Quotes
- "I never looked at any strange negro. They hated us. They called us white cockroaches. Let sleeping dogs lie. One day a little girl followed me singing, "Go away white cockroach, go away, go away" (20).
- "I remember saying in a voice that was not like my own that it was too light" (124).
- "I dare say we would have died if she'd turned against us and that would have been a better fate. To die and be forgotten at peace" (19).
- This highlights Antoinette's slight obsession with death and the death motif in the novel. - "I heard someone say something about bad luck and remembered that it was very unlucky to kill a parrot, or even to see a parrot die" (39).
- "But I looked at the dress on the floor and it was as if the fire had spread across the room. It was beautiful and it reminded me of something I must do. I will remember I thought. I will remember quite soon now" (168).
Devices/Style
- The shifts in point of view gives Antoinette a voice instead of Jane and reveals a wider scope of what’s happening in different places at the same time. this serves to give readers the sense of being everywhere in the story at the same time, making them believe that they know everything that’s going on.
- The writing style that Rhys uses is not hard to read, because she uses a lot colloquialism, but the words themselves carry a lot of meaning.