The “Problem” of Modernism: How Rhys’ Voyage in the Dark harbours William’s cultural theories.
Jean Rhys’ Voyage in the Dark was written in 1934. The novel is centered around the young protagonist, Anna Morgan, who is moved to England from her West Indies homeland following her fathers death, as well as her spiraling experiences. Many scholars claim that Voyage in the Dark is Rhys’ most autobiographical novel, as she, too, was born in Dominica and moved to England in her adolescence. The novel broods on various themes, exploring sexuality, cultural integration, relationships, but is predominantly centered on the concept of belonging. Rhys wrote the novel in the early 1930s. Postcolonial thinkers classify the period as one of great socio-cultural transformation: a shift in the character of the metropolis. England no longer maintained the imperial grip over its territories, and saw the start of its imperial decline. At the same time, the impact of capitalist developments and the long-term effects of imperialism itself resulted in a less socio-culturally partitioned metropolis, as urban areas saw a diversification of the people that constituted them.
Raymond Williams, the cultural theorist, published The Politics of Modernism: Against the New Conformists in 1989. Within this work, Williams addresses the problem of modernism and is particularly intrigued by the ambivalent relationship between culture and the artistic avant-garde and their new position in the metropolis. Williams frames his argument into one that extends beyonds the limitations of postmodernism’s “new conformism,” breaking the framework of discussion from the bounds of merely stylistic analysis and highlights the intricate relationships that formed modernist thought. Williams’ central argument contends that although modernism is defined by critics as a distinctive movement – in its deliberate challenge and rejection of tradition – a more accurate description acknowledges its internal diversity of both style and form. Williams claims that modernism is always immediately interpreted by its rupture from the past, rather than a progression. It is, as he claims, “a competitive sequence” rather than a decisive break. For Williams, the terms ‘modern’ and ‘modernism’ that categorize the thought of “an undifferentiated twentieth century world,” is reductionary and “archaic.” As such, an analysis of Rhys’ novel must consider the continued forms and themes as well as the new.
Williams argues that to see “a present beyond the modern [is to see] how, in the past, the absolute modern was formed.” Williams claims that there exists a “factual persistence [of] universals” – “aesthetic, intellectual, and psychological” products of the late 19th century – that are carried forward in modernist texts. These universals are the result of metropolitan and industrial developments which express themselves into literary themes, consisting of: a crowd unknown and isolated from its observer, a collapse of normal relationships and the psychological relationship “between the city and a form of agonized consciousness.” Rhys’ novel embodies these different themes ubiquitously throughout text. Anna is not entirely a metropolitan subject, and not entirely colonial one: she belongs to both and none. Thrown into the city, Rhys reveals the psychological impact upon its newcomer. The ouverture begins: “A curtain had fallen, hiding everything I had ever known. It was almost like being born again. The colours were different, the smells different, the feeling (...) different.” The theatrical imagery of the “curtain…, fallen” is a paradoxical opening-closing to the novel, as Rhys already subjects the reader to disjunctions in temporality. Rhys presents two antithetical images: a falling curtain, representative of darkness and closure, with resurrection (“like being born again”). In doing so, Rhys subverts the abstraction of rebirth, suggesting that Anna is not born to possibility and hope, but rather remains eternally entrapped in the grips of the metropolis. And so, the impact of the city extends beyond the physical, and hides everything Anna has “ever known.” Not only does she recognize the external changes of “colors,” “smells,” but the metropolis alters her state of consciousness and memory.
In addition, Williams’ concept of the “crowd” and binary city-psyche relationship is reflected in Rhys’ description of London:
A curtain fell and then I was here. … This is England and I watched it through the train-window divided into squares (...) … hundreds thousands of white people white people rushing along and the dark houses all alike frowning down one after the other all alike all stuck (...) dark houses frowning down.
Yet again, Rhys implements the motif of the falling curtain: metropolitan life causes its subjects to live their lives in scenes, as actors on the urban stage, bound by futile cyclicality of daily life. Williams’ argument that both modernism and pre-modernism subvert the “vitality (...) of the city” into one of “psychological agony,” is supported by Rhys’ personification of the “dark houses” that frown upon the “hundred thousands.” The city and its people are separate beings yet seem to antagonize one another: the houses are frustrated at the people between them while the crowd detects their hostility. There is a consistent lack of harmony between the urban landscape and people. This disharmony results in a state of permanent ambiguity: Rhys’ repetition of “all alike all stuck” does not allow us to discern whether it is the metropolis or its inhabitants that remain undifferentiated. By examining Voyage in the Dark through the lens of the Williams argument, it can be concluded that the persistent themes are present throughout the text.
Nevertheless, Williams argues that despite the thematic similarities with pre-modern texts, modernism is foregrounded on a platform of pervasive capitalist dominance. In 1989, postmodern theorist Frederik Jameson wrote that “daily life and existential experience in the metropolis (...) no longer has its meaning,” due to a spatial disjunction created by the capitalist system. Williams applies this concept to texts, claiming that modernist art attempts to stabilize and elucidate the pervasive nature of imperial capitalism. In Rhys’ novel, Anna comments on the hierarchical class system that binds England together, contrasting her experience of the bleak cityscapes with the street names.
You were perpetually moving to another place which was perpetually the same, …, a grey stone promenade running hard, naked, and straight; or a Corporation Street or High Street or Duke Street or Lord Street.
Rhys’ implementation of the homonymous “perpetually” accentuates both the incessant “moving” of the metropolis’ system-bound subjects and the cyclicality of the system itself. The polysyndetic list, joined together by “or” suggests the all-encompassing capitalist hegemony, where a “corporation” is given the same importance as a “duke” or “lord.” It did not matter which street you turned to, upper class dominance could be found there or there.
Furthermore, the novel’s exposition presents Anna’s reminiscing memories of Dominica: “looking down Market Street to the Bay, (...) as purple as Tyre and Sidon.” Rhys’ allusion to the ancient mercantile cities draws a parallel between them and Dominica; Rhys gestures toward the colonial exploitation on which both economies are founded upon. The argument that capitalism acts as a structure upon which modernists construct their works is demonstrated in Voyage in the Dark and Rhys’ allusions to the pervasive imperialist system.
Williams’ central argument, however, contends that imperialism acted predominantly as a cultural factor: “the magnetic concentration of wealth and power in imperial capitals and the simultaneous cosmopolitan [gave] access to a wide variety of subordinate cultures.” Rhys’ protagonist falls parallels the Williams argument throughout the novel. There is consistent acknowledgement that Anna is out of place. The novel possesses a complex concept of transnationality – it is a contrapuntal geographic identity that oscillates between the West Indies and England, and becomes apparent at various instances.
I walked over to the looking glass (...) and stared at myself. It was as if I were looking at somebody else. I stared at myself for a long time. (...) I’ll be different. It’ll be different. It’ll be different, different.”
Anna’s attempts to internalize and locate her identity are unachievable, for it always results in “looking at somebody else.” Her voyage to the core of her divided self is her attempt to stabilize her transnationality. As a result, Anna lives in a constant state of in-between:
Sometimes it was as if I were back there and as if England were a dream. At other times England was the real thing and out there was the dream.
We must take note of the interesting shifts in perspective, as Anna seems to undergo the process of internal code-switching: at times, her Caribbean home is “back there,” and at other times, it is “out there,” suggesting both the lack of temporal referent in the protagonist’s self and her inability to resolve the origin of her belonging. Rhys uses these fragmentations to demonstrate the dislocated and ambivalent Creole existence. Rhys’ use of irony is also present in this passage.
Anna is in constant search of “the real thing,” when, actually, both her home and England are equally real in the physical sense. Rhys reveals that the real is, rather, the core of the protagonist’s identity – it is one that she can never conscientize. Most importantly, Rhys’ descriptions of Anna’s memories reveal how the organic connection of her birth land becomes fragmented in the urban context of the British metropolis. Anna describes her home as “a goodly island (...) crumpled into hills and mountains as you would crumple a piece of paper in your hand.” The image of a paper-crumpling hand is one of control and power, as Anna seems to have a grip over her identity. Nevertheless, any sense of identity is immediately discarded in the context of the British metropolis, where all Anna can do is relate her past and present as a series of antithetical statements: “the difference between heat, cold; light, darkness; purple, grey.”
Rhys’ portrayal of the protagonist’s transnationality falls is a perfect example of Williams’ argument of “new social and cultural relations” which grounded the modernist movement.
For Williams, “the excitements and challenges” modernism's intricate process of liberation and deviation from its predecessors was reflected not by a change in what he defines as universals, but a progression and new context. The changes were a natural response to the influx and exchange of culture, language, and experience. This becomes true in Rhys’ most autobiographical novel. Voyage in the Dark retains many of the themes present in premodernism, but they are set upon a stage rooted in capitalism and transnational thought. Anna Morgan’s constant battle, both with the external, her new milieu, and the internal reflects the changes of the 20th century. Williams’ work is particularly important as it extends beyond mere literary analysis. Williams reveals humanity’s incessant need for a sense of belonging. The imperialist-driven ethnic diversification of the early-to-mid 20th centuries metropolises resulted in the condition that Rhys attributes to Anna, a lack of identity. The result, modernism.
Works Cited
Jameson, Frederik, Modernism and Imperialism, 1988
Rhys, Jean, Voyage into the Dark, Norton Publishing, 1934
Williams, Raymond (1989). The Politics of Modernism: Against the New Conformists, Verso Books 1989.
