Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea follows the story of Antoinette Mason, who is widely known to mirror the character of Jane Eyre. In this novel, Antoinette, a white women with European descent born in West Indies during the post-emancipation era, struggles to fit into her surrounding and discover a sense of self. While most literary critics view Antoinette’s story as an example of someone who breaks free from society’s shackles that bind her and restrict her freedom, I believe this is a story of woman’s fall into the realms of insanity due to male superiority. Although this novel is successful in providing a backstory and painting a picture of an otherwise minor character in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, the protagonist herself may have failed …show more content…
However, due to the fact that there is no other way to define Annette, and because Annette focuses all her attention on her physically and mentally challenged son (almost completely ignoring Antoinette), it leaves Antoinette devoid from her own reflection. Fayad continues her critique, commenting on Tia’s role in hindering Antoinette’s quest for her identity. She asserts the claim that Antoinette breaks her special bond with Tia “permanently by labeling her as other” (Fayad, 229). However, I see this scene in a slightly different light. Antoinette must cross the racial barriers in order to assimilate into the environment, and find her true identity. Being rejected by the white society due to her Jamaican side and French mother, Antoinette never considered herself to be a part of the white elites, and always wanted to be associated with the freed slaves. However, the blacks rejected her due to the fact that she was a part of a slaveholding family. She finds solace in her only childhood friend, Tia, who constantly belittles her, calling her “white cockroach” and “white nigger” (Rhys 14). I …show more content…
During their stay in the Caribbean following their marriage, Antoinette gets a sense of belonging. When she encounters the gigantic rats, she attempts to find a reflection of her within them. “I saw two enormous rats, as big as cats, on the sill, staring at me...But I was not frightened...I could see myself in the looking-glass the other side of the room” (Rhys 49). She associates the rats as part of her identity - as part of Jamaica. She identifies herself with this place. She’s afraid of not being able to see her reflection in the looking-glass anymore. She states, “...the rats were not there but I felt very frightened” (Rhys 49). When she isn’t able to see the rats, it’s as if she isn’t able to see herself. She is unable to identify who she is, and feels threatened. Meanwhile, Rochester constantly feels threatened by this place, and wonders why Antoinette likes to be here. Mona Fayad claims that “Rochester feels himself outside the protection of this order...by the reminder that white man is not the sole master of this world” (Fayad 231). The idea of white superiority and social norms plays a significant role in Rochester’s feelings towards this island, which he associates with women. Rochester is unable to dominate or express his superiority here, and feels extremely
On page 83, Mr. Rochester has a “massive head”, “granite-hewn features” , “great dark eyes” and fine eyes too”. The reader is supposed to think of him as someone who is a predator towards Jane because of his mean looking and dark features and because of Jane’s past experience with men in power. Readers are supposed to be wary of Mister Rochester.
In other scenarios other people decide for others based on the fact they know what is better for them which is usually false. These crucial decisions that they make or others affect their whole life, either in a good way or bad. Wide Sargasso Sea is the tale of Antoinette Cosway, born in Jamaica in the early 19th century to a British slave owner. It was not Antoinette’s decision to be a slave owner, after slavery ended, Antoinette faced a lot of racism in her neighborhood by young girls including her best friend Tia. Her mother often got criticized by the locals as well. Antoinette’s parents decision to be slave owners affected Antoinette in a negative way because of the racism and bullying she faced daily. This affected her daily life, and future. In a way Antoinette was trapped and imprisoned in being viewed as this racist girl. Antoinette’s true personality never reflected racist characteristics.
In the novel Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, Antoinette Mason’s identity is frequently discussed. Antoinette, the daughter of ex-slave owners and a woman whose life is dictated by mental illness, grows up in the Caribbean as a Creole during the nineteenth century. As a young adult, she is forced into a marriage with a white man from England, an event that ultimately leads Antoinette to her downfall. At the start of the novel, Antoinette and the characters around her are optimistic about their identity and future. As the plot progresses, Antoinette increasingly struggles to understand who she is and what her future entails. Ultimately, Antoinette loses her identity and her purpose. Throughout the text there are many reoccurring motifs. A motif
Marie Antoinette was born on November 2, 1755, in Vienna, Austria. Marie Antoinette was a queen that ruled with a powerful, wealthy, fist. She was a foreign wife and queen once she married King Louis XVI of France. Throughout her rule over France, Marie Antoinette was kept under a light of ignorance by the people, and therefore, should not be blamed for their suffering, the French Revolution, and the failures of her husband. She was hated by the people of France the moment she became queen, which ultimately led her to her downfall. Queen Marie Antoinette is known for her infamous quote “let them eat cake”, in a scandal where she supposedly turned a blind eye to the famished. The people of France pointed their fingers at Marie Antoinette, and believed she frankly
Despite all his faults in Jane Eyre, the one virtue he maintains in that story is sorely lacking in the Wide Sargasso Sea, his personal integrity. “Nor was I anxious to know what was happening behind the thin partition which divided us from my wife’s bedroom” (Rhys 140). “You bring that worthless girl to play with next door and you talk and laugh and love so that she hear everything. You meant her to hear.’ ‘Yes that didn’t just happen. I meant it’” (Rhys 154). A man who is capable of treating Antoinette in such a way, of purposefully “breaking her up” as Christophine would say, makes one wonder if he is even capable of redemption in Jane Eyre. His little encounter with Amélie could be ascribed to his intoxication on the voodoo love potion, though by the time he sleeps with Amélie many hours have passed including a trip to the ruined house and a nap in its eerie surroundings. Furthermore, Rochester’s actions are inherently selfish. Motivated solely by greed, he seems to be unwilling to let Antoinette have even a small portion of happiness. He had the option to leave with at least half the dowry and let her move on with her life, but chooses instead to keep both her money and mind locked away in the attic of a cold, colorless castle. Regardless of whether this depiction of our Mr. Rochester is canon or not, Jean Rhys effectively makes us despise the new Rochester all by solely changing the
Women who had no claim to wealth or beauty received the harshest of realities in America’s Victorian era. Author Charlotte Bronte – from America’s Victorian era – examines and follows the life of a girl born into these conditions in her gothic novel Jane Eyre (of which the main character’s name
In the novels Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, the theme of loss can be viewed as an umbrella that encompasses the absence of independence, society or community, love, and order in the lives of the two protagonists. They deal with their hardships in diverse ways. However, they both find ways to triumph over their losses and regain their independence.
Jean Rhys' complex text, Wide Sargasso Sea, came about as an attempt to re-invent an identity for Rochester's mad wife, Bertha Mason, in Jane Eyre, as Rhys felt that Bronte had totally misrepresented Creole women and the West Indies: 'why should she think Creole women are lunatics and all that? What a shame to make Rochester's wife, Bertha, the awful madwoman, and I immediately thought I'd write a story as it might really have been.' (Jean Rhys: the West Indian Novels, p144). It is clear that Rhys wanted to reclaim a voice and a subjectivity for Bertha, the silenced Creole, and to subvert the assumptions made by the Victorian text. She does so with startling results.
Within this reflective journal I intend to analyse my work within the unit BA1b. I started this unit inspired to improve as much as possible.
In 1966, Jean Rhys published her novel ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’. The story depicts the life of Antoinette Cosway, her marriage to a mysterious Englishman, and her eventual descent into madness. The story is a prequel to ‘Jane Ayre’ by Charlotte Brontë, and gives the woman in the attic a voice. This essay looks at the use of narrative in ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, and evaluates how this informs the interpreted meaning of the text.
The theme of isolation is explored in Bronte’s novel; Jane Eyre. This theme is also developed in The Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys. Both pieces present different types of isolation, such as isolation due to location and the isolation of a character due to their social status, such as Jane’s status as a governess. The various ways in which isolation is present in each of the texts show how inescapable and unavoidable isolation is for the characters in both Jane Eyre and The Wide Sargasso, with it being present in such a large way in their lives.
I scored a 37 on the AACN Essentials Self-Assessment. I know that I have a lot learning to do in the nursing field despite being a nurse for 10 years. Essential II: Basic Organizational and Systems Leadership for Quality Care and Patient Safety is an area where I feel pretty confident in with regards to leadership concepts, skills and decision making. I feel my supervisory skills improved when I became part of the management team at work. Demonstrating leadership and communication skills are important when providing optimal quality care for the patients. I understand and recognize that care not only involves the patient but the interdisciplinary team along with families, communities, and populations. I am not very familiar
The novel in which Jane Eyre stars in can be seen criticizing many aspects of those times such as the role and nature of women, child negligence and social hardships for those in a lesser class. Jane Eyre’s alienation from society allows for a greater reveal of the story’s culture, values, and assumptions. It’s presented through the use of gender, class and character conflicts throughout the story. On multiple occasions, Jane is judged for the presented factors reflecting the type of society Jane lives in and what the times were like at that time.
Workplace discrimination happens every day, but is almost never openly admitted. To believe without hesitation that the personal beliefs of a potential employee have never been the reason to deny a person a job is naïve, or even a sign of ignorance. Practically every job application has a comment about how race, religion, or having a disability will not be a factor in determining eligibility for a position; I cannot say the same about an individual who has tattoos, piercings, or other body modifications having the same confirmations.
In Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea, whether Antoinette Cosway really goes mad in the end is debatable. Nevertheless, it is clear that her life is tragic. The tragedy comes from her numerous pursuits for love and a sense of belonging, and her failure at each and every one of these attempts.