Post-Colonial Perspective of Identity in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (original) (raw)

Identity, Displacement and Alienation in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea and Voyage in The Dark

Eurasian Journal of English Language and Literature, 2023

After the abolition of colonialism, new literatures from the former colonies emerged, which challenged and questioned the identity of the colonized imposed by the colonizer, and also the identity of the colonial powers. Literature of this kind or namely the postcolonial literature thus aims to subvert the imperial literatures which are in the "centre" to make the voice of the colonized heard from the "periphery". In this regard, both Wide Sargasso Sea and Voyage in the Dark analysed in this paper are striking examples of the postcolonial literature in deconstructing the colonial image and in focusing on the subject of identity. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how the issue of identity is approached in Jean Rhys's postcolonial texts Wide Sargasso Sea and Voyage in the Dark through the study of female characters'-Antoinette and Annarace, displacement, exile, alienation, and othering by focusing on Homi Bhabha's concept of hybridity.

SELF-IDENTITY IN JEAN RHYS' WIDE SARGASSO SEA

Caribbean literature has been one steeped in identity crisis. Jean Rhy's Wide Sargasso Sea chronicles the problems associated with people who are found in cultural, social and economic limbo as far as their identity and history is concerned. Through dual narrative voice in the novel, Rhys gives voice to the less heard in mainstream discourse in Caribbean literature. This paper thus examine the notion of self-identity in the Rhy's Wide Sargasso Sea.

Rhetoric of Post-Colonial Mindset in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea

Contemporary Research: An Interdisciplinary Academic Journal, 2021

This paper examines the rhetoric of post-colonial mentality, mindset and attitude in Jean Rhys’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea and looks at how the writer is not aloof from the colonial mindset. Drawing on insights and postulations from Gayatri Spivak’s post-colonialism and Lee Erwin’s new-historicism, this article analyzes the imperial discourse in the novel. Although the writer shows her narrator being close to black people as a Creole woman, the writer’s closeness to the imperial mindset is evident throughout the novel. This paper concludes that by creating a certain distance from the ex-slaves, the writer is not able to fully liberate herself from her imperial mindset. Although the writer tries to affiliate herself with the ex-slaves, she however remains within her own culture, that is, culture of Creole.

The "Third Space" and the Questions of Identity in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea

2015

In this paper, I claim that the “third space” extends beyond Western hegemonic discourse on identity and self, demonstrating that identity is not a singular and a stable subject but a multiple and fluid one. This article demonstrates that the “third space”, while opening the avenues for pluralities and negotiations, unsettles and problematizes the issues of identity, belonging, and home in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. Discussions on why Antoinette’s position as a Creole in Jamaica problematizes her status and identity, and what barriers negate herself and her sense of belonging are central to this research. I further investigate the roles of Western hegemonic presence in Antoinette’s subjectivity, and her sense of liberation and autonomy. Antoinette’s position in a liminal space not only jeopardizes her identity, her longing for home and belonging, but also creates a hybrid identity that emerges in a moment of historical transformation in Jamaican history. Hybridity interrogates and deconstructs the Western hegemonic assumption of stable subjectivity and meaning. Destabilizing the notion of the Self and the Other as envisioned by Western mainstream narratives, hybridity proposes that the Self is constructed by multiple ideologies and multiple discourses. Antoinette’s occupation of a hybrid position in Wide Sargasso Sea dismantles the stable binaries of white/black, colonizer/colonized category of Western discourse and questions identity formation based on the West as the ‘Self’ and the non-West as the ‘Other’ as in Edward Said’s contention in Orientalism.

A Postcolonial Reading of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Despite the fact that the story retold in Wide Sargasso Sea on the surface seems to be a pathetic love story of a Creole woman who goes crazy due to unrequited love in her marriage to an English man, through a close postcolonial reading of the novel several crucial cultural and political orientalist attitudes towards Creole people, Europe’s alternative and potential “other,” are depicted. “Orientalism, in Said’s formulation, is principally a way of defining and ‘locating’ Europe’s others”. Accordingly, within the context of this paper, the other version of the story of “the othered” will be examined from a post colonialist perception through the representations of the characters especially, that of Mr. Rochester. His orientalist and “othering” attitude towards Antoinette and the Creole way of life in the Caribbean and the related crucial identity problems of Antoinette will be discussed within the framework of this postcolonial reading on Wide Sargasso Sea. Key Words: postcolonialism, orientalism, postmodern paroody, Wide Sargasso Sea, Jane Eyre

Double Colonization in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea: A Postcolonial Feminist Critique

The English colonial rule of the 19 th century was undoubtedly based on an unequal power relationship and oppression of a great majority of the people and their lands in the world. The Carribean was one of the countries where the British colonists ruled with all might and sway, badly affecting the lives of its colonized people. Of these colonized people, it was the female colonized who suffered even more due to the additional patriarchal structure imposed on them as well. In this regard, Jean Rhys's novel Wide Sargasso Sea (WSS) presents a faithful and comprehensive critique. For this purpose, first of all, the related literature was reviewed on the concept of double colonization with reference to WSS in light of the relevant views. Next, for the purpose of analysis, the study was delimited to the plight of the main character Antoinette and her mother Annette in light of the various events and discourses from WSS as to how double colonization affected the lives of the aforementioned female characters. On the basis of the analysis, it was found out that double colonization affected Antoinette and Annette by a number of its main aspects and factors, such as, economic exploitation, marriages, otherness, cultural hybridity, and patriarchy, by bringing about their alienation not only from the colonial and patriarchal culture around but also from their own self and life, thus suffering from identity crisis, madness, and finally death.

Double Colonization in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea: Critical Analysis

2020

In the nineteenth century, the British power held control over many countries of the world. It was undoubtedly proved to be very cruel towards the indigenous people, bringing about brutality and oppression. The Caribbean islands are ones of the territories where the English ruled and exploited the people and their lands. Caribbean women suffered even more because they experienced another level of dominance imposed on them by men; patriarchal society, itself, is a colonization for them. The present study aims at investigating the issue of double colonization in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. This novel is considered as a masterpiece of the Caribbean resistance literature as well as a narrative of female fall down in a male-dominated society. For this purpose, the postcolonial feminist theory is used to examine how the main character in Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette, is doubly subjected by colonialism and patriarchy. In doing so, an analytical method is conducted to analyze the different forms of oppression the creole protagonist is subjected to throughout the novel, and which of these forms lead to her madness. This study reveals that women are not genetically fragile and weak but the different cultural, emotional or physical factors they face contribute to this fragility. Thus, colonial and patriarchal forms of subjugation, as the two are inextricably entwined, are responsible for the identity crisis and mental breakdown of Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea.

Writing Back to the Empire: Righting Creole Identity in Wide Sargasso Sea

2013

Twentieth century witnessed writers challenging certain canonical English texts. The slow yet steady collapse of the imperial powers' direct control over their colonies, during the century, and at the same time, the desire on the part of the earlier colonized people to ascertain their cultural recognition, in a way other than the one established by the colonizers, have caused a great as well as new representative literature. Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, being emblematic of this literature, portrays the voice of the formerly oppressed Other and thus sets up an assertion to the cultural distinctiveness of the earlier colonized Creole people. In this manner, this novel questions the elitism and exclusiveness of the say of the literature produced by writers from the powerful imperial nations, scrutinizing their well-established and fully though out perceptions about the weaker and, at the same time, colonized nations. While using the critical tool of Postcolonial Criticism as ...

The White Creole in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea: A Woman in Passage

Studies on Jean Rhys have been fragmentary concentrating on one or two aspects of Rhys's thematic concern with the alienation of the white creole without laying emphasis on Rhys's exploration of the Creole's identity. There has been no attempt to examine if the creole has to struggle harder and more than whites and blacks to come to terms with her personal identity until now. The answer is affirmative because the creole is a composite human being. Indeed, the white creole is the 'fruit' of a mixed union. Born into miscegenation, hybridity and creolization, the creole is physically, linguistically, socially and religiously a diverse human being. Within the scope of this paper, the term identity is used in a broad sense. The creole's personal identity refers to the different identities the Creole can have at different times and in different circumstances. Correspondingly, she must negotiate the white and black elements of her identity. The Creole must deal with the complexity of her identity through a web of tangled relationships with both whites and blacks. Read from this light, the personal identity of the creole is not " either/ or, " but reluctantly " both/ and. " In various ways, the creole is an 'Everyman.' The Creole undergoes an awareness, and is eventually, redefined through the image of the 'other.' Indeed, her jump toward her black friend Tia reflects Rhys's basic concern for a Caribbean society in which assimilation and personal identity must blend in a single humane goal, that is, to co-exist beyond the lines of race, gender, class and sex in order to avoid annihilation.