SOURCE: "Arrangements in Silver and Grey: The Whistlerian Moment in the Short Fiction of Jean Rhys," in The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1984, pp. 128-34.

In the following essay, Lindroth studies the symbolic use of color in Rhys's short stories.

The ultra-refined aestheticism of Whistler's Peacock Room or his "Arrangements" provides a key to Jean Rhys's short fiction since, like Whistler's compositions, those of Rhys display a world of exquisitely modulated light. Her language of color, like Whistler's, is narrow, achieving its effects as much by the withholding of hues and tones as by their inclusion. Her scale, like that of the painter, is often small, revealing form and meaning through subtle color notation rather than through bold, dramatic strokes; moreover, even when choosing the larger design, Rhys, like Whistler, tends to project harsh psychological realities into spaces from which everything has been excluded except delicate arrangements...