Thinking Activity : Wide Sargasso Sea

 Hello, I am Bhavna Sosa student of department of English MK Bhavnagar University. In this blog assigned by our ma'am  Yesha Bhatt.

Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 novel by Dominican-British author Jean Rhys. The novel serves as a postcolonial and feminist prequel to Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre (1847), describing the background to Mr. Rochester's marriage from the point-of-view of his wife Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress. Antoinette Cosway is Rhys's version of Brontë's devilish "madwoman in the attic". Antoinette's story is told from the time of her youth in Jamaica, to her unhappy marriage to an English gentleman, Mr. Rochester, who renames her Bertha, declares her mad, takes her to England, and isolates her from the rest of the world in his mansion. Antoinette is caught in a patriarchal society in which she fully belongs neither to Europe nor to Jamaica. Wide Sargasso Sea explores the power of relationships between men and women and discusses the themes of race, Caribbean history, and assimilation.

The madwomen in the Attic: Annette - Antoinette :-

The Two extreme:-

Antoinette’s description of the two binary opposites sheds light on Antoinette’s dual thoughts and confusion. The narration of the atmosphere by Antoinette makes clear her struggles with being stuck between two things and not being able to belong to either. It felt as if the silent atmosphere is a reection of Antoinette’s mind as she could perfectly read through the gaps and ll it with her own analysis.The reader can also see Antoinette’s struggle to ll the gaps in the madness and silence of her mother in her child-hood days. By showing Annette’s madness and coldness towards her daughter Antoinette, Rhys in a way tries to ex-emplify how the absence of a mother’s love and affection contributes greatly to Antoinette’s fractured identity and how she later inherits her mother’s madness in the novel. Antoinette craves her mother’s love and care, which she is deprived of, as her brother, Pierre, gets his share of the at-tention. Despite her mother’s ignorance, Antoinette only has love and respect for her mother in every possible manner as Antoinette remarks about her mother -

“I hated this frown and once I touched her forehead try-ing to smooth it. But she pushed me away, roughly but calm-ly, coldly, without a word, as if she had decided once and for all that I was useless to her. She wanted me to sit with Pierre and walk where she pleased without being pestered, she wanted peace and quiet. I was old enough to look after myself. ‘Oh let me alone’ she would say, ‘let me alone,’ and after I knew that she talked to herself and I was a little afraid of her.” 

The  Struggle :-

Antoinette’s long-time struggle to nd her own voice takes a turn after her marriage to Rochester as she begins to doubt her whole sense of individuality and existence. In the begin-ning of their marriage, Antoinette’s beauty attracted Roch-ester as he is seldom used to seeing such kind of beauty. While riding together he remarks:

 “Looking up smiling, she might have been any pretty English girl.”

Use of Colours – Self Expression :-

Antoinette herself becomes aware of Rochester’s fascination with her physicality and for that reason Antoinette choos-es to use it as a method of expressing herself and reaching out to Rochester. Colors’ play an important part to become a medium of expression for Antoinette and she is seen to be fascinated by the color Red. Red can be linked to female sensuality, passion, and emotion and it may showcase courage,danger and a sense of power within women. Antoinette hasan obsession for the colour red as she thinks that it attracts the eyes of her husband Rochester, "I took the red dress down and put it against myself: ‘Does it make me look in-temperate and unchaste?’ I said." But un-like her misconception the red dress has an adverse effect on Rochester’s mind as to him it makes her look like a desperate woman who is apprehensive of the dangerous warning that comes with red as it is a sign of rebellion. 

On the other hand, the colour white has a desirable effect in Rochester’s mind as it makes Antoinette look chaste and pure as white is thought to symbolize virginity and chastity. The colour white arouses desire in Rochester. However, Antoinette has a different personality than that of what Rochester wants her to be and so she sticks to the colour red, which she believes makes her presence felt in a stronger way, “Antoinette changes from the virginal bride wearing a white dress into the ‘rejected scarlet woman’ in a red dress.” It can be said that colours work as metaphor for Antoinette’s identity and individuality and it also works as a form of expression for Antoinette as it exemplifies the fact that Antoinette is independent as a woman and chooses to express herself in the way that is comfortable for her and suits her.

Individuality :-

Antoinette manages to express herself in parts despite Rochester’s constant attempts to not give her a space to voice her opinions. The essence of Antoinette’s personality comes to light when she ends up voicing her story to Rochester in order to defend her troubled childhood, which turns out to bea futile attempt:

“No, I said I was always happy in the morning, not always in the afternoon and never after sunset, for after sunset, the house was haunted, some places are. Then there was that day when she saw I was growing up like a white nigger and she was ashamed of me, it was after that day that everything changed. Yes, it was my fault that she started to plan and work in frenzy, in a fever to change our lives. Then people came to see us again and though I still hated them and was afraid of their cool, teasing eyes, I learned to hide it.” 

Use of Ventriloquism :-

As Antoinette’s relationship with her husband, Rochester, deteriorates further, confusion starts to take over Antoinette’s mind. Jean Rhys makes use of ventriloquism when Antoinette chooses silence over voice, and gives her husband, Rochester, the narrative authority. The whole of the section where Antoinette was silent, Rochester spoke for her and she acted like a mere puppet in the hands of Rochester. Her feeling of a lack of control results in her starting to question her own identity - “I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all” (Rhys, 1966:85). Antoinette wants to belong to a single place or person and her struggle for belonging continues.

Madness :-

The feeling of an absence of her own identity, her own voice, drives Antoinette to desperation. As Antoinette begins to lose touch with reality, madness overpowers her mind and body. Madness begins to feel real for her because it makes her feel alive. The attention she receives from madness makes her feel like she still exists. Madness gives her the power to make her voice heard to people who will not listen otherwise; power that she has been craving for since childhood. Madness is not a symptom of her constant feeling of a lack of voice and need to be heard; madness is a cure.

Freedom & Identity:-

Here, there is a ray of hope in Antoinette’s voice and it feels as if she can see the light to her road to freedom. “Some-one screamed and I thought, ‘Why did I scream?’ I called Antoinette’s thoughts reflect the mad state of her mind as it shows how Antoinette really feels inside on different issues such as dreams, death. Antoinette is always fascinated by dreams and reality as she can differentiate between the two and her connection with dreams can best be seen when she finally has a voice to talk about it as she states,

“That was the third time I had my dream, and it ended.I know now that the flight of steps leads to this room where I lie watching the woman asleep with her head on her arms. In my dream I waited till she began to snore, then I got up, took the eyes and let myself out with a candle in my hand. It was easier this time than ever before and I walked as though I were flying.” 

Conclusion :-

Antoinette’s life is defined by a constant struggle between voice and silence. It is a struggle to find her identity and to express it in the most effective way; in a way that can be heard by others. In Jane Eyre Bronte’s essence is just her mad silence. However, Antoinette’s essence can be defined by both voice and silence. Jean Rhys gives this Creole character a new twist by giving her character a constant attraction to the extreme sides of everything. 

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