So, how is the dissertation going?

I am still at work on Chapter 1, Jean Rhys. The first part of the chapter on Voyage in the Dark is essentially done, until I get some feedback. I am now working the second half of the chapter on Quartet. I think this novel is a favorite and might be the one I recommend to readers who have never encountered Rhys's work before. For Voyage, I argue that Rhys uses the photographic form as a way to implicitly criticizes the ability of a photograph to capture a subject. For example, Rhys points that the characters are oppressed by what I call a tyranny of sameness - all the places and all the people seem exactly the same, like photographic reproductions where there is no original, only copies of copies.




In the part of the chapter about Quartet, I refer to a concept called "appearing" that I read about in a fascinating book, The Spectacular Modern Woman by Liz Conor. This concept is influenced by photography but not reliant on the mechanized reproduction of an image. Conor explains that “‘appearing’ describes how the changed conditions of feminine visibility in modernity invited a practice of the self which was centered on one’s visual status.” Conor additionally argues that modern experience in the 1920s was based on an “alteration in human perception through visual technologies…the visual realm…became a primary site for contesting…identity” and that, as a result, “for women…the performance of their gendered identity had to take place within the modern spectacularization of everyday life.” In other words, for Rhys and her modern female counterparts, everyday life is a performance where a woman must be aware that she is being seen, even if the medium that records such a performance is absent.

I will also be discussing the mannequin in relation to this concept of appearing but you will have to wait until next time to learn more about that.