Voyage in the Dark: Over and Over Again
Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark contains an odd poem embedded in the middle of p. 47. Some googleing turned up nothing—nothing for key phrases, nothing for longer snippets—leading me to believe that the poem is the completely original work of Jean Rhys. If so, it’s placed there in the text for some intrinsic purpose, one I’d like to examine more closely.
The first thing I notice is the equation of people and horses—perhaps horses to flee bleak London and race in the meadows of the country, or perhaps a reference to the idea that sometimes horses are “more expensive than people” (46). We could write off “old men wail unnoticed” to the author of the poem’s regret that his work will most likely never be heeded, or even read, but I would rather point you back to (25) where we read “someone went past in the street, singing. Bawling:
Bread, bread, bread,
Standard bread,
A little bit er Standard bread,
Pom, pom,”
Those words rang in Anna’s head—the poor in the street crying for bread. Old men praying to a harsh God? We’re not told if the poor in the street are old or young, but it seems like these two passages describe the same poverty and desperation on London’s streets.
However, I will write off the stinking butcher’s shop, and worse, the fish store. They are obviously reflections of the same thought—that London is a vile and stinking hole—only without any subtlety. If we wondered about what the old men were wailing about, now we have some idea—their city is a Pit. However, we have a plea for something in line 6. Cool, white arms—we know that Anna may fit that description since she wishes she were black at one point in the narrative, and is attractive to men. London needs an angel of redemption—is Anna Morgan good enough? Perhaps, but she is poor and so far from rich. And, according to her, “nothing can change [her status]. For ever and for ever turning and nothing, nothing can change it” (43). Without money, there’s little that can be done: she’ll be forced to stay in vile London.
Jean Rhys’ Original Poem in Voyage in the Dark
Curious if the poem in chapter V of Voyage in the Dark was allusive to other works, I google for some key terms. Surprisingly, I found none of them, leading me to believe that the following is original, created solely for the book, and unadapted:
‘Horse faces, faces like horses,
And grey streets, where old men wail unnoticed
Prayers to an ignoble God.’
There the butcher’s shop stinks to the leaden sky;
There the fish shop stinks differently, but worse.[...]
‘But where are they -
The cool arms, white as alabaster?’[...]
Loathsome London, vile and stinking hole …’
Oxyrhynchus Papyri
Oxyrhynchus Papyri decoded, 20% more Greek works to come!
