Like Mother, Like Daughter?

From the beginning of Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette's mother Annette is described as a very beautiful, yet detached woman of outsider status who eventually goes mad. As the book progressed, I noticed some key similarities between Annette's life and Antoinette's. First off, there's the thing about their names. Even though she is eventually transformed into Bertha, Antoinette is a derivation of Annette. Besides this almost too obvious clue, Antoinette is also an outsider her entire life. Not only does she have to face geographic displacement, like her mother (who is initially from Martinique), but she is also a white minority in an island full of black people. On top of this, she is a character hated by all, since her father was a notorious slave owner. I think that being born into this world is what basically dooms her from the start.

The fact that both women were outsiders is a particularly important aspect of the book. Throughout Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette struggles to relate with anyone. In fact, the only person she feels truly comfortable with is Christophine. I think this is indicative of Antoinette's nature, showing that she relates more with the black natives than the white colonizers. However, bound by societal expectations, she is forced to play the role of dependent housewife. Though people in our class had mixed feelings about Rochester, I for one did not like him. Despite getting to hear his perspective, I felt like he was just in it for the money. Indeed, he seemed to have several personal problems regarding his father, and took them out on Antoinette in particular. He let Antoinette fall in love with him, all the while acting haughty and not trying to reciprocate those feelings. When Antoinette tried using Christophine's love potion, it's a risky but desperate move. At this point, she is willing to try anything, yet Rochester is already a lost cause. I did not take this as her intentionally poisoning him, but the onsets of the damage Rochester caused on her. She is experiencing withdrawals from love much like one would experience from a drug, and this is what leads to her eventual demise.

By Part Three, the Jane Eyre influences are really being tied in (I assume, since I haven't read the book myself), and by this point I found it nearly impossible to relate to Rochester. It is then that Antoinette starts going mad. While it was assumed in those times that mental illness was inherited, especially by women, I think Rochester is what pushes her over the edge. In a different life, Antoinette could have had a very happy, healthy life. Instead, she is left to wilt away in an attic, with only Grace Poole and her nightmares to keep her company. Upon closing the book, I came to the conclusion that both Annette and Antoinette were drawn to insanity, yes, but not of their own fault. Rather, it was the men in their lives who took advantage of them due to selfish reasons. I wonder if their fates could have been different, given better circumstances. I also found it kind of prophetic how Annette's life was continued in Antoinette's, and this made me appreciate the point Jean Rhys was trying to make.

The Stranger in The Stranger

Upon opening The Stranger by Albert Camus, I was curious as to who or what the title was referring to. My initial thoughts were that we would get a third-person perspective of a peculiar individual in society, and maybe criticize and analyze his behaviors over the course of the book. Perhaps there would be a recurring, odd individual in the story, always lurking on the sidelines and eventually getting involved in things that didn't concern him. I was not expecting that Camus would actually put us in the shoes of that character. Because we got to be inside Meursault's mind, the author urged us to consider his significance in society. Like most of the 20th century novels we've read so far, The Stranger offers a unique perspective into the workings of the human mind. Most of the protagonists we've encountered over the semester are arguable social hermits, all either too enthralled or unfazed entirely by events in their life. In the case of The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker, the main character pays excruciating detail to everything in his life. So much so, in fact, that it doesn't leave much room in the book for any significant plot. Similarly, Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway spends the bulk of her day thinking about her party, and not much else. Contrastingly, Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises is an emotionally removed individual, kudos to his traumatic past, yet his feelings are still made clear to us over the course of the book.

When it comes to The Stranger, however, Meursault's troubled past is hinted at, but doesn't seem to faze him in the slightest. In fact, I would argue that this is the reason for his detached demeanor. It is quite possible that his parents never showed him any love in his youth, and he has grown up lacking human emotions. Indeed, the court and citizens seem to think there's something wrong with him. What perplexed me, though, was the fact that they soon lost interest in the reason they were all there, with the court case turning into an analysis of his mind rather than his crime. On a weekend getaway with his friends and girlfriend, Meursault shot and killed an Arab man. Since it is unclear to the audience why he did this, there's some hope when the court began questioning his motives. Frustratingly, Meursault doesn't seem to know, either. They eventually sentence him to death by beheading, and we feel pity for him. Yet it is important to realize that we have an in that the rest of the characters do not. Like I assumed before reading the book, they are simply analyzing someone they find weird. Though by experiencing everything in the first person, we are able to draw conclusions about Meursault's reasoning. However, even though we have VIP access to his thoughts, it feels like he censors them to us, too. He rarely quotes himself or others, and seems more interested in describing his surroundings than his thoughts and feelings about a particular situation.

Plot confusion aside, we all decided that if anything, Meursault is a brutally honest man. He doesn't feel the need to sugar coat things like we do, so this should make him a credible source. Because of this, I was skeptical to assume that he was putting up a facade for us. Some people in our class have called him a sociopath, and I believe there is some truth to this. He kills a man, and doesn't seem to feel any remorse for it. Because I assume that none of us share the same psyche as him, I think the book is aptly named. Even though we get some perspective into his life, he is still a complete stranger to us, and most of us agreed that he has mental problems. I believe Camus made this book purposely vague, challenging us to reason with a character whose mindset is completely alien from ours.