Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea

Creole Women in btw Blacks &

White Men

Norton Critical Ediction. NY: Norton, 1999.Christo-phine& Tia

Annette

Antoinette

Cosway, Mason, Rochester

Outline• Wide Sargasso Sea: General Introduction &

Questions• Jean Rhys and Social Background• Part I: Antoinette’s Relations to Annette,

Christophine and Tia à Her Personality1) Annette: a) The Creole Identities of Annette; b)

Annette as a Woman; c) madness ß Gender+Race2) Antoinette: a) loss of mother; b) as a creole (loss of

Tia); 3)Mr. Mason & convent3) Antoinette’s personality 4) Symbols

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

WSS: Settings

Plot and Structure

• Part I: Antoinette's Childhood –– Isolation after Mr. Cosway’s death and the

Emancipation; – The mother’s 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. – Daniel’s letter and the letter from England. – Antoinette’s taking action – Leaving for England.

• Part III: Antoinette in England

Characters in Two Patriarchal Societies

Mr. Cosway Mr. Mason FatherPierre Richard I/He

(“Rochester”)DanielSandi

AnnetteAunt Cora Antoinette

An English man

Cosway—Annette

Alexander Daniel Pierre

Sandi ----Antoinette—husband----Amèlie(Bertha) (Rochester)

Christophine Tia

The Creole Family & the Blacks

GodfrySass

Mannie (new)Baptiste…

Central Questions: Whence comes the Mad Woman in the Attic?

• Part I: How does Rhys characterize Antoinette? What are the causes for her personalities? – Creole identity and Mother-daughter relationship; – childhood experience; – Convent education

(Part II: How does Rhys explain the problems between Antoinette and Rochester? How do the two of them write themselves into the British house. – their socio-historical context—19th Century

Victorian/Colonial world? à Race + Gender)

1. “Review”: What does “creole” mean?

A. language: mixture of languages, esp. in Southern US and the Caribbean area.

B. People1). Orignal meaning: Native, local, ”pure”;

2). Native-born whites; (e.g. Antoinette in WSS; film 1—54:10)

3). Hybrid (mixed-blood)

2. Pre-View: Why Is Bertha Mad?

• Or—is she really mad? [Third dream]… But when I looked over the edge I saw the pool at Coulibri. Tia was there. She beckoned to me and when I hesitated, she laughed. I heard her say, You frightened? And I heard the man's voice, Bertha! Bertha! All this I saw and heard in a fraction of a second. And the sky so red. Someone screamed and I thought, Why did I scream? I called 'Tia!' and jumped and woke. …Now at last I know why I was brought here and what I have to do. There must have been a draught for the flame flickered and I thought it was out. But I shielded it with my hand and it burned up again to light me along the dark passage.

Tia from Childhood

Discussion Questions. Antoinette’s Education --

1. Mothers: What Roles do Annette & Christophine play in A’s growth as a child? What does it mean to say that A ’ pretty like pretty self’?

2. G1 Antoinette’s personality & her responses to losses (the horse, in the garden) & to her dreams?

3. G2 Her relations with Tia? (The meanings of “double” and mirror? )

4. G5 “Society”: Mr. Mason, Spanish Town & the convent school –Their Roles

5. G4 Connecting Images/symbols: Pool, scream, fire, glacis/balcony, garden, Coco?

6. G3 The meanings of the two dreams

3. Book I: Antoinette’s Education --• 2-1. What are the things Antoinette afraid of? Are there reasonable

answers to explain why she is afraid? • 3. Why does Tia cry after she throws the jagged stone at

Antoinette? And what does it mean for A to see Tia as if she saw herself? Does A adore Tia so unconditionally?

• 4. (Servant & Stepfather) Godfrey once said, “We are all damned and there’s no use praying”. However, when the house is on fire, Mr. Mason prays to god. Is this contradictory? And is he a person that takes advantages of things when needed?

• 5. Convent School Education: ’the hour of our death‘(18)

• The phrases that I don‘t quite understand: 1)*; ’There is never a wedding‘(8)*;.

Jean Rhys--Biographical Sketch

• 8/24/1890 the daughter of a Welsh doctor and a white Creole mother (great grandfather’s house burned down)

• 1907-8 Attends the Perse School, Cambridge.

• 1909-10 Tours as a chorus girl. 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.)

Jean Rhys--Biographical Sketch

• 1923-24 Meets Ford Madox Ford. Husband in jail, affair with Ford. (ménage a trois--Ford, Stella Bowen, Jean))

• 1933 Divorce.• 1934 Marries Leslie Tilden-Smith. • 1945 TS dead. Begins work on Wide Sargasso Sea.• 1947 Marriage to Max Hamer. Disappears from

the public scene.• 1966 WSS published.

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 pride—no name, no face, no country. I

don’t 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. . . ." Jean Rhys - Women Writers:

Voices in Transition (3/4)

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.

Jean Rhys – on not being happy

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.

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, very little wind, and a free-floating mass of seaweed called Sargassum .(textbook 1)

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)

• Q: Is Anntoinette then doomed to be mad? Couldn’t there be different endings? Is the novel too sad?

Rhys's Revision of Jane Eyre:Shift of Dates:

• Jane Eyre -- towards the end of the novel reads a book published in 1808Bertha 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 (p. 31), a year after the full emancipation; a child in the 1840's (Mark MaWatt qut in Gregg 83)

Rhys's Revision of Jane Eyre:Antoinette’s Fathers

• Jane Eyre – Bertha—the child of Mason • Wide Sargasso Sea –

– two fathers (Mason and Cosway), the old slave master and the new one.

– more relatives (Sandi, Daniel, etc.) and connections with the Caribbean blacks (Tia and Christophine)

Book I: Plot

“Trouble Comes” Mother trying, L dies

Horse diesDoctor’s

diagnosis of Pierre

New LuttrelleAnnette

active again

WeddingGossips at Spanish Town

Argument & RiotAnnette screams

Disliked b/ Mother

Passivity & Garden

w/ TiaClothes Change

Dreamdislike people

PappyHit by Tia

W Aunt CoraConventDream

Backgrounds (1) on Race:

• I. white masters, New & Old: – Mr. Luttrell and his death p. 9; old Cosway p. 17/28– Christophine’s comment and the new Lutrell 15/26– New masters after the Emancipation of slaves [Mr. Mason –

purpose p. 17/30; changes brought to Coulibri 18; about the blacks p. 19/32]

• II. White against creole– e.g. the town people’s gossip p. 17; Aunt Cora's husband 18

• III. Black against creole:– poor "white cockroaches" p. 13/23; white niggers p.14; black

Englishman and white burned like black 26/42• IV. The position of obeah woman p. 12/21, 17/30

Background (2): Before and after the EmancipationPre-Emancipation: racial and sexual exploitation. (e.g.

Daniel)Post-Emancipation Problems: 1. Belated Compensation, 2. Importation of contract laborers3. Annette’s distrust of Christophine, Godfry, and Sass’

leaving p. 12/214. Riot: The presentation of the black mob -- Mason’s seeing the blacks as “children” 21/35-- Myra – everybody goes to hell (21); -- animal howling (p. 23), -- parrot killed = bad luck 25/43; -- the final confrontation, women crying 26.

Important Symbols

• the garden imagery in Part I; • The fire scene and the burning of the parrot

(25)• The dreams

Creole Women’s Positions: Annette

Annette:1) multiple alienations of the creole

—from the white people in the Spanish town (9; 17)—because she is Creole, from Martinique and poor;

-- from the blacks (“they”) because she is former slave-owner and poor: pp. 10, 11

-- both Annette and Antoinette—seen as “white cockroaches” (13)/”white nigger” (14)

Creole Women’s Positions: AnnetteAnnette: -- 2) As a woman –a. Cosway: a womanizer; [calls Daniel’s mother “sly

boots” pp. 73-74; halfway house p.57; drinks himself to death]

b. Widowed –can only survive by marrying again. Antoinette (solitary life) ßà Annette (planned and

hoped) p. 10 -- marooned & her son 11 -- borrow a horse from the new Luttrellsà gay and a

good dancer c. 2nd Marriage: Worse, since Mason does not understand

the racial relationship (19, 21)

Creole Women’s Positions: Annette

Annette: -- 3) as a creole woman a. Why does she care so much about the

parorot CoCo? 25/41b. [Antoinette’s account of what happened to

Annette: 78 (also her sensual memories of the past 79); 80-81]

Creole Women’s Positions: Antoinette

Antoinette: (1) loss of motherly love • Her love rejected by Annette (11, 13, 15, 28-

29,)• The mother cares more about Pierre 16; • Annette ashamed of her 15; • Being pushed away after her madness pp. 28-

29/48• missing her mother in the convent 34/57; • The mother’s death 36/61

Creole Women’s Positions: Antoinette—to Christophine

Antoinette: (2) Race Relations –a. Christophine: helpful but fearful

– like a substitute mother; – feared by Antoinette 18 -- Combination

of Catholicism and voodoo(Part II:1. Antoinette’s seeking for help: p.

67, 68, 702. Put in jail once and may still be. P. 86)

Creole Women’s Positions: Antoinette –Tia as Friend?

a. Antoinette and Tia –• friendship (13-14), • divided by racial differences (27)

b. The boy and the girl 29-30/48-49

Creole Women’s Positions: Antoinette

the second refuge in the convent –dissociated from reality – Stories of the saint (beautiful and wealthy); – no looking glass ßà care taken in maintaining

beautiful mages of femininity ; p. 32-33; – images of the nations vs. the mother to be

forgotten; 33/55– A place of sunshine and of death. Pp. 33-34

Creole Women’s Positions: Antoinette (& Annette)

a. Imagery: Garden– the biblical myth of the garden--(11) – à associated with snake and forest

b. Imagery: Mirror and Double– Annette 10; p. Antoinette & Tia; the convent

Antoinette’s personality: 5 examples

1. Self-protection in Childhood: e.g. the horse p. 10; garden 13; 16

2. Sense of danger in the recurrent dreams pp. 15, 27, 363. Insecurity -- Attempt to turn down the marriage p. 46;4. [the two rats & the moon p. 49

– death impulse p. 54] àInsecure; in lack of a firm sense of identity; (lack of

love, fear of others’ and society’s criticism, feeling excluded.)

à Fatalistic (fear of “madness” as a hereditary trait) àchildhood as a creole woman

Next Week

• Sugar Cane Alley“Bright Thursdays”