even worse spot than she had been before. Overall, Anna Morgan was quite lucky in her endeavors, all things considered, although they might have been hinting that she was dying at the end which would not have been good.

Economic exchanges in Voyage in the Dark

As the world renown artist Kanye West once said “ I ain’t saying she a gold digger, but she ain’t messing with no broke *man*”.  I could not help but to think of West’s lyrics when reading Jean Rhys’ Voyage in the Dark as Anna and her friend Laurie navigate the world of getting men to pay for everything in their entire lives. It seems as if the characters in the novel have some level of acceptance for the idea that young women like Anna and Laurie don’t have personal skills or abilities that can support their lives so they must turn to sleeping with wealthy (likely married) men who can take care of their finances. One early example comes in the beginning of the novel when Anna’s friend Maudie recommends “ I don’t want to interfere, kid, but you really ought. The more you swank the better. If you don’t swank a bit nothing’s any use. If he;s a rich man and he’s keeping you, you ought to make him get you a nice flat up West somewhere and furnish it for you. Then you’d have something.” (45).  Maudie expects that Anna will follow her life path that consists of dressing up well to attract the most affluent “suitors” (for lack of a better work) and then squeezing them for every penny she could. In economic and materialistic terms the novel pervades the idea that one as a human (especially the female characters) are literally able to be bought and possessed by men if only they have the proper amount of money.  As page 46 mentions “You can get a very nice girl for five pounds, a very nice girl indeed…People are much cheaper than things” (46).  In the novel there is some convoluted understanding of “love” and “relationship” in which the men pay the women for their company (mainly sex) and the women rely on the men until “he got sick of me and chucked me. I wish I were dead” (115). Here Anna shows one of the downsides to her lifestyle which typically involved limitless money being that the men would often use the girls until they got bored and moved on. Not only would the women be rejected in the terms of any feelings they had developed for the men, but they also would have to find a new source of income.