"Jean Rhys is widely credited for exposing issues of gender, nationality, race, and class in her narratives. Her lifelong exploration of the dynamics of the human psyche has, however, gone unrecognized. This examination places Rhys's fiction for the first time within the context of theories that reflect the interrelated perspectives of modern psychoanalysis. In clarifying accounts of many approaches that are new to literary scholars, as well as those that display the rich legacy of Freudian thought, Anne B. Simpson shows that the paradigms of psychoanalysis illuminate the interpretation of Rhys's art. With references to her short stories and close readings of her five novels, this study testifies to Rhys's achievement of recording the powerful drama of emotional life."--Jacket.