GENDERED URBAN SPACES AND STRANGENESS IN JEAN RHYS’ GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT (1939)

Abstract

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.