In contrast to this Image of thought, Deleuze proposes that the act of thinking involves violence and the new because thinking is an encounter with that which is not yet established and which therefore cannot be recognized or thought, but can only be sensed: the ‘form of recognition has never sanctioned anything but the recognisable and the recognised; form will never inspire anything but conformities’ (DR: 170). Thinking the new, ‘in other words, difference – calls forth forces in thought which are not the forces of recognition, today or tomorrow, but the powers of a completely other model, from an unrecognised and unrecognisable terra incognita’ (DR: 172). Thinking involves an encounter with the limit of one’s faculties which forces thought – an encounter with what Deleuze calls nonrecognition. In Good Morning, Midnight a not recognizing, obfuscation and allusion occupy the place of the Exhibition’s space of ‘image making’ and indicate a way of reading the novel’s difficult final scene as an affirmative if violent encounter with nonrecognition. the inner subjective life of her protagonists never seems to be reconciled with the diktats of the given world. Much of her inventiveness as a writer derives from her capacities to craft a narrative which in itself dramatises and makes evident the workings of these discrepant realities – social and subjective – in all their textured, phenomenological everydayness. Predictably, given Sasha’s paranoia, the meeting proceeds awkwardly. At one point, Mr. Blank inquires about her ability to speak French: Recalling the conversation with Mr. Blank, when asked about her previous job, Sasha refers to herself as a mannequin. This is a fitting term for someone attempting to drift through life unnoticed. It also associates itself perfectly with Sasha’s description of invisibility: vacant and neutral. Mannequins fill department store windows, dressed to the nine’s with the latest fashions. Yet, all of the figures are exactly alike. The eyes, nose, lips, the contour of the face—lifeless; the body, stiff and disposable—all the same. Sasha literally wants to experience life as a mannequin would; which is to say, she wants to feel nothing at all. Paris, ca. 1930 Schwarz, Bill. 2003. ‘Introduction: Crossing the Seas’ in Bill Schwarz, ed., West Indian Intellectuals in Britain(Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 1-30

Good Morning, Midnight Themes | LitCharts Good Morning, Midnight Themes | LitCharts

As discussed previously, there are numerous moments throughout the novel which indicate the sense that Sasha’s routines cannot be the comfort she seeks. Even her rooms no longer ‘hide [her] from the wolves outside:’the emptiness of his surroundings and this new responsibility give him clarity of perspective - he reflects upon his life, all of the opportunities he let slip by him, the irony of his determination to be remembered in a world in which no one is left to remember. Serge is an eccentric painter who lives in Paris. Delmar introduces Sasha to him one day as a way of helping her make friends to distract her from her sorrow and loneliness. The three of… His second goodbye is final and Sasha’s mind, already teetering on the edge of insanity, begins its slow, unavoidable journey to self-destruction. “Did I love Enno at the end? Did he ever love me? I don’t know. Only, it was after that that I began to go to pieces. Not all at once, of course. First this happened, and then that happened” (143). This would seem to indicate a small breakthrough. After all, Sasha admits that she does not care what other people think of her hat. However, she still takes the time to observe the faces of the other patrons in the restaurant. If she really did not care what they thought, she would not have bothered to look for their reactions. More disturbing still, as Joy Castro argues in her critical essay, “Jean Rhys,” Sasha’s attempts at transformation “can be seen as a complete erasure of Sasha’s personality.” Castro sees Sasha’s hair dye, in particular, as the “final relinquishment of individual vision, of the ability to perceive (if not control) her own life in an original way” (20). I think: ‘Is it the blue dressing-gown, or the white one? That’s very important. I must find out—it’s very important.’

Good Morning, Midnight Quotes by Jean Rhys - Goodreads Good Morning, Midnight Quotes by Jean Rhys - Goodreads

In Sasha’s mind, Mr. Blank is no different than Rene, or the old man who continually haunts her from the hotel room next door. Her life, to this point, has been a continual line of men who have harmed her in some way. Sasha perceives all of these men to be one entity, to whom she assigns a different mask. Therefore, we have “Mr. Blank”, “the gigolo”, “the commis”, and so forth. Then what are you afraid of? Tell me. I’m interested. Of men, of love?...What, still?...Impossible.’ This essay focuses on the manifestation of Nazism at the Exposition, but other forms of 1930s totalitarian politics feature in the text: Franco's brand of nationalism, for example, isa presence in this novel. I use the term fascism to refer to Nazism and also, following Holden (1999), to the political logics of supremacy, uniformity, rationalisation and domination which determine various oppressive systems and practices. Given Sasha’s inability to physically mask herself to satisfaction, her relationships with men—the root of her mental disarray— prove disastrous. Consider, again, Mr. Blank. Having already botched their initial meeting, Sasha describes a later incident wherein she is summoned to his office and asked to deliver a letter to the cashier. She misinterprets his German, and finds herself walking in circles, unsure of who to deliver the letter to: “Kise—kise . . . It doesn’t mean a thing to me. He’s got me in such a state that I can’t imagine what it can mean” (25).

Sasha once again reminisces about her relationship with Enno. They got married on a whim in London, got drunk that night, and traveled to Amsterdam. They each thought the other had a lot of money, but they were both wrong. Amsterdam was enjoyable, but Enno kept talking about how much better life would be for them once they got to Paris. After a few days, they hastily set off for Paris but ended up getting stranded in Brussels because they had almost no money. Thankfully, Sasha remembered a man she once went out with who lived in Brussels, so she borrowed money from him (enduring an uncomfortable kiss from him as a result). I find it a bit scary that I sometimes during this book felt that I could relate so much to this, I find, messed up character. In the minds of two extraordinary scientists .... that are essentially left alone - they are left to contemplate the meaning of life and death. recognition is insignificant only as a speculative model. It ceases to be so with regard to the ends which it serves and to which it leads us. What is recognised is not only an object but also the values attached to an object.

Jean Rhys | Books | The Guardian Where to start with: Jean Rhys | Books | The Guardian

Admittedly, there are a number of beautiful and honest moments in the novel in terms of the writing itself, but all in all, Good Morning, Midnight was unsatisfactory. Even in the works of some of my favourite, dark and most misanthropic of writers, there is normally some purpose, something disturbing that jars us out of our complacency and allows us to see the human condition in a new light, but unfortunately, that is not the case here. People masquerade as themselves all the time; the mythology of self-imitation stretches from ancient India to Hollywood and prevails in real life as well as fiction, which is sometimes, contrary to public opinion, stranger than truth. (102)But I don’t believe things change much really; you only think they do. It seems to me that things repeat themselves over and over again.” Author Lily Brooks-Dalton has chosen as a means by which to demonstrate this idea a post-apocalyptic setting, similar in style and theme with The Martian and Station Eleven. The author divides her narrative into two related plots: one centering on an elderly astronomer left alone on a polar scientific station and the second a group of astronauts of the space ship Aether returning to earth after a two year voyage to Jupiter. Both have shut themselves off from their families for the sake of their work and both are paradoxically affected by the loss of communication with the rest of civilization after an apparent global catastrophe. I really enjoyed this article and you raise many interesting psychoanalytical points. I haven’t actually read the text, its collecting dust in my “to read” pile, but this article has spurred me to make it my next book. Jean Rhys herself seems to be an intriguing person and I loved Wide Sargasso Sea, so I feel hopefully intrigued by GMM. On an additional note, I love the usage of Eliot’s poem here – it works really well. Thanks for this great analysis.

Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys - BBC

I had meant to get this man to talk to me and tell me all about it, and then to be so devastatingly English that perhaps I should manage to hurt him a little in return for all the many times I’ve been hurt . . . ‘Because I think you won’t betray me, because I think you won’t betray me . . .’ Now it won’t be so easy. (73) Sasha refuses to recognize the values of the spectacle’s politics. Turning to Deleuze's critique, we can read the blind spot in the place of the Exhibition as a denunciation of the three main elements of the Image of thought: the ‘image of a naturally upright thought, which knows what it means to think’, an ‘in principle natural common sense’, and a ‘transcendental model of recognition’ (DR: 170). Sasha’s detached ‘schoolmistress’s voice’ that underscores her nonunitary subjectivity, Delmar's and René’s anti-Semitism, René’s relegation of the Star of Peace to something ‘mesquin’ (meaning petty or mean), and the nature of the absent spectacle itself constitute Rhys’s modernist version of the denial of the first two elements. The world of this Exhibition allows no room for difference except as that which is at best secondary, relegated to categorised representations of the exotic ‘other’, and at worst that which is unacceptable for the totalitarian state. Recognition of any sort would be the adoption of an epistemology according to a model of dominant visuality and the denigration of difference. Sasha’s refusal to see the Exhibition is an almost laying bare of the identity-centered function of the third element, the model of recognition which ‘remains sovereign and defines the orientation of the philosophical analysis of what it means to think’ (DR: 171). Her blindness is a refusal to orient her thought solely towards identity and opposition, analogy and resemblance. There seems to be adequate reason to judge Sasha’s aesthetic response a philosophical one rather than as just the absence of her knowledge or thought, although this absence may perhaps, as in the episode with Mr Blank, form the condition of the act of thinking: Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone.” Nicolas Delmar is a Russian man whom Sasha meets in Paris. As she’s walking home one night, Delmar and another Russian man call out to her and ask why she’s so sad. They then fall…

Works Cited

Before I can get any further he bursts into a shout of laughter, ‘What did I tell you?’ he says to Delmar. And how did Sully’s parents - emotionally and physically distant - affect the way she treated her own daughter? Then I put my arms round him and pull him down on to my bed, saying: ‘Yes—yes—yes . . .’ (190) Jean Rhys