Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea

1
Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea
Norton Critical Ediction. NY Norton, 1999.

• The Daughters Entrance into the Symbolic Order
  Split Identities and Mirror Images

2
Outline

• General Introduction Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso
  Sea
• Part I Antoinettes Difficult Entrance into the
  Symbolic Order
• The Symbolic Order
• Antoinettes Lack (1) the Mother Annette
• Antoinettes Lack (2) the other Mother figures
  Christophine and Aunt Cora
• Antoinettes Lack and Split Identities
• Antoinettes personality
• Next Week

3
Jean RhysA Life of Displacement

• 8/24/1890 the daughter of a Welsh doctor and a
  white Creole mother
• Educated at a convent school and then sent to
  Perse School, Cambridge, UK at the age of 17.
• 1909-10 Father died, Rhys joined Tours as a
  chorus girl (instead of going home). Abandoned
  by her lover.
• 1919 Marries Jean Lenglet and moves to Paris. 29
  Dec., birth of a son who dies three weeks later.
  (altogether 3 marriages, 2 children.)

4
Jean Rhys A Life of Displacement

• 1923-24 Meets Ford Madox Ford. Husband in jail,
  affair with Ford. (ménage a trois--Ford, Stella
  Bowen and Jean)
• 1927-1939 finished 1 collection of short
  stories and three novels.
• 1933 Divorce. 1934 Marries Leslie Tilden-Smith.
  1945 TS dead. 1947 Marriage to Max Hamer.
  Disappears from the public scene.
• 1966 WSS (which she begins to work on in 1945)
  published.

5
Rhys her characters and her self-identity

• Her characters , all drifting, unhappy,
  unstable, but with clear self-knowledge and
  understanding of others.
• I have no prideno name, no face, no country. I
  dont belong anywhere. (Good Morning, Midnight.)
  
• Rhys Only returned to Dominica once in 56 years
  
• Rhys . "I don't belong anywhere but I get very
  worked up about the West Indies.  I still care. 
  . .  ."

6
Rhys her Self-Identity

• "Do you consider yourself a West Indian?" 
• She shrugged.  "It was such a long time ago when
  I left."
• "So you don't think of yourself as a West Indian
  writer?"
• Again she shrugged, but said nothing. 
• "What about English?  Do you consider yourself an
  English writer?"
• "No!  I'm not, I'm not!  I'm not even English."
• "What about a French writer?"  I asked. 
• Again she shrugged and said nothing. 
• "You have no desire to go back to Dominica?"
  "Sometimes," she said. 

7
Rhys on Jane Eyre

• "The creole in Charlotte Bronte's novel is a lay
  figure -- repulsive which does not matter, and
  not once alive which does.  .  . . For me . .  .
  she must be right on stage.  She must be at least
  plausible with a past, the reason why Mr.
  Rochester treats her so abominably and feels
  justified, and the reason why he thinks she is
  mad and why of course she goes mad, even the
  reason why she tries to set everything on fire,
  and eventually succeeds.  . . " (Gregg 82
  emphases added)
• General Q Is Antoinette doomed to be mad?
  Couldnt there be different endings? Is the
  novel too sad?

8
Rhys's Revision of Jane Eyre  Shift of Dates 

• Jane Eyre -- towards the end of the novel reads
  a book published in 1808  Bertha confined in the
  attic in the first decade of the 19th century.
• WSS's time frame shifted to 1830's onwards 
  Emancipation Act 1833 Antoinette born 1839, a
  year after the full emancipation a child in the
  1840's  (Mark MaWatt qut in Gregg 83)

9
Wide Sargasso Sea General Introduction (1)
the Title

• Sargasso Sea The heart of the Bermuda Triangle
  is covered by the strangest and most notorious
  sea on the planet the Sargasso Sea so named
  because there is a kind of seaweed which lazily
  floats over its entire expanse called sargassum.
  (source)
• signaling the wide division between Antoinette
  and Rochester and the race and gender entangled
  relationships in the Caribbean area.

10
FYI Sargasso Sea

• An oval-shaped area of the North Atlantic Sea,
  bordered by the Gulf Stream and encompassing
  Bermuda Islands. It is characterized by weak
  currents, eerie little wind, and a free-floating
  mass of seaweed called Sargassum .(textbook 1)

11
WSS Settings

• Part I (Martinique), Jamaica Coulibri estate,
  near Spanish TownPart II Granbois, Dominica,
• Part III Great House England

12
Plot and Structure

• Part I Antoinette's Childhood
• Isolation after Mr. Cosways death and the
  emancipation
• The mothers re-marriage to Mr. Mason
• The riot
• Antoinette in the convent.
• Part II Rochester and Antoinette
• Upon arrival, R tries to adjust, writes letters
  to his father relations between A R.
• Daniels letter and the letter from England.
• Antoinettes taking action
• Leaving for England.
• Part III Antoinette in England

13
Characters

14
Wide Sargasso Sea General Questions

• I. What are the subject positions available in
  this society?
• 2. What roles do the parents (Annette, Mr. Mason,
  Christophine) play in this story?
• 3. How does Antoinette respond to her environment
  at different stages
• When trouble comes
• Her time with Tia
• the mothers re-marriage
• The riot
• 4. What do the symbols of mirror, garden and
  parrot means?

15
Symbolic Order (1)Racial Hierarchy and
Antagonism expressed in Language

• I. White Masters, New Old
• Christophines comment 80
• Mr. Luttrells p. 77 death of Mr. Lutrell  ? new
  Lutrells  
• New masters after the Emancipation of slaves Mr.
  Mason82 hires new servants
• II. White against creole
• e.g. the town peoples gossip p. 82 Aunt
  Cora's husband 82
• III. Black against creole
• poor "white cockcroaches" p. 79 white niggers p.
  80 (Tia) black Englishman p. 87 (at the riot)
• IV. The position of obeah woman (82)

16
Symbolic Order (2) Before and after the
Emancipation

• Pre-Emancipation racial and sexual exploitation.
  (e.g. Daniel)
• Post-Emancipation Problems
• Belated Compensation,
• Importation of contract laborers
• Annettes lack of understanding of Christophine
  78 distrust of Godfry, Sass leaving p. 79,
• Riot The presentation of the black mob
• Negative Myra hell (84-85) animal howling (p.
  86), parrot killed bad luck 87
• Positive At the final confrontation, some women
  start to cry. 88.

17
Symbolic Order (2) Antoinettes Subject
Positions

• Seen as a white nigger (vs. white man with good,
  or real nigger)
• In Tias dress, Antoinette sees beautiful
  Luttrells 80 ?
• Spanish town gossips (p. 82) see A as going the
  same way of madness promiscuity? --fixed and
  denied.

18
Antoinettes Lack (1) the Mother Annette

• Annette 1) multiple alienations of the creole
• from the white people in the Spanish town
  because she is a Creole from Martinique and poor
  
• -- from the blacks (they) because she is
  former slave-owner and poor
• -- from the FOB such as Mr. Mason (who cannot
  understand her sense of insecurity)

19
Annette Her Gender Position

• Annette -- 2) As a woman
• Cosway a womanizer
• Widowed can only survive by marrying again.
• Antoinette (solitary life) ?? Antoinette (planned
  and hoped) p. 10
• -- Marooned, she expects her son to be her
  phallic symbol 77
• -- borrow a horse from the new Lutrelles? gay
  and a good dancer
• 2nd Marriage Worse, since Mason does not
  understand the racial relationship (83-84)

20
Annette

• Annette --
• Why does she care so much about the parorot CoCo?
  87
• the parrots Q A
• Qui est la? Qui est la? ?
• Che Coco, Che Coco.
• ? Lack of position/identity

21
Annette? Antoinette Social Hierarchy
Reinforced Stronger Sense of Lack

• Antoinettes loss of motherly love
• Her love rejected by Annette (78, 79,81), who
• cares more about Pierre 81
• Is ashamed of her 80  
• (later)
• pushed away after her madness
• missing her mother in the convent
• The mothers death

22
Antoinettes Substitute Mother

• Antoinette
• Christophine helpful but fearful
• like a substitute mother 78
• feared by Antoinette 82-83 -- Combination of
  Catholicism and voodoo (Later her help is
  counter-productive)
• Aunt Cora
• A. lives with her when Coulibri is reconstructed
• Stands up for them at the riot
• later cannot help when A. is married to R.

23
Antoinettes Lack of and Need of Mirror Image/Ego
Ideal

• A. Fixation in the Imaginary Order
• Self-protection in Childhood
• Refusal to accept change e.g. the horse p. 77
• To be safe from strangers garden 78 79 81
• ? later fatalism and death impulse
• B. In Need of but Split among Different Ego
  Ideals (object a)
• The mothers face -- frowning
• Christophine blue-black and thin
• Tia dress exchange
• To be somewhere else p. 81

24
Antoinettes Lack of and Need of Mirror
Image/Ideal Ego

• C. Sense of Rejection by Both Societies
• Being call names by strange negros. 79
• Her dream 81 (after the pool episode)
• D. After the mothers re-marriage, Antoinette
  trieswithout success--to find her position in
  the Symbolic Order
• Not having a father figure as object of love (84)
• Example of her split identity 85 among The
  Millers Daughter Mr. Mason, her mother. ?
  grateful and like him ? to Pierre How will you
  like being made exactly like other people?
• Failure to seek comfort from Tia. 88

25
Antoinette

• Her childhood as a creole girl neglected by her
  mother, and not protected by her father(s)
• ?Insecure in lack of a firm sense of identity
  (lack of love, fear of others and societys
  criticism, feeling excluded.)
• Fatalistic (fear of madness as a hereditary
  trait)
• Laterconvent as a temporary refuge with no real
  education

26
Next Week

• The Piano
• Snowed Up