Perfect Paragraph

In using Antoinette as her novel’s protagonist, Rhys is able to candidly expose madness as a consequence of patriarchal oppression and negligence, and not mental illness. As with the central character of any narrative, readers are inclined to fall for and sympathize with the plight of Antoinette' person. Antoinette's characterization - her vulnerability and innocence - lead readers to believe that she could not possibly be prone to fits of hysteria or rage. An example that corroborates this sentiment would be that of Antoinette’s nightmares. An integral part of the novel, Antoinette’s nightmares served as a precursor for her eventual demise. Be that as it may, an important note concerning these night terrors is that Antoinette never tried to embrace or keep them to herself; instead, she sought to actively expose them to those around her so as to distance herself from the future they implied. On one such occasion, Antoinette told Sister Marie Augustine that she dreamt she was in Hell and another time, asked Sister Augustine why terrible things happened in the world. On both occasions, Antoinette tried to call out the darkens that sought to envelop her, but those around her, Sister Augustine and the patriarchal order she submitted to, told her to suppress these thoughts, and instead let them fester so that the “devil might have his little day.” Rhy's inclusion of these scenes ultimately serves to highlight the inadequacy of religion (and by extension the failure of inclusion in a religious group) to provide closure for Antoinette’s mental state, instead cultivating a culture of compromise and ignorance that would propagate madness. What’s more, Rhys’ use of analepses would substantiate the belief that insanity was not an inherent quality, unique to Antoinette’s character, but a byproduct of the world she was brought up in, both her parents beset with similar life occurrences.

This is Madness. This is...

Prompt- Discuss the portrayal of insanity in Wide Sargasso Sea.

Thesis: 

Through the actions of her characters and the environment in which they are set, author Jean Rhys reflects on the critical nature of insanity and suggests that it is not an inherent quality, inasmuch as it is a byproduct of the world one is in.

Topic Sentence 1:

In using Antoinette as her novel’s protagonist, Rhys is able to candidly expose madness as a consequence of patriarchal oppression and negligence, and not mental illness. 

Evidence:

Antoinette’s disposition and character serve as counter-argument to the view that women are inclined to fits of hysteria and rage.

Antoinette’s shares the nightmares she has with the people around her, an attempt to escape the future they present i.e. she tells Sister Marie Augustine that she dreamt she was in Hell (2nd nightmare).

Antoinette tearfully asks Sister Marie Augustine, why terrible things happen in the world. The nun tells her sadly not to concern herself with such a question, because “We do not know why the devil must have his little day. Not yet,” and puts her back to bed to wait for her stepfather’s arrival.

Scene represents the ultimate failure of religion (and by extension the failure of inclusion in a religious group) to provide order and answers is expressed with finality in Sister Marie Augustine’s sad and inadequate answer to Antoinette’s question. Overarching mentality to give into your circumstance (lack of closure cultivating in madness), a mentality Antoinette is steadily being imbibed with.

Rochester’s cruel actions towards her - on the basis of her gender and ethnicity -provide her with ample reason time and time again, to descend into madness.

Further exemplified by Rochester’s constant criticisms of Antoinette’s appearance, and the superficial lens with which he regards her; subaltern/ substandard.

“Too large” and “disconcerting... long, sad, dark, alien eyes.” Her language (French patois) which he thinks of as “debased.”

Antoinette offers him a drink of water, remarks to himself that she “might have been any pretty English girl.” 

Rochester denies her even her own identity by repeatedly calling her “Bertha,”

When they leave Jamaica he even says to her, “I have made a terrible mistake. Forgive me.” 

What’s more, the use of analepses corroborates the notion that insanity is not unique to a specific gender, person or ethnicity- Both Antoinette’s parents beset similar life occurrences.

Her father is revealed to have been mad, according to Antoinette’s half brother Daniel (Part 2) and the mental demise of her mother was a widely known fact.

Likens Rochester to her mother’s abusive caretaker, the “black devil kissing her sad mouth.” 

When he sees that she looks at him with hatred, he feels in himself “a sickening swing back to hate”. He vows to himself that his hatred will be stronger than hers, that she will be left with nothing.

Topic Sentence 2:

The characters of Christophene and Annette bear direct testament to the view that “language conjures up reality,” and that Antoinette’s instability was a result of the words spoken over her life.

Evidence:

“They drive her to it. When she lose her son she lose herself for a while and they shut her away. They tell her she is mad, they act like she is mad. Question, question. But no kind word, no friends, and her husband’ he go off, he leave her…” – Christophene

Christophene understood how powerful the word could be, how language could create and event. "They tell her she is mad," and language conjures up the reality.  

On the way to school on her first day, she is bullied by two children, one black and one mixed race. The girl mocks her, saying, “Look the crazy girl, you crazy like your mother,” and goes on to harass her by saying that her mother had tried to kill Mr. Mason, had tried to kill Antoinette as well, and that they both have eyes “like zombie.”

It is Daniel Cosway and his malign influence (obsessed with avenging his marginalized existence and exclusion from the Cosway family) that disturbs Rochester, and form the catalyst for his ultimate distrust and distaste for Antoinette.

Grace Poole’s narrative at the end of the novel implies that Antoinette is being held against her will

Antoinette’s upbringing and environment exacerbate her situation, as she feels rejected and displaced, with no one to love her.

As such it was only a matter of time before she became paranoid and solitary, prone to vivid dreams and violent outbursts, acting as human presumably would if placed in similar circumstances.

It is significant that women like Antoinette and her mother are the most susceptible to madness, pushed as they are into childlike servitude and feminine docility.

Her experiences and ensuing madness consign her, as it did her mother to live an invisible and shameful life.

Topic Sentence 3:

Rhys cements this notion of insanity being the symptom and not the disease, through her manipulation of the setting in which her story unfolds, in that it reflects the mental standing of Antoinette and her husband as the narrative unfolds.

Evidence:

Attic emblematic of mental deterioration 

Constant referrals to the destructive nature of the Caribbean. (Rochester & the hills, the potters)

“What am I doing in this place and who am I?” - Speaker: Antoinette Cosway (Part 3)

“The ghost of a woman they say haunts this place,” unaware that she is referring to herself. Madness is not imbibed with a person but is an external influence that distances the individual from their true person. 

The relationship between men and women, and the differences in their role in society, are central considerations in many works of literature. Discuss the part they plan in Wide Sargasso Sea.

Thesis- Through rhetoric, setting, and the characterization of Rochester, author Jean Rhys brings to light the struggles of her protagonist Antoinette, and by extension womankind. In doing so, Rhys draws attention to the injustices of a patriarchal society and a world in which men would dominate, dictate societal norms, and be allowed to enforce them.

Body 1- With the aid of rhetoric, Rhys establishes the matter of gender equality, educating readers on Antoinette's history on the subject and its generational implications. 

·      The profusion of analepses in Wide Sargasso Sea demonstrates the longevity of the gender struggle as it reveals that Annette was beset similar life occurrences to that of Antoinette.

Body 2- Through the character of Rochester, Rhys into question the patriarchal assumptions that define her society, paradoxically presenting Rochester as a victimizer and victim of the patriarchal order.

·      Rochester’s relationship with his father.

·      The imaginary and actual letter he sends his father.

·      Adds further spatial dimension to the conflict, alternate perspective- that of a man looking in.

·      In spite of being at a disadvantage, he does not question the law (primogeniture) that deprived him of the rights of his name. On the contrary he easily fits in the role assigned to him by patriarchal society and reenacts the power in the relationship of his own wife. He had been raised under this ideology and responded blindly to the deadly mechanism. 

Body 3- The power struggle develops against the backdrop of a natural setting which both enchanting embodies the hidden, essentially unconquerable core of the oppressed land/ women.

·      Rochester’s attitude to his married conditions as well as to his new environment is shown by the carful choice of lexical and structural elements. Lexical items with negative conations

·      Verbless sentences for the description of an environment with which character does not interact//Point to a stasis an arrest of movement, a focus on the paradigm in preference over the mobility of syntagm.

·      Classification of verbal processes in Roches narrative (chapter 1) allow define main trait of narrator mental picture of his reality the way in which he make sense of what happens around him and what role he assumes in the circumstances.

·      Not concerned action rather thinking, feeling and perceiving. He observes and describes environment as well as action and reactions of other characters. The kind of verbs sued help build his figure as passive observer of the action that takes place in environment

·      This attitude of non-committal and detachment summarized in the sentences “ I had agreed, as I had agreed to everything else.” Passive voice highlights characters estrangement from circumstances in which find involved.

·      Lack of rapport between him and the environment, highlighted by the use of contrast- he can’t think of a positive quality without mentioning a negative one.

Conclusion- The mingling of these mingling perspectives serves as a means of avoiding a narrow, intolerant vision of life, shows that the white middle-class male experience is not the truth against which one can measure reaction but only a partial viewpoint enforced by power constructions// Thus Rhys's use of gender equality deconstructs the aforementioned ethnocentric viewpoint with the aim of reestablishing a sense of proportion.

Antoinette the Outsider

In what ways does Jean Rhys characterize Antoinette as an outsider in Part One of the novel and to what effect? 
Consider the significance of theme and context.

In Part One of her novel ‘Wide Sargasso Sea,’ author Jean Rhys introduces her readers to the wild and turbulent world of her novel’s protagonist, Antoinette. A young and seemingly naive girl, when we first meet her, Antoinette’s character undergoes drastic alterations as the story progresses. One such aspect of her being that is significantly developed on, would be her sense of otherness or alienation, towards all those around her.  Rhys is able to elaborate on this sentiment and characterise her protagonist in such a manner through her depiction of Antoinette’s social standing, ethnicity and relationships with other characters in the novel, most notably her mother and best friend, Tia.

At the very outset of the novel, Rhys educates her readers on Antoinette’s social standing within her society and the conflict that has been born out of that. To possess an appreciation for the role of status in shaping Antoinette’s character, one must understand the socio-political setting in which ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ is set. The issues of conflicted cultural identity and alienation that Antoinette and Jamaican society as a whole face in the wake of emancipation from slavery in Wide Sargasso Sea mirror many of the issues newly independent nations met in their time of fledgling political emancipation from their former colonizers.  As the daughter of a former slave owner, Antoinette’s position is all the more precarious, surrounded on an island full of former slaves and thus tensions are bound to run high.

As a Creole, Antoinette can be considered neither black nor white. She may be white but she isn’t European, and she might have been born in the West Indies, but she is not Black. By establishing this distinction, Rhys makes known why Antoinette cannot find a sense of belonging in either of these two groups. This sentiment is further corroborated during the scene in which reader is providing a rough layout of Jamaica’s racial spectrum, “Plenty white people in Jamaica. Real white people, they got gold money… Old time white people nothin but white nigger now, and black nigger better than white nigger.” The dissent and animosity tangible, it should come as no surprise that such a divided landscape would fuel the flames of isolation and otherness. Taught the language and customs of a place she had never seen (England) while living and being shaped by the reality of the West Indies, Antoinette possesses a curious sense of belonging to the West Indies, and an awareness of being part of another culture. It is this ambiguity, caught up between two ways of life, being both an insider and outsider, which shape the way in which Antoinette perceives and understands the world around her.

An outsider can be regarded as one who makes a conscious effort on their part to connect with another society or people group only to be rejected by that party, and this notion rings true in the case of Antoinette. The most obvious example of this in the novel would be Antoinette’s relationship with her mother. As a young girl, Antoinette would make excuses to be at her mother’s side, for she hid her and kept her safe. However as Antoinette got older, her mother began to steadily distance herself away from her. Being neglected by a parent, that to your only one, is sure fire way to develop a sense of detachment and alienation towards those around, and Antoinette stands as no exception. Rejected by her mother, Antoinette seeks affirmation and belonging from other sources most notably her Aunt Cora and Tia, a young black girl who Antoinette befriends. However as with all the close relationships in her life thus far, her relationship with Tia gets sticky when the girl steals her clothes and later hurls a rock at her face. It seems as if in all the relationships in her life, Antoinette is always the desperate party, and that all those around her are fated to never live up to her expectations and reciprocate the love and affection that she pours out on them.