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Internalizing Mastery: Jean Rhys, Ford Madox Ford, and the Fiction of Autobiography
- MFS Modern Fiction Studies
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 50, Number 3, Fall 2004
- pp. 632-656
- 10.1353/mfs.2004.0064
- Article
- Additional Information
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This essay explores the relationship between Jean Rhys and Ford Madox Ford through the lens of D. W. Winnicott's psychological theories. Specifically, the essay explores the ways in which Rhys turns Ford into a transitional object in her fiction in order to free herself from his dominant role in her life and fiction. The essay also explores the generic complexities of Rhys's negotiation of autobiographical and fictional materials as she attempts to develop and utilize psychological insight about her own dependency on Ford in order to achieve literary freedom for herself.