In the previous article in the series inspired by Carole Angier's biography Jean Rhys: Life and Work, I said that Carole Angier explains Jean Rhys's life and personality mainly in psychological terms. She does mention witches and magic and the terrible draining effect that Jean Rhys had on people, but she leaves these topics mostly unexplored and unexplained.
This article has more to say about these sinister elements, and from an alternative perspective.
Jean Rhys's witchlike personality is something that she shared with other writers: Stella Benson for example was described by Vera Brittain as being “delicate, witchlike, remote”, and descriptions of Ouida and Dorothy Parker in old age make them seem very similar to each other; they too grew to be very witchlike.
The writer Francis Wyndham, who encouraged Jean Rhys to work on Wide Sargasso Sea, said that he thought she was something of a – white – witch in that she was very alluring, she could attract any man she wanted and definitely had a charismatic power.
Her manner and appearance when young and her writing talent when older may seem enough to explain why people gave her so much money and help and endured her dreadful behaviour and lack of gratitude, but she may also have used a kind of mind power, something I think of as psychological black magic or unconscious witchcraft, to get what she wanted and to draw in, hold and exploit unprotected people.
Carole Angier tells us that Jean Rhys felt that she had never lived. This may seem odd in someone who on paper at least had quite a full life, but it makes sense if we accept the witch theory. Some people rarely engage with life or speak or act from their real selves: something timeless and unchangeable operates through them instead. This possible possession could explain the failure to grow up: the real self has no opportunity to develop.
Similarly, such people are like black holes and bottomless pits: they never feel that they have enough no matter what. This makes sense if we understand that little or nothing gets through to nourish their real selves: the witch takes it all.
Witches are traditionally said to sacrifice children; Jean Rhys's baby son died because of her thoughtlessness.
Carole Angier says something very interesting about Sasha from Good Morning Midnight and Antoinette from Wide Sargasso Sea after they have lost their fine young men:
“...both try to call him back to their beds by a kind of magic. Sasha's mental magic brings her not Rene but the commis; and Antoinette's obeah magic doesn't really bring her Rochester either. He is drugged, 'not himself'...”
“Both Antoinette and Sasha, when they will their lovers to come back...receive instead a hating stranger.”
These extracts are very relevant indeed to this blog: they confirm what I have said several times in the past about how people who use psychological black magic to get what they want often end up with a travesty of what they wished for and support the idea that people who are under a spell that compels them to act against their interests may become very angry when they sense or learn that they have been used, manipulated and controlled.
The 'commis' is not at all a nice man: he is far below Rene. He hangs around outside Sasha's room, but perhaps he has been called, sucked in and trapped by the 'mental magic' or willpower she uses when trying to summon Rene.
Jean Rhys's Mr Rochester hates Antoinette because she has taken advantage of him by giving him the drugged potion.
Nicholas Stuart Gray's witch Barbara experiences similar hostility from a man she has magically summoned to keep her company.
Carole Angier's horrific descriptions of the draining effect that Jean Rhys had on her victims speak for themselves. Anyone who has been targetted by an energy vampire will find what she tells us very familiar.
This says it all:
“Now it was Joan who held back. She felt very strongly and clearly Jean's cavernous need; she knew if she came too close she would be swallowed up. So she remained distant...”
Jean Rhys did indeed have a terrible effect on people who for whatever reason were not able to keep their distance. These extracts refer to people who assisted her with her writing:
“He too often felt anxiety approaching her house, and exhaustion leaving it, as though Jean were a witch ... a siren...”
“She was witchlike with everyone. David Plante would come down from her room grey with fatigue and despair.“
Her daughter didn't escape her viciousness:
“...once she was 'so awful' to Maryvonne…that 'Maryvonne actually fainted'.”
People who turned their lives upside down for her didn't escape either. Diana (Di) and George Melly even took Jean Rhys into their Hampstead home. I wonder whether it was pure kindness or even professional self-interest that made the Mellys do this. Perhaps she used her powers to influence them. This is really terrible:
“As for Di, her decline was steep and visible. She became grey and ground down, as though she had been emptied of everything, sucked dry. She no longer knew what to do, she'd lost all her certainty.”
That is a perfect description of energy vampirism. It reminds me of something I read in Jonathan Stroud's Hollow Boy, the third book in the Lockwood series:
“Some spirits suck so much energy out of their victims, the bodies go all dry and papery, like empty shells.“
Sonia Orwell has the last word with the good advice that she gave to Diana Melly:
“Sonia knew Jean's worst witchlike mood very well. You mustn't take her back to Cheriton yourself, she told Di; above all, don't stay alone with her there. 'You must, must, must protect yourself now,' she said.”
The witchlike Jean Rhys in old age:
