Alternating Narrative Voices

1
Alternating Narrative Voices

• Jane Eyre first-person narrative, an
  autobiographical voice
• Wide Sargasso Sea
• 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?
• To avoid the suppression of alternating voices as
  in Jane Eyre
• Testing narrative reliabilitywhich narrative is
  to be trusted? See Rs self pity (99)

2
Two Quotes about Christophine

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

3
Christophine Between Imperialism and the Native
Voice

• Analyze the powerful presence of Christophine.
  How does Rhys describe her appearance and her
  linguistic competence? What is the significance
  of the fact that she disappears before the end of
  the novel? Gayatri Spivak and Benita Parry have
  very different view of Christophine. What is
  your stand in this argument and why?
• Two major scenes of Christophine in WWS
• Christophine and Antoinette (p.64-71)
• Christophine and Rochester (p.90-97)

4
Christophine and Antoinette

• A surrogate mother for Antoinettegiving
  Antoinette advice, singing her to sleepkiss her
  (90) a human touch that softens A, who has been
  rejected by everyone elsesee the sun in
  Antoinette
• A model of self-independence for Antoinette
• Antoinette depends on Christophine but still
  cannot get out of the racial stereotypes
  internalized by the white peoplecalling C
  damned black devil from Hell (81)

5
Christophine and Rochester

• multiple tongues speaking French patois,
  English, and the native language vs the
  monolingual Rochester
• The native talks back judging R (92)--No longer
  a mimicking parrot (cf Annettes parrot
  Coco)force Rochester to repeat her wordsa
  reversal of the colonizer/ colonized role in
  which the colonized is mimicking the masters
  metropolitan language and discourse
• A site of alternative poweran obeah woman

6
Obeah and Voodoo

• Christophine as an obeah woman (a Nanny figure)
  --Antoinettes
  fear--imagining the occult objects hidden in the
  room (p.18)
  --black peoples fear of her--Améle (p.61)
  --the love portion (p.82) and the
  sleep medicine for Antoinette (p.91)
• Obeah as a part of Caribbean existence
  --a creolized practice of African
  religions and Christianity (memory of
  Africa)--negative positive --negative evil
  magic (esp. for the white colonizers)
  --positive as a source of
  rebellion against slavery (ex. Nanny and the
  Maroons in Jamaican legends)

7
Obeah as Metaphors in WWS

• letter to Francis Wyndham (4/14/1964)
  p.138-9 Rhyss writers cramp and the
  help from Obeah Night about Rs reason for
  hating A (141-3)--a poem written in the name of
  Edward Rochester or Raworth--I think there were
  several Antoinettes and Mr Rochesters. Indeed I
  am sure. Mr R.s name ought to be changed. In
  the poem (if its that) Mr Rochester (or Raworth)
  consoles himself or justifies himself by saying
  that his Antoinette runs away after the Obeah
  nights and that the creature who comes back is
  not the one who ran away. Antoinette herself
  comes back but so changed that perhaps she was
  lost Antoinette. (140)

8
Zombie and colonialism

• Definition of zombie (64) symbolic of social and
  individual alienation
• Antoinette turning into a ghost (102)the
  haunting ghost in Thornfield (111)Her real
  death is her subjugation by Rochesterby the
  colonizerthe long slow process of her reduction
  to the zombi state chronicled in the novel
  (Sandra Drake 200)

9
New Orleans Voodoo Museum

• zombies humfo altar
  

10
Names

• name and identity--the African belief in name
  (88)
• Daniel Cosway--Esau (73) ( sb. cheated out of his
  birthright) /Is he a CoswayDaniel Boyd? (77,
  94)the importance of claiming the family name
• Antoinette Bertha (68, 81, 88, 106-7)
  Marionette (90, 92, 103)--Why does Rochester
  change her name and the significance of this
  change of names? What is the significance in
  calling her Marionette (a doll)?
• the unnamed male narrator in Part II (the man in
  Part III--Why does she keep him unnamed? (Why
  does she want to have him sign his name in Obeah
  Night?)

11
Love, Sex, Betrayal and Hatred

• signs of betrayals--cock crowing (40, 71, 97-98)
• Rochesters affair with Améle--People around
  Rochester and change their attitudes toward him
  after this one-nigh-stand Améle, Baptiste (85),
  Antoinette--physically transformed (87)R feels
  everything as hostile (90)
• His double standards promiscuity (84, 88, 99)
• Rs possessiveness my lunatic (99)
• Rochesters hatred (83, 102-3) // (143)
• the untold/undeveloped love story between
  Antoinette and Sandi (30)--hints at their sexual
  relationship (72-3, 75, 109-10)--white dress (76)
  for Rochester and red dress for Sandi (109)

12
Spaces the Caribbean vs. England

• different gardens Coulibri and Granbois
  enclosed garden (p.36)
• Rhyss one-room heroinesthe final limit of
  hopelessness Antoinette has not locked
  herself upfor Grace its a shelter against the
  black and cruel world (105-6)
• Places without looking glass the convent (32),
  the house in England (107, 112)What is the
  significance of looking glass?
• England as world made of cardboard (107) What
  is the significance of this metaphor? Why does
  Antoinette insist that she has lost her way to
  England?

13
Questions about the Ending

• What are the significances of the red dress in
  Part III? (109)
• Compare the fire scene in Part I and that in
  Antoinettes dream in part III. Is there a
  parallel between the parrot in the first fire and
  Antoinette in the second?
• What is the significance of the ending of the
  novel? Critics have argued that this novel has
  an open ending. Is Antoinette mad? Can she
  escape from the narrative containment? Has she
  burned down the house?

14
The Ending

• The red dressthe color of fire and the
  flamboyant tree, the smell of the WIa 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 Rs neglect
• The two fires Fire brings back her child hood
  memory (111-2)the ambivalent power of firewarm,
  purifying, protective but scorching (112)
• Holding the candle down the passagea conformity
  to and a reversal of the Victorian angel in the
  houseilluminating, destructivebreaking her
  state of zombification (202)