For Selina, singing is a response to the invincibility of external forces and a way of shielding from what she is not able to accept. Singing is necessary for protection from the outside world and interaction with it.
Critical Lenses
Two critical lenses will be used to evaluate the text, the protagonist’s actions, and the story’s overall context: the post-colonial lens and the psychoanalytic lens. The post-colonial lens touches on the motives of alienation rejection of the changed reality. A post-colonial lens is also necessary to understand the psychological experience of living under a colonial state. Understanding colonial relations is important for covering the principles by which Selina interacts with the outside world. In addition, the post-colonial lens allows us to understand the place of the heroine in the dark and hostile world described by Rhys and explain these two phenomena.
The psychoanalytic lens is used to study the psychological and mental state of the author or character, their desires, repressions, consciousness, and subconsciousness. The act of singing is analyzed in most detail from the point of view of psychoanalysis as a reaction of consciousness and subconsciousness to the phenomena of reality. The psychoanalytic lens is ideal for studying Selina’s state of mind and the influence of songs and acts of singing on it. The main character’s subconscious dictates the protective mechanisms to help her cope with a hostile environment. Selina’s subconscious coping mechanisms with her surrounding reality can manifest through singing, which should be observed through a psychoanalytic lens.
Annotated Bibliography
Czarnecki, Kristin. “Jean Rhys’s Postmodern Narrative Authority: Selina’s Patois in ‘Let Them Call It Jazz’.” College Literature, vol. 35, no. 2, 2008, pp. 20-37.
Kristin Czarnecki, in her article, explores the role of language, words, and voice as the tools of the creation of Selina’s own world, identity, and her protection and protest against the external forces. Czarnecki presents Selina’s voice and her acts of singing as comforting and fighting tools, while hostile characters, such as Selina’s neighbors or police officers, only address her singing as “noise” (22). The same is said about Selina’s language – she never uses proper English and does not want to translate some of Creole words; therefore, others have to adapt to her speech, not the other way round. At the same time, it is demonstrated that Selina can reproduce the speech of others with perfect grammar, punctuation, and diction (Czarnecki 21).
While most of the ideas of Czarnecki are in line with previously mentioned articles, it can be said that she goes deeper with her analysis of Selina’s character and the nuances of her actions. The article focuses on Selina’s identity and her attempts to preserve it and takes a deeper look at some other tools used for that purpose, such as language. While Selina’s language was not mentioned in the initial thesis for this essay, the argument regarding her singing still falls in line with Czarnecki’s point about protection from the outside world and preservation of identity.
Laguarta Bueno, Carmen. “The Plight of Not Belonging: Jean Rhys’s ‘Let them Call It Jazz’ and ‘The Day They Burned the Books’.” ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies, vol. 39, 2018, pp. 157-72.
The article by Laguarta Bueno, as suggested by its name, assesses the issue of the non-belonging of two different protagonists of Rhys’s stories (157). It is demonstrated how the character of Selina is discriminated against based on her race, gender, and class. Moreover, the discrimination is shown to be persistent on an institutional level, as Selina’s interactions with police and court clearly demonstrate. The article then explores Selina’s reaction to these circumstances; it is shown to be passive at first, as Selina is drinking much to get away from her problems. Later she demonstrates patterns of resistance and retaliation through her actions, such as singing on the street and breaking the neighbors’ window – “this is the most evident episode of resistance to colonial power” (Laguarta Bueno 162). In this case, the article also agrees that harsh external conditions affect the characters and force them to adapt. However, Laguarta Bueno pays more attention to singing as the tool of resistance, revealing its role through the observation of conflict situations (162). This position also supports the thesis that for Selina, singing is a reaction to the outside world and the tool of interaction with it, yet more attention, in that case, is paid to conflict situations.
Naidu, Sam, and Andrea Thorpe. “’I Don’t Belong Nowhere Really’: The Figure of the London Migrant in Dan Jacobson’s ‘A Long Way from London’ and Jean Rhys’s ‘Let Them Call It Jazz’.” English Academy Review, vol. 3, no. 1, 2018, pp. 26-37.
The article by Sam Naidu and Andrea Thorpe studies the fates of migrants in London based on the stories of Jacobson and Rhys (26). The main idea is that despite differences in race, class, and gender, migrants still occupy an unenviable role on the edge of society, harassed by other higher-class citizens and unable to protect themselves adequately. As a result, they see London as a cruel, inhospitable, and hostile place and expect the worst from the native population. Then Naidu and Thorpe reveal the role of Selina’s singing as her instrument of comfort, resistance, and inspiration. This further emphasizes the role of the Holloway song Selina hears in prison “that functions as a catalyst for Selina’s recovery” (Naidu and Thorpe 33). This article supports the essay’s argument as it demonstrates the poor external conditions to which the migrants such as Selina were exposed as they traveled to London. These are the conditions to which the migrants have to adapt, and the article lists some of the coping strategies based on the cases of different characters, including Selina. As it was mentioned before, Naidu and Thorpe show how diverse Selina’s singing is as a tool to overcome surrounding adversity. The article focuses on the role of a song as a means for recovery.
Work Cited
Rhys, Jean. “Let Them Call It Jazz.” The London Magazine, February 1962, pp. 69-83.