Ferocious Things: Jean Rhys and the Politics of Womenâs Melancholia

Product Description Itâs fatal making a fuss ... . -Jean Rhys, Quartet. Cathleen Maslenâs Ferocious Things: Jean Rhys and the Politics of Womenâs Melancholia closely engages with the most obvious theme of Rhysâs writing: the speaking and inscription of feminine anguish. Maslen resists easy generalisations with respect to Rhysâs portrayal of womenâs psychic pain, attending carefully to the nuances of sexual, cultural and ethnic displacement which inform the suffering of Rhysâs protagonists. Acknowledging the many fine recent critical engagements with Rhysâs unique corpus of novels, Maslen insists that Rhysâs particular articulation of womenâs pain presents a significant literary transgression, defying the intractable cultural interdiction against women âmaking a fuss.â At the same time, this book engages with the problematic privileging of melancholic and nostalgic discourse in the Western canon in general. Rhysâs work, Maslen argues, simultaneously celebrates and resists fundamentally Eurocentric and anti-feminist paradigms of melancholia and nostalgia. In short, the ferocious melancholia of Jean Rhysâs female voices poses constructive paradoxes and points of departure for feminist and post-colonial debates in the 21st century. Review âThis book pursues an original and fascinating analysis of melancholic identification in Rhysâs fiction ... one of the pleasures of reading this book was Maslenâs excellent and subtle reading of the texts, again and again giving new and sophisticated explications of how they workâ. Helen Carr âRhysâs heroines have always been a problem for feminist critics ... this book offers a way to read both the profound alienation of these heroines and also Rhysâs narratives with their gaps between female subjective experience and brittle satirical surfaces.❠Coral Ann Howells âAt all times deeply engaging ... this book is a major contribution to Rhys scholarship and is sure to establish Rhys â rightly â as a major, deeply moving and critical writer within the melancholic tradition.â Sue Thomas --Not available About the Author Cathleen Maslen was born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1973. She graduated with a PhD from the University of Western Australia in 2006. Cathleen is the author of many essays on melancholia and mourning theory, and has published articles and lectures on these themes. Currently, Cathleen teaches contemporary literature, cultural theory and Renaissance studies at the University of Western Australia. Cathleen lives with her young daughter in the port city of Fremantle, Western Australia.