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Wide Sargasso Sea (3)

Wide Sargasso Sea (3). Rochester’s Colonial “Justice” & Possessiveness; Antoinette’s Displacement and Self-Assertion. Plot Summary. Part I: Post-emancipation loneliness  marriage to Mr. Mason  the riot  the convent

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Wide Sargasso Sea (3)

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  1. Wide Sargasso Sea (3) Rochester’s Colonial “Justice” & Possessiveness; Antoinette’s Displacement and Self-Assertion

  2. Plot Summary • Part I: Post-emancipation loneliness  marriage to Mr. Mason  the riot  the convent • Part II: Rochester’s arrival at Grandbois (uncertainties and communication)  the letter (56 - ) Antoinette’s attempts to save the marriage  Rochester’s revenge

  3. Plot Summary • Part II: Three major dialogues – Antoinette with Christophine (65 – 71) Rochester with Daniel (74- 76) Antoinette with Rochester (76 – 82) Rochester with Christophine (91- 97) Rochester’s interior monologues (98 - ; 100-)

  4. Plot Summary • Part III: • Grace Poole’s narrative. • Antoinette’s • cold, not know who she is; • not England; • Richard Mason’s visit; • Memory of Sandi and the red dress; • The dream.

  5. Background: Obeah and Voodoo • Obeah – a means of connection with Africa; and also native rebellion. • --a creolized practice of African religions and Christianity (memory of Africa) • For the natives and esp. for the white colonizers – fearful and evil magic • For the rebellious slaves: as a means of escape from and rebellion against slavery

  6. Zombie and its symbolic meanings • Definitions of zombie (64; 82)  symbolic of social and individual alienation • Rochester’s feeling after the Obeah night; • Antoinette turning into a ghost (102)  the haunting ghost in Thornfield (111) • ”Her ‘real’ death is her subjugation by Rochester—by the colonizer—the long slow process of her reduction to the zombie state chronicled in the novel” (Sandra Drake 200)

  7. Outline • Questions • Narrative voices: Rochester’s narrative vs. Antoinette’s • The non-whites’ attempts at social climbing; • The Climax and its aftermath: • Antoinette’s attempt & Rochester’s responses ; • Antoinette’s changes (the issue of Names) and Christophine’s Roles • The Ending

  8. Starting Questions I. Narrative voices: Part I: Antoinette Part II: Rochester”Antoinette“Rochester” Part III: Grace Poole  Antoinette Why does Rhys assign Rochester to be predominant voice in Part II? II. The roles of Daniel & Amelie: What functions do Daniel and Amelie serve in the development of R and A’s relationship?

  9. Starting Questions III. The Conflicts: -- Why does Rochester feel calm and self-possessed after meeting Daniel? How do we interpret his responses after taking the potion? -- Is Antoinette wrong in using Christophine’s potion? How is Antoinette affected by Rochester’s revenge? -- What roles does Christophine play? Why can’t she help Antoinette more despite her perceptiveness, her care-taking and obeah power?

  10. Rochester’s narrative Functions: • To show different perspectives in order for us to understand the cultural shocks he experiences; • To make us understand his personality more. -- R, not a reliable narrator; • His duplicity (e.g. several dishonest moments: “not yet”; dialogue with A before the climax, with Christophine after it) & self-centeredness

  11. Rochester’s narrative vs. Antoinette Their different memories: • Antoinette’s – p. 71 • the last time she can appreciate and like the natural scenery. • Symbolic meanings; signs of betrayals--cock crowing (41, 71, 97-98) • Rochester’s – pp. 82; 84 • evasiveness; • Self-justification

  12. Daniel and Amelie Similarities: • Both wanting to do social climbing; both hurt Rochester’s male ego; both wants money from Rochester. Differences: • Daniel– flattering(58), “educated” unlike the blacks (74); in hatred pp. 73 –74; misrepresenting the Cosway family; • Amelie – uses her own body in order to leave the island and marry a rich man • (the boy who wants to follow R to England 102-104)

  13. Antoinette’s seek for C’s help • Cannot leave Rochester • no money; (p 66) • has to go to England; (66-67) • Afraid; Still wants love (though just for a moment, with external help, in a act of “foolishness”) • Try to blind herself to reality p. 70; • Rochester still cold and possessive (the use of “Bertha”) after her confession.

  14. Rochester’s Responses • Physical discomfort & Self-Preservation; • “Zombified” pp. 82-83; • The ruined house; • Amélie; • R’s possessiveness & self-centeredness : • Calling Antoinette “my wife” (85); • The dialogue with Christophine • self-pity 99; decides her life for her ( “my lunatic” 99)

  15. Rochester’s Responses (2) • Rochester’s interior monologue 98 - ; 100 – hatred and emptiness inside (83), (102-3) // (143)  who is madder? • Self-fulfilling prophecy (1) – Hates the place. Leaves as soon as possible, but his own actions, actually, drive him away from Dominica • People around Rochester and change their attitudes toward him after this one-nigh-stand with Améle, e.g. Baptiste (85), • R feels everything as “hostile” (90)

  16. Rochester’s Responses (3) • Self-fulfilling prophecy (2) • the “English house” p. 98 • Self-fulfilling prophecy (2) • Wait for her to become a memory, a lie 103.

  17. Antoinette’s changes • Antoinette’s change of identity: • physically transformed (87; 89) • name “That’s obeah too” (88) • Sense of displacement: • before – pp. 53; 78 • after – p. 88 • No justice – p. 88

  18. Names & Identity: Christophine’s , Daniel’s & Antoinette’s • name and identity--the African belief & British tradition (88) • Christophine’s name – p. 86 • Daniel Cosway--Esau (73) ( sb. cheated out of his birthright) /Is he a Cosway—Daniel Boyd? (77, 94)—the importance of claiming the family name • Antoinette p. 31 bury to keep her name  Bertha (68, 81, 88, 106-7)  Marionette (90, 92, 103)-

  19. Christophine’s rescue and withdrawal • Her sage advice: • To leave him;  impossible for A • To talk to him;  useless to R • Her cure (p. 93) • not completely effective because she is beke; • undone by R • Her offer p. 95  hurts R’s male ego • Rochester’s threat of getting the police

  20. Christophine’s Role: A review • For Antoinette • A surrogate mother • giving Antoinette advice, • Taking care of her: singing her to sleep; kiss her (90)– a human touch that softens A, who has been rejected by everyone else—see the “sun” in Antoinette; • A model of self-independence for Antoinette • Antoinette  Christophine: still afraid of her; annot get rid of the racial stereotypes internalized by the white people—calling C “damned black devil from Hell” (81)

  21. Christophine’s Role: A review (2) • The native talks back: • judging R (92)--No longer a mimicking parrot (cf Annette’s parrot Coco) • strong mental power, which forces Rochester to repeat her words—a reversal of the colonizer/ colonized role in which the colonized is mimicking the master’s metropolitan language and discourse • A site of alternative power—an obeah woman

  22. The Critics on Christophine (1) • Spivak on imperialism: “Christophine is tangential to this narrative. She cannot be contained by a novel which rewrites a canonical English text within the European novelist tradition in the interest of the white Creole rather than the native.” (p.246)

  23. The Critics on Christophine (1) • Parry on Spivak: “what Spivak’s strategy of reading necessarily blots out is Christophine’s inscription as the native, female, individual Self who defies the demands of the discriminatory discourses impinging on her person.” (p.248)

  24. The Ending: Questions • How is the English house described? • What are the significances of the red dress in Part III? (109) • Compare the fire scene in Part I and that in Antoinette’s dream in part III. Is there a parallel between the parrot in the first fire and Antoinette in the second?

  25. The Ending: Questions • What is the significance of the ending of the novel? Critics have argued that this novel has an open ending. Is Antoinette mad? Can she escape from the narrative containment? Has she burned down the house?

  26. Spaces: the Caribbean vs. England • different gardens: Coulibri and Granbois  “enclosed garden” in her dream (p.36) • The outsider world is more alienating: for Grace it’s a shelter against the black and cruel world (105-6) • Places without looking glass: the convent (32), the house in England (107, 112) • England as world “made of cardboard” (107)

  27. The Ending The red dress —the color of fire and the flamboyant tree, the smell of the WI —a symbol of her Caribbean identity and of her memory of Sandi (109-10) -- vs the gray wrapper (110)—the color of England and sign of R’s neglect

  28. Red Dress the untold/undeveloped love story between Antoinette and Sandi • (30) Sandi’s help • hints at their sexual relationship (72-3, 75, 109-10)— • white dress (76) for Rochester and red dress for Sandi (109)

  29. The Ending The two fires: Fire brings back her child hood memory (111-2)—the ambivalent power of fire—warm, purifying, protective but scorching (112) Holding the candle down the passage—a conformity to and a reversal of the Victorian angel in the house—illuminating, destructive—breaking her state of zombification (202)

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