Marya’s Irony

Abstract

A myth that the personality of the ‘Rhys woman’ is one of innocence seems to have become assimilated by generations of critics. Where Quartet is concerned, the dependence upon this myth has led to a misreading of the central character, Marya, who is constantly being seen not only as ‘basically a passive creature … a victim’,¹ but even as ‘a heroine totally innocent of bourgeois values and institutions’.² In my own reading of the novel I aim to show that there is, within the narrative voice, a level of irony which has not yet been fully perceived by critics, and which is determined by Marya’s point of view. Furthermore, I suggest that there is sufficient textual evidence to make a total identification of the narrative stance with that of Marya’s perspective, and that, apart from one or two omniscient forays into the thoughts of other characters, there is no other mind at work which is identifiably different from her own.