Female and Creole in London: Jean Rhys' Anna Morgan and Sasha Jansen

This final paper examines the complexities of female Creole identity through an analysis of Rhys’s two protagonists: Anna Morgan in Voyage in the Dark and Sasha Jansen in Good Morning, Midnight. Due to their colonial background, both protagonists struggle with fragmented identities and experience profound alienation within the imperial metropolis. Through the lens of postcolonial, feminist and modernist frameworks, this paper explores how Rhys’s protagonists navigate social and cultural marginalization as white Creole women. In an attempt to find a sense of belonging in their metropolitan home, they are consistently met with prejudices and exclusion. Anna and Sasha are outsiders within the British social hierarchy and, paradoxically, also estranged from their Caribbean communities. Moreover, the paper analyses how clothing, language, and femininity function as performative tools under the constant metropolitan gaze. Both Anna and Sasha are aware of the importance of appearance and understand that failure to conform can result in further exclusion. Their appearance shapes their social status, and their bodies are objectified under patriarchal and racialized scrutiny. The analysis highlights Rhy’s critique of the exhibitionist culture that commodifies female and colonial identities. Rhys challenges simplistic and stereotypical representations of Creole women by exposing how the intersection of gender, race, and class reinforces their marginality. Rhys’s use of recurring imagery of bleak, monotonous urban spaces – identical hotels, endless streets, and confining rooms – reflects the psychological effect of displacement and alienation. Ultimately, the paper emphasizes the importance of recognising the intersection of gender, race and displacement in understating the complex position of white Creole women in imperial Britain. In doing so, it affirms Jean Rhys’s contribution to feminist and postcolonial literary discourse.