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.
It's interesting to look at Annette and Antoinette, and compare their similar situations, and similar outcomes. In class, we talked a lot about how events in The Wide Sargasso Sea foreshadow events in Jane Eyre (the burning of Coulibri, for instance), but we didn't talk a whole lot about how Annette is a foreshadowing of Antoinette, outside of the fact that people saw insanity as a genetic trait. In fact, after discussing that but before finishing the novel, I figured that Antoinette would break the mold, not go insane, and prove people wrong. Alas, this was not one of those novels. Instead, Antoinette does go down the same route, perhaps into a situation worse than her mother's by being locked in the attic for the rest of her life.
ReplyDeleteYou do a nice job of breaking down how Rhys takes the idea of inherited madness in _Jane Eyre_ and recasts what it means to "inherit" such a trait: it's not that the madness is somehow "in" her and bound to come out eventually, but in fact it's a reaction to social and cultural circumstances. Antoinette *does* "inherit" these circumstances, and it's no coincidence that her response bears similarity to her mother's. But we don't view this as a quasi-genetic thing, or an inherited disease, but as a commentary on how these women are treated by the men in their lives.
ReplyDeleteI interpreted Pilate's line in the context of her belief in being haunted by the dead, something which allows her to glean wisdom and insight. Because she feels that she is the only one who has a constant connection with her father and carries on his wish ("sing,sing"), Pilate does not acknowledge Milkman's immediate family as true Deads. In general, it seems she has little regard for blood relations as a concrete concept.
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