Wide Sargasso Sea (3) Colonial Identities: 1) Self-Othering and Social Climbing 2) Rochester’s Colonial “Justice” & Possessiveness; 3) Place & Antoinette’s.

Wide Sargasso Sea (3)

Colonial Identities:

1) Self-Othering and Social Climbing

2) Rochester’s Colonial “Justice” & Possessiveness;

3) Place & Antoinette’s Displacement

4) Antoinette’s Self-Assertion

Outline

• Plot Summary & Background• A’s Moments of Choice – what would you have done?• Questions • Narrative voices: Rochester’s narrative vs. Antoinette’s • The non-whites’ attempts at social climbing; • The Climax and its aftermath:

– Antoinette’s attempt & Rochester’s responses ;– Antoinette’s changes (the issue of Place & Names) and

Christophine’s Roles

• Madness & The Ending • Wide Sargasso Sea in context

Plot Summary

• Part I: Post-emancipation loneliness of Annette/Antoinette marriage to Mr. Mason the riot the convent

• Part II: Rochester’s arrival at Grandbois (uncertainties and communication) the letter (56 - ) Antoinette’s attempts to save the marriage Rochester’s revenge Christophine’s attempts to save her departure and moving into a traditional plot.

Plot Summary

• Part II: Three major dialogues and choices–

Antoinette with Christophine (65 – 71) –use of obeah

Rochester with Daniel (74- 76) R cold and calm.

Antoinette with Rochester (76 – 82) R asks questions but then avoiding the communication

Rochester with Christophine (91-

97) many turns in his mind.

Rochester’s interior monologues (98 - ; 100-)

Plot Summary

• Part III: – Grace Poole’s narrative (her position and

sympathy). – Antoinette’s

• cold, not knowing who she is; • not England; • Richard Mason’s visit; • Memory of Sandi and the red dress; • The dream.

Moments of Choice

What makes you not do it like Antoinette if you were in her position?

1. Seeking help from Christophine – – Antoinette’s reason: – “He’s my husband, after all.” no money of her

own.– “I wish to see England.”– “What do I care if he [hates me]? He hates me

now.” 2. Following Rochester to England, rejecting

Christophine’s and Sandi’s help.

Background: Obeah and Voodoo

• Obeah – a means of connection with Africa; and also native rebellion.

• --a creolized practice of African religions and Christianity (memory of Africa)

• For the natives and esp. for the white colonizers – fearful and evil magic

• For the rebellious slaves: as a means of escape from and rebellion against slavery; e.g. 1760 Jamaica rebellion; 1791 Haitian war of Independence.

During colonial periods, those caught in obeah practice could be executed or transported (Ref. textbook 75)

Zombie and its symbolic meanings

• Definitions of zombie (64; 82) Turned dead apparently by magic or as a result of

fish poisoning. Given an antidote, the victims can be disoriented.

symbolic of social and individual alienation• Rochester’s feeling after the Obeah night; • Antoinette turning into a ghost (102) the

haunting ghost in Thornfield (111)– ”Her ‘real’ death is her subjugation by Rochester—by

the colonizer—the long slow process of her reduction to the zombie state chronicled in the novel” (Sandra Drake 200)

More Questions

I. Narrative voices: Part I: Antoinette

Part II: Rochester”Antoinette“Rochester”

Part III: Grace Poole Antoinette

Why does Rhys assign Rochester to be predominant voice in Part II? Why does he not have a name?

II. The roles of Daniel & Amelie: What functions do Daniel and Amelie serve in the development of R and A’s relationship?

Starting Questions

III. The Conflicts: -- Why does Rochester feel calm and self-

possessed after meeting Daniel? How do we interpret his responses after taking the potion?

-- Is Antoinette wrong in using Christophine’s potion? How is Antoinette affected by Rochester’s revenge?

-- What roles does Christophine play? Why can’t she help Antoinette more despite her perceptiveness, her care-taking and obeah power?

Rochester’s narrative

Functions: 1. To show different perspectives in order

for us to understand the cultural shocks he experiences;

2. To make us understand his personality more. -- R, not a reliable narrator; • His duplicity (e.g. several dishonest

moments: “not yet”; dialogue with A before the climax, with Christophine after it) & self-centeredness

Rochester’s narrative vs. Antoinette

Their different memories: • Antoinette’s – p. 71

– the last time she can appreciate and like the natural scenery.

– Symbolic meanings; signs of betrayals--cock crowing (41, 71, 97-98)

• Rochester’s – pp. 82; 84 – evasiveness; – Self-justification

Minor Characters: Daniel and Amelie

Similarities: • Both wanting to do social climbing; both hurt

Rochester’s male ego; both wants money from Rochester.

Differences: • Daniel– flattering(58), “educated” unlike the

blacks (74); in hatred pp. 73 –74; misrepresenting the Cosway family;

• Amelie – intimidating and attractive, uses her own body in order to leave the island and marry a rich man

Minor Characters: the Others

• –those who stay. . . – Alexander – Daniel’s half brother who is rich– Sandi – Baptist “I’m overseer here.” p. 100 (But not Hilda or the

cook.)

• Those who don’t– the boy who wants to follow R to England 102-104

The Climax: Antoinette’s seek for C’s help

• Antoinette: Cannot leave Rochester – no money; (p 66) – has to go to England; (66-67), etc. – Afraid; Still wants love (though just for a

moment, with external help, in a act of “foolishness”)

– Try to blind herself to reality (We’re both well.) p. 70.

– Feeling that she betrays Christophine.

The Climax (2): Antoinette’s Efforts

• At communication – talking about her past;

• Rochester still cold and possessive (the use of “Bertha”) after her confession.

Rochester’s Responses

1. Physical discomfort, self-preservation & revenge

• “Zombified” pp. 82-83; • The ruined house; • Amélie; -- Using her as a tool, R is wary of

complication 84

Rochester’s Responses (2)

2. R’s increasing possessiveness & self-centeredness :

– Calling Antoinette Bertha and “my wife” (85) in turns;

– The dialogue with Christophine – What do his parenthetical expressions mean?

Duplicitiy or being zombified in a wrong way. • (more later).

– self-pity 99; decides her life for her ( “my lunatic” 99)

Rochester’s Responses (3)

3. Rochester’s interior monologue 98 - ; 100 – hatred and emptiness inside (83), (102-3) // (143) who is madder or zombiefied?

4. Self-fulfilling prophecy (1) – Hates the place. Leaves as soon as possible, but his own actions, actually, drive him away from Dominica

– People around Rochester and change their attitudes toward him after this one-nigh-stand with Améle, e.g. Baptiste (85),

– R feels everything as “hostile” (90)

Rochester’s Responses (3)

4. Self-fulfilling prophecy (2) – the “English house” p. 98

5. Self-fulfilling prophecy (2) • Wait for her to become a memory, a lie

103.

Place and Displacement: of a Colonizer and a creole woman

• Rochester’s sense of the place: – 1) feeling threatened p. 51; – 2) exploratory: wants to discover its secret

loveliness p. 52 – 3) hate it 96; 103

• Antoinette’s – 1) as a child p. 79 remembers all the smells,

sound and taste. – 2) loves it as a person p. 53 – 3) The place is not for her or R. p. 78.– 4) starts to hate this place 88

Antoinette’s changes

• Christophine’s ‘healing’ – sleep; p. 93 (too strong for béké)– rum

• Antoinette’s change of identity: – physically transformed (87; 89) – name “That’s obeah too” (88);

Names & Identity: Christophine’s , Daniel’s & Antoinette’s

• name and identity--the African belief & British tradition (88)

• Christophine’s name – p. 86• Daniel Cosway--Esau (73) ( sb. cheated out of

his birthright) /Is he a Cosway—Daniel Boyd? (77, 94)—the importance of claiming the family name

• Antoinette p. 31 bury to keep her name Bertha (68, 81, 88, 106-7) Marionette (90, 92, 103)-

Christophine’s rescue and withdrawal

• Her sage advice: 1. To leave him; impossible for A

2. To talk to him; useless to R

– Her cure (p. 93)1. not completely effective because she is beke;

2. undone by R

– Her offer p. 95 1) to love her; 2) to leave her alone hurts R’s male ego

– Rochester’s threat of getting the police

Christophine’s Role: A review• For Antoinette

– A surrogate mother – giving Antoinette advice, – Taking care of her: singing her to sleep; kiss her (90)– a

human touch that softens A, who has been rejected by everyone else—see the “sun” in Antoinette;

– A model of self-independence for Antoinette

• Antoinette Christophine: still afraid of her; cannot get rid of the racial stereotypes internalized by the white people—calling C “damned black devil from Hell” (81)

• Is Christophine really able to help Antoinette?

Christophine’s Role: A review (2)

• The native talks back:– judging R (92)--No longer a mimicking parrot (cf

Annette’s parrot Coco)– strong mental power, which forces Rochester to

repeat her words—a reversal of the colonizer/ colonized role in which the colonized is mimicking the master’s metropolitan language and discourse

• A site of alternative power—an obeah woman

The Critics on Christophine (1)

• Her departure: p. 97; moving beyond language

• Spivak on imperialism: “Christophine is tangential to this narrative. She cannot be contained by a novel which rewrites a canonical English text within the European novelist tradition in the interest of the white Creole rather than the native.” (p.246)

The Critics on Christophine (1)

• Parry on Spivak: “what Spivak’s strategy of reading necessarily blots out is Christophine’s inscription as the native, female, individual Self who defies the demands of the discriminatory discourses impinging on her person.” (p.248)

The Ending: Madness?

The Issue of Madness (a review)• Daniel's letter: madness in the family  p. 57, 58

(shifted from Mr. Cosway, to Annette) • Antoinette's explanation  p. 78, 81  She is lonely and

desperate.  Madness associated with her need of a horse. 

• Christophine's explanation 94  --"They tell her she is mad. . . "

• Rochester's use of the word "mad" to talk about Christophine: 97

• Christophine's care-taking  p. 93

The Ending: Questions

• How is the English house described? • What are the significances of the red dress in Part

III? (109)• Compare the fire scene in Part I and that in

Antoinette’s dream in part III. Is there a parallel between the parrot in the first fire and Antoinette in the second?

The Ending: Questions

• What is the significance of the ending of the novel? Critics have argued that this novel has an open ending. Is Antoinette mad? What are the traces of A’s madness? How are they explained? Can she escape from the narrative containment? Has she burned down the house?

Spaces: the Caribbean vs. England

• different gardens: Coulibri and Granbois forest and “enclosed garden” in her dream (p.36)

• The outsider world is more alienating: for Grace it’s a shelter against the black and cruel world (105-6)

• Places without looking glass: the convent (32), the house in England (107, 112)

• England as world “made of cardboard” (107)

The Ending

The red dress

—the color of fire and the flamboyant tree, the smell of the WI

—a symbol of her Caribbean identity and of her memory of Sandi (109-10)

-- vs the gray wrapper (110)—the color of England and sign of R’s neglect

Red Dress

the untold/undeveloped love story between Antoinette and Sandi

• (30) Sandi’s help

• hints at their sexual relationship (72-3, 75, 109-10)—

• white dress (76) for Rochester and red dress for Sandi (109)

“Madness” in Antoinette

• This is not England; she sees going outside as ‘England’ (109)

• Loses her memory and sense of time; pp. 108-109.

• Plans her revenge by buying a knife. • Illusion or Vision: 1) sees her mother in front

of the tapestry p. 106; 2) sees the image of Bertha “the ghost” (111-12); 3) sees in the sky in her dream everything she misses at home.

The Ending

The two fires: Fire brings back her child hood memory (111-2)—the ambivalent power of fire—warm, purifying, protective but scorching (112)

Holding the candle down the passage—a conformity to and a reversal of the Victorian angel in the house—illuminating, destructive—breaking her state of zombification (202)

Wide Sargasso Sea in context

• Is it a West Indian novel? • Yes, its use of languages and its sense of

place makes it West Indian. (e.g. textbook p. )

• No, it’s a novel on cross-cultural encounter.• No, it’s an European novel. Its presentation

of the relationship between Tia and Antoinette is historically impossible. (E. Braithwaite)

• Rhys as a literary mother for contemporary Caribbean creole female writers.

Wide Sargasso Sea in context

• WSS the novel and the film

• What do you think?