International Journal of Social Impact
ISSN: 2455-670X
Volume 1, Issue 1, DIP: 18.02.010/20160101
DOI: 10.25215/2455/0101.010
www.ijsi.in |January- March, 2016
Racism in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea
Ripal Patel1*
ABSTRACT
The major concern of this paper is to show how the racism is a big issue during the colonialism
period. The novel Wide Sargasso Sea is written by Jean Rhys in order to highlight multiple
issues like gender discrimination, the opposite nature of male and females, how the desires of the
central characters not fulfilled and how all these things lead to the madness. The entire identity
of the main character has been shattered and taken away from her. Antoinette was a Creole girl
and Rochester was an English white man still they got married and the consequence is so
dangerous that Antoinette had to suffer for lifetime. Let us discuss what we have chosen to
discuss.
Keywords: Racism, Gender Discrimination, Culture, Colonialism.
Wide Sargasso Sea is a novel written by Jean Rhys is a novel that is written with special purpose
as to describe the earlier life of Bertha Mason of Jane Eyre, whose original name is Antoinette in
the novel. It shows her life from the very beginning of her life, how she is married to Rochester
and how her psyche gets worse and worse. The entire process is described here and the reasons
responsible for that are also described at lengths.
The title of the novel is very important. The Sargasso Sea is a large area where there is a huge
attention of seaweeds (sea plants) in the North Atlantic Sea. Just like these weeds, the characters
here also are tangled in the web of emotions and ideas- they seem to be drowning each other.
Thus, the title of the novel is actually the showcase of what it actually is.
Race and Gender issues in Wide Sargasso Sea
Antoinette was a Creole girl and Rochester was an English white man. So there is clearly a
difference between them in terms of race and gender as well. The novelist shows us that
Antoinette is a weak character mainly because of her being female and black.
Rhys finds herself caught up in two different cultures and is not sure about her own identity that
she reflects in her heroine. Like Rhys, Antoinette is a sensitive and lonely young Creole girl who
1
Research scholar
*Responding Author
© 2016 I licensee IJSI. This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,
and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Racism in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea
grows up with neither her mother’s love nor her peers’ companionship. In a school as a young
woman, Antoinette becomes increasingly lost in thought and isolated, showing the early signs of
her inherited emotional vulnerability. Moreover, Antoinette’s passion contributes to her
melancholy and implied madness. Her arranged marriage to an unsympathetic and controlling
English gentleman worsen her condition and pushes her to fits of violence. Eventually her
husband brings her to England and locks her in his attic, assigning a servant woman to watch
over her. Fearful, Antoinette awakes from a vivid dream and sets out to burn down the house.
Antoinette as a miserable woman character
Rhys often wrote about women, in various stages of their lives, living hand to mouth in London
or Paris. The women are always on the economic edge, needing money, receiving cash and
clothes from men, drinking, sitting in cafes, and endlessly walking. The books are very spare,
bare, unsentimental, and wonderful. Here, in this novel, no outside narration, no other point of
view interrupts Jean’s vision, and Antoinette seems to offer a model of progress for all women.
Antoinette’s story is intertwined with the cultural and familial history. Narration in Wide
Sargasso Sea is divided between the Creole woman, Antoinette, and the English man, Rochester,
but Rhys seems careful to include voices other than the two central narrators, which helps offer
insight into the narrator’s often partiality vision.
Rhys’ unsure Self-Identity reflected in Antoinette
Rhys here describes her heroine with the unsure identity as she also is suffering of. Once in an
interview, the reporter asks the questions about her identity, the conversation was like following:
Reporter, “Do you consider yourself a West Indian?” She hesitates and answers, “It was such a
long time ago when I left.” Reporter, “So you don’t think of yourself as a West Indian writer?
Again she nodded, but said nothing. The Reporter asks again, “What about English? Do you
consider yourself as an English writer?”, “No! I’m not, I’m not! I’m not even English.” She
shouts.
Rhys finds herself caught up in two different cultures and is not sure about her own identity that
she reflects in her heroine. Like Rhys, Antoinette is a sensitive and lonely young Creole girl who
grows up with neither her mother’s love nor her peers’ companionship. In a school as a young
woman, Antoinette becomes increasingly lost in thought and isolated, showing the early signs of
her inherited emotional vulnerability. Moreover, Antoinette’s passion contributes to her
melancholy and implied madness. Her arranged marriage to an unsympathetic and controlling
English gentleman worsen her condition and pushes her to fits of violence. Eventually her
husband brings her to England and locks her in his attic, assigning a servant woman to watch
over her. Fearful, Antoinette awakes from a vivid dream and sets out to burn down the house.
Rochester as a new type of Colonizer
We all know that the British had colonized many countries and the Caribbean is one of them. But
here the character of Rochester is shown as a different and new type of colonizer who had
© International Journal of Social Impact | ISSN: 2455-670X | 68
Racism in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea
colonized a Creole Antoinette. So, here we find an oppressor who neither respects creoles nor the
black ones. Rochester’s dominated identity is reflected in Antoinette’s capture and his
domination over her. There is nothing like identity for the poor woman as Rochester destroys it
and changes her name as well. By the end of Part 2 of the novel, where he is leaving Caribbean
and going to England with Antoinette, he utters that:
“I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain...
She had left me thirsty...”
These lines mean that he does not love the Caribbean people and their lifestyle and therefore he
is willing to go to England and to satisfy the thirst that he had.
Is Rochester responsible for Antoinette’s Madness?
Many critics believe that Antoinette’s husband Rochester is responsible for Antoinette’s
madness. However, here we are trying to prove this point that he indeed tortures her to the extent
that she becomes a mad woman eventually. Rochester is the nameless creator and, as a white
man, his authority and freedom allow him to present identity on others. For instance, he decides
to rename his wife, calling her Bertha in an attempt to distance her from her crazy mother, whose
full name was Antoinette. Later, he takes away Antoinette’s voice along with her name, refusing
to listen to her side of the story. As he continues to fragment her identity, he creates the new
name of Marionetta, a cruel joke that reflects Antoinette’s doll-like flexibility. He ultimately
refashions Antoinette into a wild madwoman and treats her as a ghost. By refusing his
companion and her local traditions, he over stresses his own English rule over the Caribbean land
and citizens. Thus, it is clear that Rochester himself causes the madness of Antoinette. It is
debated that Antoinette is insane minded prior to her marriage with Rochester and it is not
Rochester who has causes the madness but here we would like to argue that even though
Antoinette is a bit lost personality, she would not have become total mad if her husband could
have take a bit care of her. Thus, it is clear that Rochester is the one who caused the madness of
Antoinette.
Thus, after all the discussion we can say that, Wide Sargasso Sea is a study in unfulfillment, in
resigned oppositions and contrasts.
REFERENCES
1. Rhys, Jean, Wide Sargasso Sea, Deutsch Andre UK, Norton, US, 1966
2. Rhys, Jean. (1969) Wide Sargasso Sea, Harmondsworth. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty.
(1988)
3. Can the Subaltern Speak? Basingstoke: Macmillan... (1995) Donna Landry, and Gerald
M. MacLean.
4. The Spivak Reader. London: Routledge... (1985)
5. “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism.” Critical Inquiry, 12.1: 243-61.
Jstor.Web.<http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1343469?uid=3739192&uid=2129&ui
d=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103404664593>.SwieSwietlik, Malgorzata. (2005)
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Racism in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea
6. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys as a Postcolonial Response to Jane Eyre by Charlotte
Bronte. Landeu: Universitat Koblenz.
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