Jean Rhys 's Wide Sargasso Sea

The reading that I chose for this assignment is from Chapter Six in the required book for class “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History”. The chapter title is “The Sea Around Us” where the primary concentration of the chapter was the consequences that humans have on the planet with the focus on ocean acidification. This happens from the carbon dioxide we pump into the air and it slowly seeps back down into the oceans and slowly increases the PH level thus causing the ocean to be more acidic. In about one hundred years do you believe that, oysters, mussels, and coral reefs survive?

for; we are introduced to her from when she is young so we know and

Even before beginning this article, its title suggests the content will be discussing perhaps the relationships between those who are enslaved, and their owners. However, this is misleading, as instead of creating discourse about the micro-level relationships, Donovan writes a piece that targets the relationship between slaves, and Ile Royale as a whole. It appears as though the main point in Donovan’s paper is that slaves, and slave trading in the 18th century was not a new phenomenon, but rather a practice that had begun back in the 16th century (1995, p.4). Later in his piece, he refers to Ile Royale as a multiracial society and that “black and Panis slaves were neither invisible nor

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.

A patriarchal society is a world in which men are the sole decision makers and hold positions of power. As a result, women are introduced to a world made by men, and a history refined by a man 's actions. In Jean Rhys 's Wide Sargasso Sea, conceptions of gender are purposefully problematized. Women characters such as Antoinette and Christophine are pitilessly exposed to constraints of an imperial world.Wide Sargasso Sea presents a modern form of feminism which takes into account the intricacy of male-female interactions to find that efforts to surpass gender norms are despairing.

As the main character in the novel, Antoinette faces threats both internal and external during her childhood. Firstly, Antoinette’s mother shows signs of madness and melancholy in her daughter's childhood. Moreover, her mother shows partiality for her littler disabled brother and didn’t like her even she was fed up with her. “Once I touched her forehead trying to smooth it. But she pushed me away…as if she had decided once and for all that I was useless to her.”(5) Thus, Annette’s illness condition has deep influences on Antoinette, which becomes the most threat from internal household.

When Antoinette’s husband takes her to England, he locks her up in the attic and leaves her without a sense of self. Antoinette says that "There is no looking-glass here and I don’t know what I am like now…. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?" (107). Without being able to see herself through a looking-glass, Antoinette doesn’t understand who she or what her purpose is, which is very upsetting for her. This loss of self- identity causes Antoinette to act out and worsens her mental health issues. When Antoinette sneaks out of the attic and sees herself in the looking-glass, she says she sees “the ghost, the man with the streaming hair” (???). After being locked away, she is unable to recognize her own physical appearance. Through this description, Rhys is showing that Antoinette’s identity has been completely taken away from her and recognizing the importance of knowing who we are. As, without an identity, Antoinette no longer has a purpose for

Authors, Jean Rhys and Charlotte Bronte constructed their novels in completely different time periods and came from different influences in writing. Jean Rhys’s fiction book, Wide Sargasso Sea is an interesting relation to Jane Eyre. The female character of Jane Eyre forms into a furiously, passionate, independent young woman. The female character of Jean Rhys’s illustration is a character that Jane will know further on as Rochester’s crazy wife who is bolted in an attic. Jean Rhys further studies this character, where as Charlotte Bronte approved that it was left explained (Thorpe 175). Antoinette, considerably like Jane, evolves in a world with minimal amount of love to offer. Both these women are taken cared of as children by

Crossing the Mangrove by Maryse Condé first published in 1989, offers a fitting representation of French Caribbean history and culture. The novel stands out for its celebration of diversity and the concept of root identity throughout French Caribbean society. Condé’s novel reflects on the people living in Guadeloupe and the complex system that colonialism has created in the Caribbean. Also, it links the créolité movement from its counterpart Negritude and demonstrates how it shapes the identity of individuals living in the French Caribbean. The population of Rivière au Sel exemplifies the mixture of Guadeloupian people and how they interact with each other in a small community. Countless waves of immigrates to the Caribbean have brought African, East Indian, Europeans, Asians and other racial groups to live in close proximity to each other in Guadeloupe. In Praise of Creoleness, it explains the emergences of créolité and how it is a metaphor for a unique Caribbean identity completely separated from other movement in the Caribbean.

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys shows the delicate balance between madness and sanity. Throughout both novels there is a lot of unusual behavior to say the least from Antoinette. There are many factors that can have a detrimental effect on one’s mental stability which is shown blatantly through the relationship between Antoinette and Bertha. This shows the relationship and balance between inherited factors and environmental influences such as other people and events that are happening around the person.

 Though this is a childish taunt in the novel, the truth of it is that nobody does want Antoinette; as Teresa O'Connor points out, not even her own mother: 'Antoinette is also alienated from the meagre remains of her family itself, and, most specifically, from her mother's love' (Jean Rhys: the West Indian Novels, 172).

this is a dangerous place for them to be in, and that, like Eden, the

Wide Sargasso Sea was Jean Rhys’s effort to retell and complicate the unresolved character of Bertha Mason, the “lunatic creole” presented to us in Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel, Jane Eyre. Bronte’s Jane Eyre was one of the first feminist critiques of the Victorian era. It scandalised and shocked society by presenting the reader with an independent woman who defied societal ideals of self-control. Through her depiction of Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea Rhys responds to Bronte’s feminist stance through a post-colonial lens 119 years later. Both novels are feminist works, however each author approaches feminist concerns in a manner

Rhys integrates the two characters and their racism so her readers will feel more connected with both. In the paper “Race, Creole, and National Identities in Rhys’ Wide Sargasso

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.