Category: Wide Sargasso Sea

Jane Rhys wrote the post-colonial novel Wide Sargasso Sea, as a revision of the classic Victorian novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The different eras of the two novels raised many critical questions regards the effect of colonialism on Wide Sargasso Sea. In her article ‘Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism,’ Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, claims that Jane Rhys’s novel did not only support imperialism ideologies but justified women’s oppression too. This essay will analyze the points Spivak raises in her critical essay as her views on imperialism and feminism in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea.

The article opens with a reminder that literature in the nineteenth century in Britain should only be read within an imperialism context, ‘It should not be possible to read nineteenth-century British literature without remembering that imperialism.'(p. 243) Spivak notes that the colonizers classified the natives as ‘Third World’ and put them on hold. In the novel, Rochester is the representative of the colonizers, as Spivak states, he forces his imperialist privileges especially on ‘Third World’ female characters in the novel in many shapes. Rochester renames Antoinette as Bertha. He takes advantage of her on many levels, he used her physically, financially, emotionally, and even psychologically when he permitted himself to lock ‘Bertha’ in the attic at Thornfield until she committed suicide. His deeds are similar to slave-owners; he controls her and treats her inhumanely. This was his way as a colonizer to assert his control. Wide Sargasso Sea sympathizes with Rochester and Rhys give him excuses for his actions, especially with women. This sympathy for Rochester can be a mirror of her sympathy for the imperialism of the colonizers. ‘Rhys makes it clear that [Rochester] is a victim of the patriarchal inheritance law of entailment rather than of a father’s natural preference for the first’ (p. 251) she is giving him the right to be an oppression colonizer by claiming that he himself was a victim of his father’s oppressiveness. Therefore, his becoming a ‘criminal’ is justified in the eyes of Rhys. Furthermore, the novel devotes a full chapter for Rochester to narrate, which can be viewed as a way of giving the colonizers a voice, and as an accusation of sympathizing with them.

Another female character that Spivak mentions as an example of what imperialism has done to women is the nursemaid Christophine. She is considered a strong character, who understood Rochester’s intentions of the marriage and tried to stand in his face. Her words were ‘alert[ing]’ (p. 253) he felt afraid and threatened her to refer to the forces of Law and Order. This scene represents a ‘Third World’ oppression by the colonizers, his threats and attempts to shut her voice up succeeded, with the help of Rhys who made Christophine disappear from the novel, and no longer stand in the face of imperialism. Moreover, Rochester felt surprised by the fact that Antoinette kisses Christophine and hugs her; he told her that he ‘would not do that if [he] was in her place'(p. 130). This suggests hate feelings and contempt for natives by the imperialists from the beginning of the novel.

As a part of the imperialism oppression ideology, Antoinette could not be herself nor the ‘other,’ this is a form of women’s oppressiveness. Women ‘in age of imperialism’ were limited for ‘childbearing and soul making.’ In her search for identity, young Antoinette dressed like her Tia, become a part of the nation. The scene of Tia’s act of throwing a stone at her and hit her, can be translated as an attempt of the novel to set bounders for ‘Third World’ women. Moreover, when Antoinette was in the attic she felt cold, Rhys connected this coldness of the attic to the ‘coldness’ of England, and it seems that Antoinette’s act of burning of the house is no longer an act of a madness, but an attempt to individualize herself and the warmth of the fire alludes to her ethnic identity.

Like Antoinette who is in-between two cultures, and two identities, the title of the novel ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ also stretches between the West Indies and the Atlantic Ocean (Wikipedia). It separates and at the same time connecting Europe and the Caribbean I think this was an attempt by the writer to demonstrate her desire to stay on liminal space, not force the British identity nor the Caribbean one. Though I am convinced that Rhys did not intend from the beginning to show her colonial identity, I still agree with Spivak’s argument.

Works Cited

1. Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea. New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1982 (first pub. in 1966).
2. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. ‘Three women’s texts and a critique of imperialism.’ Critical inquiry 12.1 (1985): 243-259.
3. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wide Sargasso Sea.

In this paper, I will explore the complexities in identity and its effects on the characters in Jean Rhy’s Wide Sargasso Sea, J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus using the lens of postcolonial approach. The concept of identity is complex and different meanings of it are evident to offer good starting points for a research of the concept of identity. Here is the most relevant entry for identity in the Oxford English Dictionary, “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is” or “the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity” (Oxford English Dictionary, p 705). In addition to this, Beller and Leerssen also claims that, “Identity becomes to mean being identifiable, and is closely linked to the idea of permanence through time something remaining identical to itself from moment to moment” (Beller and Leerssen, p 3) They reveal “the other side” of identity by referring to what they call the synchronic meaning of the concept of identity. From this view it can be said that this sense of self representing one’s autobiographical narrative with the ever-changing actions and reactions experienced in the real life. The process of rewriting the story of somebody’s life enables the person to reinterpret past experience and is essential for acting as a person with a sense of self in the present and the future. The way one identifies them to another does influence how others identify them. In terms of postcolonialism, displacement has heavily influenced the identities of the diasporic people mainly Caribbean and Africans. Postcolonialism as a term that retains a high complexity from its diverse nature. Displacement and diaspora offer a significant example of the aftermath of colonialism. The complexity of identity formation of the postcolonial diaspora invites a close examination. It is hardly doubtful the role of colonial experience in the formation of the identity of the once-colonized. The colonial caused a rupture in the self-identification of the once-colonized, eradicated and denigrated their pre-colonial identities, and rendered them ever-struggling for their new identities. The debate about the identity of the colonized, therefore, is caught between a displaced stand which claims that the identity of the diaspora has never been the same for every colonized victims. Using the postcolonial theory throughout the essay will enable to study the process by which colonialism has been a shaping factor of identity complexities in the selected characters in three different novels respectively. The three works are examined comparatively to emphasize the displacement and the complexity of identities that results from colonialism in Caribbean Island and Africa.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is born on September 15th 1977 in Enugu, Nigeria Adichie is a Nigerian novelist and an active feminist campaigner which writes broadly on the issues of Biafran war in Nigeria during the late 1960s. Born as the fifth of six children, she described her childhood life as a happy moment but as she is pressured by her family and social expectations, Adichie pursued her study in medicine in University of Nigeria After one year and a half however, Adichie decided to drop out and pursue her study in communications and political science at Drexel University in Philadelphia, US. Adichie pursue her unfulfilled dream as an author as she stumbled upon Things Fall Apart written by novelist and fellow Igbo Chinua Achebe and she regarded it as a ground-breaking piece of writing Adichie writes fiction, non-fiction as well as a collection of short story entitled The Thing Around Your Neck published in 2009. Her fiction includes Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and Americanah (2013). Her non-fiction on the other hand include her definition of feminism of the 21st Century in her book-length essay of We Should All Be Feminists (2014).The essay is an adaptation of Adichie’s 2012 TEDx talk of the same name. Most of Adichie’s novels all focus on contemporary Nigerian culture, its political turbulence and at times, how it can intersect with the West. Similar themes shared by J.M Coetzee’s novel, reflects either directly or indirectly on recent events unfolding within South African society, between fictional representation and the rapid, traumatic changes that have transformed and continue to transform South Africa. John Maxwell Coetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa, on 9 February 1940, the elder of two children. His mother was a primary school teacher. His father was trained as an attorney, but practiced as such only intermittently, during the years 1941–45 he served with the South African forces in North Africa and Italy. Though Coetzee’s parents were not of British descent, the language spoken at home was English. Coetzee entered the University of Cape Town in 1957, and in 1960 and 1961 graduated successively with honours degrees in English and mathematics. In 1965 Coetzee entered the graduate school of the University of Texas at Austin, and in 1968 graduated with a PhD in English, linguistics, and Germanic languages. After an application for permanent residence in the United States was denied, he returned to South Africa. From 1972 until 2000 he held a series of positions at the University of Cape Town, the last of them as Distinguished Professor of Literature. Coetzee began writing fiction in 1969. In the Heart of the Country (1977) won South Africa’s then principal literary award, the CNA Prize, and was published in Britain and the USA. Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) received international notice. His reputation was confirmed by Life & Times of Michael K (1983), which won Britain’s Booker Prize. It was followed by Foe (1986), Age of Iron (1990), The Master of Petersburg (1994), and Disgrace (1999), which again won the Booker Prize. Coetzee has also been active as a translator of Dutch and Afrikaans literature. However, Jean Rhys did not share similar academic background like the other two authors. Rhys was born in Dominica, a formerly British island in the Caribbean, to a Welsh father and Scottish mother. She moved to England at the age of sixteen, where she worked unsuccessfully as a chorus girl. In the 1920s, she relocated to Europe, travelling as a Bohemian artist and taking up residence sporadically in Paris. During this period, Rhys lived in near poverty, while familiarising herself with modern art and literature, and acquiring the alcoholism that would persist throughout the rest of her life. Her experience of a patriarchal society and feelings of displacement during this period would form some of the most important themes in her work. Her first four novels were published during the 1920s and 1930s, but it was not until the publication of Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966 that she emerged as a significant literary figure. A ‘prequel’ to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea won a prestigious WH Smith Literary Award in 1967.

Wide Sargasso Sea and Purple Hibiscus contain three parts respectively compared to Disgrace. Purple Hibiscus tells the story from Kambili Achike’s narration on her household which include three periods of her life, during the Palm Sunday, before Palm Sunday, after Palm Sunday and the present. Kambili’s household comprises of her abusive Papa, Eugene Achike and her submissive Mama, Beatrice Achike along with her older brother, Chukwuka Achike or Jaja. Papa is a devoted Catholic who is well-known for his generosity while he turns out as an abusive monster towards his wife and children at home. Being a submissive wife, Mama submits herself wholly not only towards Papa’s violence act but also in upholding their religion and belief. Kambili and Jaja on the other hand are struggling to express their emotions as they are emotionally repressed in the house and often dictated by Papa on a daily basis. Papa imposed his strict religious value upon everyone in the house and expected nothing but full commitment from them. As the novel ends, Mama has decided to poison Papa as she could not stand his outrageous treatments towards the whole family. As Jaja takes the blame for Mama, by the end of his imprisonment, he obtains the sense of freedom from the abusive and confined house, similar to his younger sister, Kambili. This novel is set from the long history of British colonialism in Nigeria. On the other hand, Coetzee’s novel, 1999’s Disgrace, is a strong statement on the political climate in post–apartheid South Africa. The main character, David Lurie, is an English professor at the University of Cape Town. He sees himself as an aging, but still handsome, Lothario. He has seduced many young women in his day, but an affair with one of his students finally proves his undoing. Charged with sexual harassment, he leaves his post in disgrace, seeking refuge at the small farm owned by his daughter, Lucy. While David’s world is refined and highly intellectualized, Lucy works at hard physical labor in simple surroundings. David’s notions of orderliness are overturned when three men come to the farm, set him afire, and rape Lucy. Father and daughter survive the ordeal, only to learn that Lucy has become pregnant. Eventually, in order to protect herself and her simple way of life, she consents to become the third wife in her neighbor’s polygamous family, even though he may have arranged the attack on her in order to gain control of her property. Rhy’s Wide Sargasso Sea begins shortly after the Slavery Abolition Act is passed in 1833. The novel shows that the act put an end to legal slavery throughout the British Empire, becoming effective in August of the following year which reflects on the protagonist, Antoinette Cosway is a young girl living with her mother and brother at Coulibri, her family’s estate near Spanish Town, Jamaica. With the passage of the Emancipation Act and the death of her father, the family is financially ruined. Moreover, they are ostracized by both the black and white communities on the island. The black community despises them for being former slaveholders, and the white community looks down on them because they are poor, Creole, and, in her mother’s case, French. Among the only servants who remain is Christophine, a Martinique woman who is rumoured to practice obeah. Motivated in part by her family’s desperate situation, Annette, Antoinette’s mother, marries Mr. Mason, a wealthy planter. This marriage, however, only seems to aggravate racial tensions in their neighborhood. One night, rioters burn the house down. The entire family narrowly escapes, all except Antoinette’s brother Pierre, who, due to his exposure to the smoke, either dies very soon after. Pierre’s death devastates Annette, who goes mad with grief. Mr. Mason sends Annette off to an isolated house to be cared for by a couple of color. Antoinette is sent to live with her aunt Cora in Spanish Town. For a year and a half, Antoinette attends a convent school there. Part I ends with Mr. Mason back in Antoinette’s life, insinuating that plans for arranging her marriage are already under way. When newly wedded Antoinette and Rochester on their honeymoon in Granbois, the Cosway estate outside Massacre, Dominica. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that their marriage was arranged by Rochester’s father, Mr. Mason, and Richard Mason, Antoinette’s stepbrother. After only a month of courtship, Rochester married Antoinette. While at first wary of each other, Antoinette and Rochester grow to trust each other and consummate their marriage. But the honeymoon is short-lived, as Rochester receives a malicious letter from a man who claims to be Daniel Cosway, Antoinette’s stepbrother. The letter alleges that there is a history of sexual degeneracy and mental illness in Antoinette’s family, and it also alleges that Antoinette had previously been engaged to a relative of color, Sandi Cosway. After receiving the letter, Rochester spurns Antoinette. Using an obeah potion obtained from Christophine, Antoinette drugs and seduces Rochester. On waking, Rochester realizes that he has been drugged, and sleeps with Antoinette’s maid in revenge. Betrayed, Antoinette seems to go mad herself. Part II ends with their departure from Granbois to Spanish Town, where Rochester plans to have Antoinette declared insane and confined. Antoinette already confined in Thornfield Hall guarded by Grace Poole. Antoinette seems to have little sense of whom or where she is at this point. Her stepbrother Richard Mason visits her, and she attacks him after he refuses to help her out of her marriage. Finally, she dreams that she escapes from her room and sets fire to the entire house. At the end of the dream, she flees to the top of the battlements, and then jumps off. Antoinette wakes up, and the novel ends as she escapes from her room, with a candle lighting her way down a dark hallway. Postconialism ties these three novels together with the theme of identity and how the characters portray the complexities of their displacement.

Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus describes a Nigerian girl named Kambili Achike who is divided between the rigid doctrine of Catholicism on the one hand and Igbo culture and its religious practices on the other. Kambili’s father, embodies the post-colonized lifestyle. He represents the supremacy of modernity over tradition and values Catholicism over Igbo religious customs. In the text, the house in Enugu, Nigeria, becomes a metaphor for the father’s Eurocentrism and his value of the rigid doctrine of Catholicism over traditional religious customs. Eugene not only embodies the role of colonizer, he parallels the idea that many Africans and African Americans cannot respect culture of their homeland because of the significant effects of colonization. For example, he admires and shows more respect for his father-in-law, who values Eurocentrism, than his own father. In describing the ways in which Eugene treats his father as opposed to his father-in-law, Kambili says,

“If Papa-Nnukwu minded that his son sent him impersonal, paltry amounts of money through a driver he didn’t show it. It was so different from the way Papa had treated my maternal grandfather until he died five years ago. Papa would stop by Grandfather’s house at our ikwi nne, Mother’s maiden home, before we even drove to our own compound. Papa still talked about him often, his eyes proud, as if Grandfather were his own father. He opened his eyes before many of our people did, Papa would say; he was one of the few who welcomed the missionaries. Do you know how quickly he learned English? When he became an 35 interpreter, do you know how many converts he helped win? Why, he converted most of Abba himself! He did things the right way, the way the white people did, not what our people do now!” (Adichie, 67-68)

Like his father-in-law, Eugene internalizes the view of Africa as uncivilized and demonstrates how colonization can alter natives’ minds about their own skin colour and heritage. Eugene embodies the notion that everything associated with whiteness is morally right and holy, and everything associated with the Nigerian nation before colonial rule is immoral and sinful. This explains Antoinette’s struggle for her identity, her belonging and her existence began when she was just a little child where she could not define her own self properly. She was marginalized not only for being of a mixed blood but also for being a female and for being the colonized object as will be explained later. Antoinette is born in the midst of racial conflict. She is the daughter of a white Creole woman and an English slave owner in Jamaica. Her family is hated by the locals who consider it as a family of colonizers. Antoinette is also excluded on the basis of her mother’s Creole origin, and so she is rejected by both the black and white population of the island. The black community doesn’t accept her because she is white and at the same time, she doesn’t fit into the world of the whites who consider those of mixed races as inferior to themselves. As a white Creole, Antoinette becomes a double outsider, “white nigger” for the Europeans and “white cockroach” for the blacks. As Antoinette wistfully explains to her husband in the novel, “…a white cockroach. That’s me. That’s what they [the blacks] call all of us who were here before their own people in Africa sold them to the slave traders. And I’ve heard English women call us white niggers. … I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all.” (Rhys, 64)

This results in creating a sharp conflict between the white and black population of the West Indies. Antoinette is scorned by both white and black cultures and is thus forced to see herself as “Other” without being able to consider herself as part of these two prevailing ethnic and cultural groups. On the contrary, when colonialist policies fade away, the white’s privilege disappears along with them. Therefore, in Disgrace, Lurie could not escape the shadow of the privileged colonialists in colonial time quickly. He feels it difficult to cope with the changing world in an apartheid-free South Africa. So as soon as the white lose their power, Lurie loses his identity. He feels displaced, confused and helpless, like a sleepwalker in darkness. The colonialist policies leave an unquenchable scar for not only the black but also for the white in post-apartheid South Africa. Along with the disappearance of the past hegemony, the representative language of the white English loses its function as well. As a professor of language, as the representative of colonizers, Lurie is suffering a physical or even psychological harassment when his daughter is robbed and gang raped. There is no help, even though, “He speaks Italian. He speaks French, but Italian and French will not save him here in darkest Africa.” (Coetzee, 95)

When colonialist policies fade away, the colonial evil would revenge on the body and flesh of their offspring. It is the colonizers themselves that deserve the chain reaction of their sin in the past. The violence on the farm is inevitable. It is not only a violation upon human body but also a symbol of revenge and a historical hatred between different races, which is caused by colonizers.

In the long run as the characters face identity crisis, they craft a new path by being submissive and passive to the situation in order to create new identity for themselves with the intention to feel belonged. They believed that they could find comfort and also will be able to empower if they could adapt themselves into the lifestyle and the culture of the colonizers. This act is called the ‘mimicry’ in postcolonial terms. In having desire to have a better life forces them to imitate the English society in order to indulge into their world. They even start eating their food as they find that this way is the only one for them to choose an identity that distinguishes them from others. In other words, Antoinette and her mother try to imitate the colonizer and to find comfort in adapting their modes of behaviour as well as their lifestyle. We can see that when Antoinette begins to eat English food in the English way, “We ate English food now, beef and mutton, pies and puddings. I was glad to be like an English girl but I missed the taste of Christophine’s cooking” (Rhys, 17).

However, this feeling does not solve Antoinette’s identity problem. Antoinette’s identity crisis reaches its peak with her marriage that has been arranged by her stepfather Mr. Mason and his son Rochester. Antoinette’s husband is shown as a representative of the colonial powers. With the appearance of Rochester and his domineering character, the oppression, discrimination and marginalization practiced on Antoinette are magnified. Rochester never gives support to her but tries to eliminate her identity and her presence. His harsh and inhumane treatment of her diminishes any hope for her of ever becoming an independent woman. Rochester has not married her out of love but for money and he never hesitates to keep her under his full control as a colonizer who makes her feel lost. On the other hand, as a white offspring of the ex-colonizers, Lucy becomes the victim of colonialist policies.

“Yes, I agree, it is humiliating. But perhaps that is a good point to start from again. Perhaps that is what I must learn to accept, to start at ground level with nothing. Not with nothing but with nothing. No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity.” (Coetzee, 205)

Meanwhile, Lucy loses her originally independent identity. She will redefine her identity against Petrus and her unborn child, whose blood is mixed with the black one and the white one. The child belongs to the black pedigree, the earth and the black race. He is also a symbol of hope and amalgamation. The white Lucy would become the ‘wife’ of black Petrus and become a member of the black family, which would ensure her position in the postcolonial society. Likewise, PapaNnukwu, Kambili’s paternal grandfather, takes pride in his Igbo heritage and the informal, oral educational system that he values allows his grandchildren to connect to a culture that affirms them. Through storytelling, the grandfather introduces Kambili to a culture that is neglected and devalued in her home.For example, while in Nsukka, Papa-Nnukwu recounts to his grandchildren the, “story of why the tortoise has a cracked shell” (Adichie, 157).

Although Kambili does not defy her father as openly as her brother does, she knowingly goes against his rules by bringing a portrait of Papa-Nnukwu to his home. Kambili notes, “Perhaps it was what we wanted to happen, Jaja and I, without being aware of it. Perhaps we all changed after Nsukka even Papa and things were destined to not be the same, to not be in their original order” (Adichie, 209).

The Igbo religion and culture allow Kambili to connect to an identity that articulates the values and realities of her Nigerian identity. In the process of submissiveness, the colonized victims also took steps of empowerment when they willingly abide to the colonizer’s lifestyle, language and culture. Aunty Uju is an important example of this concept. During summer, Ifemelu moves to America, she stays with Aunty Uju and Dike in New York. Immediately, Ifemelu notices differences in her aunt’s personality. As they are driving in the car, Aunty Uju mispronounces her own name when she takes a call. Adichie continues this scene with an exchange between Ifemelu and Aunty Uju, “Is that how you pronounce your name now? It’s what they call me” (Adichie, 105).

Just as we see with Aisha, Aunty Uju appears to give in to the American perception of who she is. Because she is traveling the road to American success, she chooses to make her travels smoother by ignoring bumps along the way namely, the correct pronunciation of her name. Just as with Aisha, we also see Aunty Uju simultaneously acknowledge her otherness while submitting to the identity that the dominant society has created for her. Aunty Uju again shows her willingness to bend to the ways of the dominant society when she, Dike, and Ifemelu are at the grocery store. Ifemelu observes the way Aunty Uju speaks when she engages in conversations with white Americans.

“’Dike, put it back,’ Aunty Uju said, with the nasal, sliding accent she put on when she spoke to white Americans, in the presence of white Americans, in the hearing of white Americans. ‘Pooh-reet-back’. And with the accent emerged a new persona, apologetic and self-abasing” (Adichie 109).

In the wake of colonialism, the white may or may not absolve one from guilty. Lurie commits crimes, and his daughter Lucy atones for it, which just as it goes, “Then it is over, all this badness.” (Coetzee, 202)

Lucy is a sign of hope for the coexistence. The sin of the white’s past and the disgrace of apartheid’s will be compensated by the white’s acquiescence. And in the apartheid-free South Africa, white women are in the redemption and reconciliation for the past colonial evils. To some extent, it is an assimilation to the white colonizers, which implies that aggression and plantation will be defeated by the colonized at last. The violence on the farm is caused by the colonialists. Finally, Coetzee draws a picture of Lucy to bear the child, signifying the amalgamation and reconciliation between the colonizers and the colonized, the black and the white. Similarly, Antoinette’s young husband, who narrates the second part of the novel, feels for her a mixture of fascination and repulsion that can be seen as representative of the European attitude towards the non-European as a whole. He represents those Europeans who are opportunists seeking a world in which to improve their economic power. It is not surprising that he sees the West Indies Island as one dreary and dreadful place far removed from human civilisation. After a while his love and affection for Antoinette and the estate begins to turn to aggression and hatred. There is an overt attempt to hurt her by sleeping with Amelie, a Creole servant. However, Antoinette rejects the apparent renaming by her husband. Antoinette’s husband, who remains nameless throughout the narrative refuses to call her Antoinette anymore. Instead, he calls her Bertha. Antoinette says of this, “Names matter, likewhen he wouldn’t call me Antoinette, and I saw Antoinette drifting out of the window with herscents, her pretty clothes and her looking glass.” (Rhys, 180)

This foregrounds the fact that Antoinette would rather die than lose her identity. She asserts and accepts her ‘whiteness’ even as she grows hostile to her maid servants, “I dare say we would have died if she’d turned against us and that would have been a better fate. To die and be forgotten and at peace. Not to know that one is abandoned, lied about, helpless. All the ones who died, who says a good word for them now?” (Rhys, 21-22)

The narrative voice has a shift from Antoinette to her husband and even to Christophine at some point. It jumps through time and space. As a postcolonial work, the novel indicts England’s exploitative colonial empire, aligning its sympathies with the plight of the black Caribbean.

In conclusion, therefore, Wide Sargasso Sea presents the predicament of the post-slavery white planters in the West Indies as a tragic one, in Disgrace, when the majority of the black in South Africa succeeds in coming into power when the colonialist rules fade away, colonialist policies leave an unquenchable scar on both the black and the white in their mind as well as on their bodies and in Purple Hibiscus, reveals the life and circumstances behind the colonized identity and show how each they attempt to reconcile their identities and their resistance through larger issues of a hybrid identity, place, and the trauma one experiences as a result of colonialism. All three novels expose the postcolonial effects towards the complexities of identity on the characters through the colonizers perspectives. In the 1990s, when the majority of the black in South Africa succeeds in coming into power, when the colonialist rules fade away, colonialist policies leave an unquenchable scar on both the black and the white in their mind as well as on their bodies. So the white take up the heavy burden of redemption. So the white cannot help but to expiate and start on a long and painful journey to search for self-identity. Therefore, both the black and the white are displaced, confused and helpless in the wake of colonialism. Though the wound is too smart to heal, both the black and the white are trying their best to search for a new way for them to coexist in peace and harmony.

Works Cited

1. “A Postcolonial Reading of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.” Journal of Language and Literature Education, 2014, doi:10.12973/jlle.11.246.
2. Stephanie Coartney. “A Search for Self in Wide Sargasso Sea.” Identity Crisis for the Creole W, www.mckendree.edu/academics/scholars/issue10/coartney.htm.
3. “A Study of Displacement in Jean Rhys’ Novel Wide Sargasso Sea.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies, vol. 5, no. 5, 2014, doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.5p.111.
4. Akujobi, Os. “The Dynamics of Voice Qualifiers in Discourse: Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.” AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language, Literature and Gender Studies, vol. 5, no. 1, 2016, p. 67., doi:10.4314/laligens.v5i1.6.
5. Cameron, Edwin. “Dignity and Disgrace: Moral Citizenship and Constitutional Protection.” Understanding Human Dignity, 2013, doi:10.5871/bacad/9780197265642.003.0027.
6. Ochuko, Mebitaghan Rita. “An Ideological Study of Igbo Features in the French Translation of Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.” US-China Foreign Language, vol. 14, no. 4, 2016, doi:10.17265/1539-8080/2016.04.004.
7. Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Penguin Books Ltd, 2016.
8. Strobel, Leah. “Internarrative Identity Resisted: The Narcissistic Impulse in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea.” Representations of Internarrative Identity, 2015, pp. 124–137., doi:10.1057/9781137462534_8.

Emily Jane Bronte and Jean Rhys were born in a age that people depreciated woman and they have bias that woman cannot write a good novel, but they broke the bias by their famous article. Wuthering Heights and Wide Sargasso Sea were write by Emily Jane Bronte and Jean Rhys, they used exquisite writing to describe the characters’ activity in order to show character’s emotion and attract readers. They created a lot of influential characters, and their articles reflect the environment of 19 century’s England. There are many similarity between Wuthering Heights and Wide Sargasso Sea, their tone and style are stormy and dark, and the critical element of these two novel is love. However, subtle difference can make great changes in evaluation, and there are many difference between two novels. The narrative way of Wuthering Heights is more attractive than Wide Sargasso Sea, the love between Heathcliff and Catherine is more touching than the love between Antoniette and Richard.

In Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys used first person perspective to recount the story, and the narrator has switch between Antoniette and Richard. Readers are easily affect by narrator’s bias because audiences always directly receive attitudes from narrator. Also, the first person perspective caused readers get limited information, and the evaluate about one character or something is one sided. On the other hand, Bronte used first person perspective in Wuthering Heights as well, but audiences have less effect from narrator and have more subjective thought. Even though Nally reporting what she experienced, the main character of the story is Heathcliff. Also, Nally does not show many opinions about other characters, and she cannot tells readers what Heathcliff or Catherine are thinking about. So, Wuthering Height seem as a third person perspective story, because of audiences have to assess a character and events by themselves, and they have a wider range to think about the story.

Both of Wide Sargasso Sea and Wuthering Heights used lots of symbolism to help the novel stand out. For example, in Wide Sargasso Sea, hair is an important symbolize, every appearance of hair has a certain meaning. Mother’s hair is the symbol of the protagonist’s childhood. As Antoniette said “The soft black hair covered me like a cape, hiding me and making me feel safe”. After natives burned her house, when Antoinette saw her mother again, her mother’s hair that symbolized beauty and peace no longer existed, she wore a long and short braid and was treated as a madman by others. Although her body still existed, her spirit crossed, and Antoinette’s childhood became as incomplete as her mother’s braid. When Antoinette on the way to the Abbey, she met two children. The boy had a red curly hair, and the girl’s hair is oil smelled and disgusting. Antoinette was terrified by them and two disgusting children symbolize the threat and oppression that Antoinette subconsciously feared. After Antoinette married with her husband. Her hair was hangs down to her waist softly, with red light and golden light shining in her hair. It symbolized her husband is indulge in her beauty and love her. But after lust, Antoinette’s hair became something that buried her husband alive and made him unable to breathe freely. The symbol of hair runs through Antoinette’s whole life. From beauty to ugliness, from possession to loss, it repeatedly symbolizes the desire and frustration in her life. Dream is another symbolism, Antoinette had the same dream three times. The first time I was bullied by black children, ‘I dreamed I was walking in the forest. Not alone. Someone who hates me follows me, but can’t see. I could hear the heavy footsteps getting closer and closer, though I struggled and cried, but I couldn’t move”. The second dream was that her stepfather was going to take her out of the monastery. She was full of fear of the outside world and dreamed of the man. ‘I followed him, scared to death, but I didn’t ask for help. If someone wanted to save me, I would refuse. It can’t escape. The man took her to a garden surrounded by walls. It was dark and she could not see the walls or the steps, but she knew where they were.” The third time she had the same dream, she was imprisoned in the attic of the English Manor. Her dream had a clear ending. She dreamed that she was lighting a candle, looking for the altar. She dreamed of her life in the raging fire, orchids, life trees, houses when she was a child, and beloved paintings. She also dreamed of the man who hated her. So she fulfilled the mission that her dream gave her. She destroyed the prison which was disguised as legal love and marriage. She found her home in the brilliant fire like a moth. In Wuthering Heights, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange symbolize two distinct worlds and powers. Wuthering Heights symbolize the storm while Thrushcross heights symbolize the tranquility. They have a strong contrast between the dynamic and the static. Another symbolize in Wuthering Heights is windows. Windows have different symbols in different periods, which show the conflict and integration of two kinds of scenery inside and outside the windows. In Catherine’s childhood, the window symbolizes the barrier between the two granges. When Katherine is attracted by Thrushcross Grange, she chooses to enter the civilized world inside the window and leave the wild world outside the window. In Catherine’s adulthood, windows served as a vehicle for her remorse. At this time, Catherine realized that the life in the window which is live in Thrushcross Grange restricted her, and the life out of the window was what she yearned for. Also, Emily used trees to symbolize love. trees need freedom to grow which same as love. Heathcliff compared Catherine and Linton’s marriage to planting trees in flowerpots. So Catherine die in regret, because she did not get the love she expected.

Wuthering Heights and Wide Sargasso Sea have a same theme which is love, but their expression is different. In Wide Sargasso Sea, “The theme of love is composed of many related emotions: desire, desire, trust and happiness, but also hatred, fear and jealousy” (Shmoop Editorial Team). The love between Antoinette and her husband is not pure. Richard got marry with Antoinette because she is rich and his mission is find a rich female to marry in order to get her property. When Antoinette said she does not want marry with Richard, Richard thought he is losing face, because he believed that he came from England, his lineage is noble, and a mixed race woman cannot refuse him. During honeymoon, Richard showed his love to Antoinette because he obsessed with her beauty and his sexual desire, but he did not call Antoinette with her true name, he gave an English name to her in order to satisfy his vanity. After Richard tired on Antoinette, he deserted her and lock her into a room without any mercy. Love does not connect Antoinette and Richard, the connection between them is Richard’s desires. On the other hand, in Wuthering Heights, “Heathcliff’s and Catherine’s fanatical, passionate feelings are linked to their childhood nostalgia and extend beyond the grave into the afterlife, so they must connect by love” (Shmoop Editorial Team). Heathcliff loves Catherine so much, but when he knew Catherine is going to marry with Linton, he started hate Linton’s family and Hindley’s family. Even though Catherine chose to marry with Linton, she felt remorse and pain, and she was eager to return to Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights. Catherine lost in an endless loneliness when she left Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff. Even when she died, she could not return to Wuthering Heights and became a ghost, because her soul was closely connected with Heathcliff’s soul. After Catherine die, Heathcliff lost his only comfort in the world, and his human nature inevitably became distorted and became a thorough avenger. However, Heathcliff saw himself and his undying love for Catherine from Hareton and Cathy. Their previous love made Heathcliff gave up revenge and finally got rid of it. Emily shows the brilliance of human nature and that love can transform human evil into tolerance. Human nature is distorted by love but sublimated by love as well. The love from Heathcliff symbolizes the hope and future of human beings.

As James said, “In this matter, the kind-hearted and neglected Hareton, and Catherine’s daughter found an eternal and never separated love” (James P34-36). There are many obstacles between Hareton and Cathy when they met each other. Cathy despised Hareton when she know he is her cousin because he cannot read and write. Also, Heathcliff did not allow them to have any deep communication because it is part of his revenge plan. However, they fall in love and Heathcliff acquiesced it, because this love is from Heathcliff and Catherine, Heathcliff did not want them have same experience. Because of this love is similar to Heathcliff previous experience, he can finally find himself and get relief from it, so that his humanity can return. At the same time, it shows the immortal love between him and Catherine. Despite Catherine was dead for long time, he still love her and could not forget her, this love will last until he enters cemetery.

Schakenraad introduced that“Catherine makes a clear distinction between soul and body. The soul is the real self, which is the constant and essential part of her identity. Heathcliff belongs to her soul, which is indivisible and eternal. On the other hand, her love for Edgar will change, and things in her life may change her feelings. Secondly, when Catherine entered Thrushcross Grange, she entered a world of appearances, which also had a meaning for her, and she could not easily ignore it” (Schakenraad P342). and “Wuthering Heights is the pursuit of happiness, which is repeatedly mentioned as heaven: not a traditional Christian heaven, but a happiness state that may be different for everyone” (Schakenraad P344). When Catherine lived in Thrushcross Grange, she realized that it was like a cage for her. Her soul belonged to Heathcliff, so she could not feel happiness when she live in Thrushcross Grange. At same time, Catherine is everything for Heathcliff’s life, as he said to Nally, losing Catherine is like being in hell. As the most important part of human being, soul is inseparable, but Catherine’s practice separated her soul from her body, and she could not survive like a fish out of water. Catherine knew her love for Heathcliff, but she also wanted status and honor, so she chose to marry Linton. The shackles of marriage did not make her love disappear a little bit, because it was a kind of instinctive love from self-identity and the other side’s identity. On the other hand, losing Catherine’s life meant Heathcliff lost everything. Heathcliff spent his whole life to retaliate, even to use bad means, even to violate ethics. Catherine saw her shadow in Heathcliff’s soul, and Heathcliff regarded Catherine’s love as life. This desperate love seems so tragic. Their love is purest and contains power, this kind of love that makes Heathcliff who lost Catherine turn from an angel to a devil, revenge, intrigue, unscrupulous means and so on can destroy life and show love at the same time. So the hatred, distortion and contrary to human nature in the article are the best satire to that society. The darker the article reveals, the greater the love between Catherine and Heathcliff. It is not so much a conspiracy as loyalty to love.

References

1. Shmoop Editorial Team. ‘Windows, Doors, Thresholds, and Other Boundaries in Wuthering Heights.’ Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 22 Oct. 2019.
2. Shmoop Editorial Team. ‘Wide Sargasso Sea Theme of Love.’ Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 22 Oct. 2019.
3. Shmoop Editorial Team. ‘Wuthering Heights Theme of Love.’ Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 22 Oct. 2019.

You are able to read Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea on their own without being aware of their connections. However, some readers may see this as Wide Sargasso Sea losing some of its meaning since the book is seen as Rhys’ portrayal of Bertha being normal rather than the mad woman she is conveyed as in Jane Eyre.

‘When I read Jane Eyre as a child, I thought, why should she think Creole women are lunatics and all that? What a shame to make , Rochester’s first wife, Bertha, the awful mad woman and I immediately thought I write the story as it might’ve really been. She seemed such a poor ghost. I thought I’d try to write her a life.’

Many see Rhy’s novel as an overall critical review of Bronte’s Jane Eyre; ‘For while Wide Sargasso Sea pays respectful homage to Jane Eyre, it is primarily a critique: the previously silent madwoman speaks, and in the process exposes and inverts the patriarchal and colonialist presumptions and value systems around which the thematics of the precursor text coalesce.’

‘If Wide Sea Sargasso in some ways violently decomposes the topographic and textual structures of Jane Eyre through various modes of geopolitical dispersal and displacement, this in itself a re-inhabiting of the modes of displacement internal to the workings of structure in Jane Eyre.’

Rhys’ seems to focus specifically on the portrayal of Bertha through the character of Antoinette Cosway within her novel. This opinion is backed up by Rhys herself as she stated in many interviews that she would like the express the pleasant life Bertha could of had rather than the one she was given by Bronte in which she is imprisoned and seen as a deranged burden to her compassionless husband Rochester. Rhys appears to have added a more personal approach in her writing of Wide Sargasso Sea as she is a woman born to a mother of Creole descent and she herself grew up on the island of Dominica.

‘The mad wife of of Jane Eyre has always interested me. I was convinced that Charlotte Bronte must have always had something against the West Indies and I was angry about it. Otherwise, why did she take a West Indian for that horrible lunatic, for that really dreadful creature? I hadn’t really formulated the idea of vindicating the mad woman in the novel but when i was rediscovered, I was encouraged to do so.’

Rhys’ strong reaction to Bronte’s classic novel and the incorrect portrayal of West Indian women illustrates how Rhys feels a very strong connection to her West Indies background and that it has been a big influence in her outlook on life as well as her individual identity. The idea of identity and the issues surrounding it is a prominent topic within Wide Sargasso Sea which perhaps reflects Rhys’ own struggle with dealing with her mixed upbringing. Having to see such a critically acclaimed and popular novel such as Jane Eyre presenting such a one dimensional and cynical view on her native people would have a negative effect on Rhys. Furthermore, not only is Bronte’s presentation of an West Indian woman insulting to those of West Indian descent but it also exhibits a bleak image of West Indians to those who have no connection to the West Indies which according to Rhys is simply untrue.

‘By highlighting and dislodging the minor details of Creole depiction in Bronte’s classic novel, Rhys’s fiction has proven extraordinarily effective in helping to reorient the field of British fiction criticism. [Rhy is] regularly championed as a postcolonial and feminist novel from a West Indian perspective, Wide Sargasso Sea offers, in the words of Gayatri Spivak, an ‘allegory of the epistemic violence of imperialism’

‘Jane’s horrific encounter with Bertha has stood on its own since its publication in 1847. It is easy to miss the links between Bronte’s and Rhys’ novels. ‘Except that [there is] a dialectical tension between a outsize Bertha Mason pacing Bronte’s Thornfield attic and the moth-like Antoinette Cosway dreaming of fire in that same attic.’ Kamel finds that ‘this tension twines their creators perception on Victorian patriarchy with the presence, both explicit and implied, of colonialism and creolisation in the lives of the women who narrate the novels.’ Kamel then begins to take a more contextual approach when analysing both of the novels; ‘Bronte’s melodramatic depiction of of Mrs Rochester exasperated Rhys who understood Bertha’s marginality within the context of a patriarchal system that validated Rochester’s right to marry, yet divest a West Indian heiress of her legacy, desire yet despises her sexuality, relocate yet imprison her.’

Yet ‘since Jane refuses to live with Rochester once Bertha’s existence is revealed, Bertha’s very life blocks Jane’s happiness-and the reader’s-until its dramatic end. Those who read Jane Eyre without reading Wide Sargasso Sea appear to have a very negative and one sided view on Bertha; ‘Bronte’s Bertha Antoinetta Mason is a female monster, a mysterious, threatening obstacle who must be revealed and then slain.’ And even if Bronte had included any information about Bertha’s background in her writing, there is doubt that many would have taken this into consideration when forming their opinion on the character of Bertha Mason. As Jane is the protagonist of Bronte’s Jane Eyre, her outcome and experiences within the story are presented as the most important by Bronte to the reader. So for the evil character of Bertha to hinder Jane’s happiness means that the mad Creole woman in the attic is to be absolutely defaced by the majority of the readers of Jane Eyre. But there are exceptions when it comes to the reaction towards Bertha; perhaps those who are not of white or middle/upper class status can allow some leeway in regards to the torrential distaste at the character of Bertha. Those of Creole, West Indies or a minority ethnicity group such as Rhys herself are able to see perhaps a humane and vulnerable side to Bertha rather than the vile monster Bronte has conveyed her as in her writing.

There are many similarities between Jane Eyre and Wide Sea Sargasso aside from the focus on the characters such as Jane and Antoinette’s disparaged social positions. There is the clear resemblance between the plots. ‘Neither Jane Eyre Wide nor Sargasso Sea, of course is named after its central architectural structure, although Thornfield Hall emerges as the privileged edifice in the textual encounter between the novels.’ Hope then goes on to say that ‘there is no single building that monopolises either narrative structure and that notoriously these are texts about displacement as much as inhabitation.’ ‘But perhaps the most curious transgressions of boundaries within the text are those memorable occasions when the unconscious process of the novel’s dual narrators proves susceptible to the encroachments of the other. Most obviously, in Wide Sargasso Sea the dream is never quite the sole property of the dreamer.’ Smith then goes on to continue drawing on the links between the texts; ‘the various narrative dislocations of the novel function primarily as a convenient figural representation of the permeable boundaries of the characters’ unconscious, and the sudden shifts in focalization provide an aesthetically useful osmotic shock to the actual process of reading insofar as they serve to reinforce the more pervasive thematics of destabilization. But significantly, the scrimmage for control of the unconscious process in the intratextual realm of character is also repeated in the intertextual relation of Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre.’

Jane Eyre is seen as an undeniable classic in english literature. But ‘the structure of Jane Eyre already contains, and finds its ontological principle in, its repetition, a repetition that simultaneously initiates and destroys the archive, just as it contains its archivist, the archviolithic Bertha Mason.’ Bronte’s work was also one of the first feminist novels to be written. But there are undeniable aspects that seem to go against the feminist views that it is illustrating. The blissful ending where Jane and Rochester get married, have a baby and live happily ever after is the typical fairytale ending that conforms to the patriarchal and male

dominated literature world. On the other hand, ‘Rhys reinterprets Jane Eyre from a feminist view, exposing the effects of a male dominated society on women on both sides of the Atlantic.’ Furthermore, ‘the development of Rhys’ narrative, where it centres upon Antoinette, bears striking resemblances to Bronte’s portrayal of the younger Jane.’ ‘If Bronte’s Bertha is Jane’s ‘secret self’ (348), trapped and enraged by patriarchal oppression, Rhys’s Antoinette is an even further reflection of Jane.’ Furthermore ‘in its revision of Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea highlights Charlotte Bronte’s use of the eighteenth-century, bourgeois, feminist, woman/slave analogy that Mary Wollstonecraft made famous.’ But ‘in contrast to Bronte’s heroine, Jane, Rhys’s Antoinette is ‘slave-like’ for the very reasons Wollstonecraft isolates: vanity, sexual proclivity, uncultivated reason, inadequate education, and undeveloped virtue.’

Gilchrist finds that ‘in her unbridled sexuality, propensity for gazing in the mirror, disregard for facts and abstract principles, and fetishization of her red dress, Antoinette is virtually a composite of the women Wollstonecraft warns against and against whom Bronte created her plain, independent, morally-virtuous heroine. Rhys changes none of the terms of Bronte’s madwoman. She remains beautiful, ‘intemperate and unchaste’ (Bronte 334, Rhys 110), and homicidal-suicidal. Wide Sargasso Sea privileges the very qualities that Bronte—and Wollstonecraft—denigrates.’

‘Wide Sargasso Sea convincingly implicates literary feminism in an exclusionary nationalist project consistent with imperial power. As Rhys’s fiction demonstrates to great effect, the modern communities of national and racial belonging, familial in form, can bring devastating ‘trouble’ to those who fall outside the lines.’ Therefore, ‘Rhys explores these difficulties through the narrative of a bad (political) marriage of tragic proportions. In so doing, she implicates the rise of domestic sentiment as a centerpiece of modern national belonging in her critique of Creole characterization.’ ‘Antoinette’s tragic fate is not the inevitable effect of Jane Eyre on an unwitting Creole reader but rather in part the consequence of Rhys’s own rejection of modern nationalism and its corollary, utopian family feelings. ‘Consequently, Wide Sargasso Sea is a rendering of one possible life, not (as Cliff’s different renditions of her later indicate) the life of Bertha. Without changing the plot of Jane Eyre, Rhys revolutionizes the reception of the earlier novel.’

Therefore, ‘as a pre story that leaves Jane Eyre intact (albeit temporarily displaced), Wide Sargasso Sea has a stronger impact than a more intrusive revision. Antoinette may still die, but Rhys gives her death intent. Whenever readers of Wide Sargasso Sea return to Jane Eyre, then, they can no longer passively accept European definitions of the first Mrs. Rochester as “intemperate and unchaste” or her “seeming a bit mad—to an Englishman” as the only cause of her imprisonment and death. They cannot accept only one side of the story.’

The presentation of relationships and marriage is a significant concept within literature and society. The writers of the texts; ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ and ‘The World’s Wife’, investigate the male centric ideal that was upheld and strengthened by a social structure, wherein women had minimal political or financial force. They were financially, socially, and mentally reliant on men, particularly on the establishments of marriage and parenthood in the Victorian era when ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ was set. On the other hand, men battled to expand their notoriety in the public eye by increasing social and monetary force and status, to have a predominant picture and prevailing character in relationships and marriage. In ‘Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys introduced women to be obliged to obey men somewhat, in this manner there is an explicit indication of relationships and marriage being unequal. Whereas in ‘The World’s Wife,’ Rhys presents the female speakers as autonomous as they reject male dominance. ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ is a 1966 postcolonial novel by author Jean Rhys, who explores difficulties that arise when relationship and marriage are put in difficult situations and even forced, Wide Sargasso Sea is both a response and a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, set in the West Indies that examines how society enforces its view and shapes people to conform to certain expectations society poses upon an individual. The Worlds Wife’ is a collection of poems published in 1999. Carol Ann Duffy gives famous female characters in histories and myths, a voice and focuses on men within a relationship, and in Duffy’s well-known feminist way, she presents them anew for the public to observe and ponder the true current and previous state of relationships. The writers of both texts explore the factor of male dominance and the loss of identity in relationships and marriage. Conflict arises when characters are being divided between a sense of duty to themselves and their responsibility their husbands/wife, leading the relationship or marriage to be overwhelming and unequal in literature. Antoinette’s conflict is Rochester’s emotional distance and accusations of madness. Whilst his conflict is with Antoinette’s exotic strangeness and disturbing behaviour.

Both writers have different intentions in presenting the role of men. While in Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys explores the destructive impact of Rochester on Antoinette’s life. The more Antoinette suffers from the human suffering he has created, the less human he treats her as ‘a doll … a marionette,’ a plaything and an instrument to be exploited. At the very end of the book, he portrays her, with skin-crawling patronage, as if she were not the victim of her death, as ‘only a ghost … nothing left but hopelessness’.’ And then, like all sadists, he loves torturing his prey, purporting to be insane, and trying all he can to deceive her before he is dead. Rochester adjusts to some manly generalisations yet as the novel creates, these are progressively tested by his involvement with the Caribbean. By all accounts, Rochester shows a cliché predominance as a nineteenth century colonialist Englishman: His desires for ladies of his class as shown when he states “To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts—when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and, perhaps, imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper; but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire..”. Rochester reacts to Jane ‘s declaration of sovereignty by maintaining that he simply wants a woman who is autonomous and solid of character and voice. He proceeds to define all the special characteristics he admires in Jane. In his desire for a woman like Jane, Mr. Rochester ‘s character conflicts with the assumptions of the gender position of a male character. Although the men of his social class are supposed to like women who cause themselves to be held or stay irrelevant, Mr. Rochester prefers the opposite. When Antoinette neglects to arrive at these norms in his eyes, he begins to consider her to be as being misleading and as non-English an outsider.

Robert Kendrick opines across his critical analysis of Wide Sargasso Sea that Jean Rhys utilised Edward Rochester, Antoinette’s husband, to outline the male centric restrictions of the period. He expresses that Rochester turns out to be “violently defensive” as he is lowered in a reality that does not hold similar limits and meanings of manliness and man centric predominance as he is used to. Kendrick continues to contend that, while Rochester has married Antoinette with the aim of picking up force, strength, and an adequate situation (for a male) in English society, he discovers his goals of these things are compromised by said marriage (just as by the Caribbean and its philosophies). In addition, Kendrick affirms that both Daniel Cosway and Sandi, mirror aspects of Rochester’s personality and these pairs further articulate Rochester’s manliness complex in a de-underscored way. Kendrick corroborates his argument by citing a text from ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, other writers who hold similar views, and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

In contrast, Carol Ann Duffy ignores patriotic views and deconstructs idea of male supremacy; her female speakers tell their own stories of their lives with men, whose roles are generally disparaged. Mrs. Beast is one of the last poems of the World ‘s Wife, summing up the entire intention of the World ‘s Wife: to offer a voice to women in history and literature, and to discuss elements of their lives and their identities. It calls attention to the past of male dominance and female repression by naming notoriously abused women and exposing bitter indignation in Mrs. Beast’s tone. Mrs. Beast opposes any wish associated with a male-oriented culture that represents Duffy’s disapproval of society’s preoccupation with and isolation of abused women. The quote, ‘The lady says that’s not where I meant?’ contradicts the sexual performance of the Beast, and we see her aggressively ordering him about – Ensuring that her being satisfied is a priority and not the needs of the beast. ‘The pig in my bed has been invited’, highlights that it is a blessing for the Beast to encourage him to be in her presence, enhancing his subordinate role next to her. ‘The Beast kept out of sight,’ shows us that he had to give her space when it was appropriate, but he also had to serve them in a poker game. He became her servant, obeying every order, and regulating whether she needs him next to her or not and so she takes this active role to reverse male domination by belittling him. An act of aggression when it is required to take action to oppress him. We can see that female dominance is created by transgressing gender norms. Furthermore, Duffy establishes traditional gender stereotypes within Delilah to consciously step away from them. The poem starts with the imperative, ‘Teach me,’ representing the bold, dominating character of Samson. The second stanza shows Samson speaking directly, in first person; the tone is boastful, and the vocabulary is aggressive ‘rip,’ ‘roar,’ ‘fire,’ and ‘flay.’ Samson relates his successes in declaratives: ‘There is nothing I fear.’ His voice stresses his dominating and powerful personality, the traditional traits for men.

In spite of the fact that Duffy’s sonnet ‘Little Red Cap’ commends the strengthening of a young lady looking for sexual and aesthetic agency, it also examines the power dynamics at play when a girl’s coming-of-age takes place at the hands of an older man. Through the disruption of a notable fantasy, the poem requests that the reader re-examines the functions of predator and prey inside more extensive societal systems of gender and power. From the beginning, as Little Red Cap pursues the wolf, the poem ends the conventional understanding of predator and prey. While she calls him ‘the wolf,’ it’s Little Red Cap who preys on him, making him ‘quite sure he spotted me, / sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif..’ Both descriptors suggest youth and inexperience, even frailty, which is not completely inaccurate — the speaker is just an adolescent with limited sexual experience. However, by attracting your attention to these qualities, the speaker is mindful of the role that she must play in capturing the wolf ‘s eye, even though she subverts the role by her concerted attempts to portray it. In other words , the speaker understands that she may use her naivety to draw the wolf, a reality that in itself illustrates some of the contradictory forces at stake, provided that the strength of the speaker arises, paradoxically, from her lack of strength. By foregrounding the viciousness that goes with the wolf’s sexual craving, ‘Little Red Cap’ puts forth the defence that even in a consensual relationship, driven partially by female sexual organisation, sexism and mistreatment are yet significant powers. This is particularly true of a relationship like the one in the poem, where the power imbalance between the wolf and Little Red Cap reinforces patriarchal influences on relations between men and women. Though the wolf is initially introduced as more prey than predator, once he becomes interested in the speaker, the poem shows him dominating their relationship. He ‘leads [her]’ into the woods, controls her with his ‘thrashing fur ‘ and ‘heavy matted paws,’ and ‘lick[s] his chops’ as he crushes the speaker’s independence. And if the speaker has sexual appetite and agency, it is also articulated in a bigger world where men like the wolf have more control. Towards the end, the poem portrays the aggression and cruelty of the sexual appetite of the wolf. The speaker states ‘be aware’ when she reaches the ‘wolf’s lair’ before her first sexual experience she describes the garments she leaves behind, both the act of undressing and the lack of innocence as ‘murder clues.’ Eventually, as the speaker picks up understanding and shrewdness, she understands that despite having sexual agency, she needs identity as she still lacks true independence. The 6th verse catches her bafflement with the wolf and gives her developing consciousness of the harsh idea of their relationship. She compares her situation to a “mushroom / stopper[ing] the mouth of a buried corpse.” By murdering the wolf, however, the speaker breaks free from the age-old power dynamic playing out between them and upends the patriarchal norms that have shaped her. In addition, when the speaker finds ‘my grandma’s [virgin white] bones’ inside the wolf’s body, the poem infers that their relationship ought to be perceived as a component of a bigger history of men misusing woman. It proposes that not just has the speaker exerted her own independence, she has likewise struck a blow at ages of male control.

In Carol Ann Duffy’s Worlds Wife, poems are about faulty love and the collapse of heterosexual relationships. The causes for their loss can be boiled down to three causes: objectification, dominance, and envy. In Pygmalion’s Bride, Pygmalion does not care for having a shared affection between him and his ‘statue,’ but rather for her beauty. He would rather see a statue of a living of a woman, because in essence he is just making women into a means of gratification, because he needs her to be obedient to all his demands. As a result, whenever the Galatea statue started to shift, he quickly fled away because of his immaturity. In addition, dominance is another aspect that results in the failure of relationships which is caused by men. This is clear in Thetis, as she wants to adjust for him to love her and to ‘find the right form for love’, but he changes his answer and keeps dominating her, she is reduced as a human by the more empowered male. She is already going to reshape herself to meet him ready to control her again and again. Similarly, in Wide Sargasso Sea, through the marriage of Antoinette and Mr. Rochester, we can clearly see a play of economic power and dominance. At one point, Antoinette runs to her long-time friend and nurse Christophine for advice about how to make Mr. Rochester pay attention to her and make him love her again. Christophine tells Antoinette to abandon Mr. Rochester and start all over again., “You ask me a hard thing, I tell you a hard thing, pack up and go”. Antoinette recognises she’s in a position where she’s politically helpless, “He will not come after me. And you must understand I am not rich now, I have no money of my own at all, everything I had belongs to him…that is the English law”. As Mr. Rochester appears on the island to marry Antoinette, Antoinette’s dowry and her estate are given. According to the English laws at that time, the husband was the sole owner of any wealth that the wife might have had before their marriage. The choices of Antoinette are minimal as she is dependent on her husband, and she can’t leave him and make a better life for herself. Antoinette ‘s aware of her limits as Thetis is of hers. She cannot simply end a loveless marriage and start anew as she is politically powerless. Other male members of Antoinette ‘s life have economic influence over her father and brother determine what to do with her dowry and her land.