Wide Sargasso Sea (2): Conflicting Perspectives & Memories

Wide Sargasso Sea (2): Conflicting Perspectives & Memories Daniel, Chris- tophine, Rochester, Antoinett, Amelie, Baptiste & Sandi…

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

Plot Summary • Part I: Post-emancipation loneliness  marriage to Mr. Mason  the riot  the convent • Part II: Rochester’s arrival at Granbois (uncertainties and communication)  the letters (56/95 -; 71/118 ) Antoinette’s attempts to save the marriage (64/108; 76/127) Rochester’s revenge • Repetitive Elements: “Dear Father,” “I feel sorry for you,” the cock crowed • Major dialogues

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 • Ending

Part II: So it was all over…Nothing

Part II: Conflicting Views presented in • Four major dialogues [before & after the potion episode]– • Antoinette with Christophine (65 – 71/107) • Rochester with Daniel (74- 76/122) • [after] Antoinette with Rochester (76 – 82/127) • [after] Rochester with Christophine (91- 97/155) Endings: Rochester’s two interior monologues (98 -/164 ; 100-) –expression of egotism and colonial mentality

Background: Obeah and Voodoo • In the text (64/107; 86/143)—feared, sign of rage, dismissed or repressed by the police, kept secret by the locals 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

Zombie and its symbolic meanings • Definitions of zombie (64/107) • ghost; transfixed like ghost; • the mulatto boy and girl following Antoinette • Rochester’s visit to the ruined house 2) symbolic of social and individual alienation • Rochester’s feeling after the Obeah night; • Antoinette turning into a ghost (Bertha 89/147; 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)

Narrative voices & Conflicting Perspectives Part I: Antoinette Part II: “Rochester”  Antoinette “Rochester” Part III: Grace Poole  Antoinette Repetition of “I remember” (23 times) – Antoinette: the riot, going to see her mother; the convent scenes (the mother); Part III Rochester: (not the ceremony) the trip, the father, the nights with A & Amelie

Rochester’s Account of the Night • I will always swear that, she need not have done it. When she handed me the glass she was smiling. I remember saying in a voice that was not like my own that it was too light. I remember putting out the candles on the table near the bed and that is all I remember. All I will remember of the night. (82/137) • Is it a good idea to use obeah? What other solutions can Antoinette have?

Antoinette’s Account (when going to Christophine • “I can remember every second of that morning, if I shut my eyes I can see the deep blue colour of the sky and the mango leaves, the pink and red hibiscus, the yellow handkerchief she wore round her head, tied in the Martinique fashion with the sharp points in front, but now I see everything still, fixed for ever like the colours in a stained-glass window. Only the clouds move. It was wrapped in a leaf, what she had given me, and I felt it cool and smooth against my skin.”

Starting Questions: Analysis and Performing the Roles 1) G2: Why does Rhys assign Rochester to be predominant voice in Part II? What does he think about Antoinette and Granbois? • G1: How does Antoinette relate to Rochester? • G4: The roles of Daniel, Amelie, and the other blacks (e.g. Hilda, Baptiste): what functions do Daniel and Amelie serve in the development of R and A’s relationship? • G3: What roles does Christophine play?

Starting Questions: Analysis and Performing the Roles -- Rochester: Why does Rochester feel calm and self-possessed after meeting Daniel? How do we interpret his responses after taking the potion? And the last two monologues? Why is he un-named? -- Antoinette: How does Antoinette look at the past? And the place, Granbois? Is Antoinette wrong in using Christophine’s potion? How is Antoinette affected by Rochester’s revenge? Is she mad? -- Daniel: what does he want? What he mean by saying that there is madness in the Cosways. -- Amelie: “I feel sorry for you.” -- Christophine: What suggestions does she give to Antoinette? Is her obeah helpful? Why can’t she help Antoinette more despite her perceptiveness, her care-taking and obeah power?

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” “and yet”; • Dear Father Letters –his subordinate position • dialogue with A before the climax, with Christophine after it) & • His self-centeredness and colonial mentality in the last two monologues

Rochester’s narrative vs. Antoinette Their different memories about the night: • [before] Rochester’s (82/137); Antoinette’s – p. 71/118 -- the last time she can appreciate and like the natural scenery. • Cock’s symbolic meanings; natural scene signs of betrayals--cock crowing (41/69, 71/118, 97-98/162) • [after] Rochester’s – pp. 82/137; 84-85/139 (next slide) • evasiveness; • Self-justification

Rochester on Amelie • There was a spark of gaiety in her eyes, but when I laughed she put her hand over my mouth apprehensively. I pulled her down beside me and we were both laughing. That is what I remember most about that encounter. She was so gay, so natural and something of this gaiety she must have given to me, for I had not one moment of remorse.

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.

Rochester’s Responses to Obeah • 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) • Hatred of her and the place, which reveals that he can never understand their treasures and secrets. (next slide)

Rochester’s Responses (2) • Rochester’s interior monologue 98 - ; 100 – hatred and emptiness inside (83), (102-3); recurrence of C’s and D’s words 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)

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.

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

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)- puppet  doll

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

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; cannot get rid of the racial stereotypes internalized by the white people—calling C “damned black devil from Hell” (81)

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

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)

Notes: 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)

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)

Wide Sargasso Sea (2): Conflicting Perspectives & Memories