Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea
Norton Critical Ediction. NY: Norton, 1999.
The Daughter’s Entrance into
the Symbolic Order: Split
Identities and Mirror Images
Outline
•
•
General Introduction: Jean Rhys & Wide
Sargasso Sea:
Part I: Antoinette’s Difficult Entrance into the
Symbolic Order
1) The Symbolic Order
2) Antoinette’s Lack (1) the Mother Annette
3) Antoinette’s Lack (2) the other Mother figures:
Christophine and Aunt Cora
4) Antoinette’s Lack and Split Identities
5) Antoinette’s personality
–
Next Week
Jean Rhys—
A Life of Displacement
• 8/24/1890 the daughter of a Welsh doctor and
a white Creole mother
• Educated at a convent school and then sent to
Perse School, Cambridge, UK at the age of 17.
• 1909-10 Father died, Rhys joined Tours as a
chorus girl (instead of going home). Abandoned
by her lover.
• 1919 Marries Jean Lenglet and moves to Paris.
29 Dec., birth of a son who dies three weeks
later. (–altogether 3 marriages, 2 children.)
Jean Rhys–
A Life of Displacement
• 1923-24 Meets Ford Madox Ford. Husband in
jail, affair with Ford. (ménage a trois--Ford,
Stella Bowen and Jean)
• 1927-1939 – finished 1 collection of short
stories and three novels.
• 1933 Divorce. 1934 Marries Leslie TildenSmith. 1945 TS dead. 1947 Marriage to Max
Hamer. Disappears from the public scene.
• 1966 WSS (which she begins to work on in
1945) published.
Rhys: her characters’ and her
self-identity
• Her characters: , all drifting, unhappy, unstable,
but with clear self-knowledge and understanding
of others.
– “I have no pride—no name, no face, no country. I don’t
belong anywhere.” (Good Morning, Midnight.)
• Rhys: Only returned to Dominica once in 56 years;
• Rhys: . "I don't belong anywhere but I get very
worked up about the West Indies. I still
care. . . ."
Rhys: her Self-Identity
"Do you consider yourself a West Indian?"
She shrugged. "It was such a long time ago when I left."
"So you don't think of yourself as a West Indian writer?"
Again she shrugged, but said nothing.
"What about English? Do you consider yourself an English
writer?"
"No! I'm not, I'm not! I'm not even English."
"What about a French writer?" I asked.
Again she shrugged and said nothing.
"You have no desire to go back to Dominica?"
"Sometimes," she said.
Rhys on Jane Eyre
• "The creole in Charlotte Bronte's novel is a lay
figure -- repulsive which does not matter, and not
once alive which does. . . . For me . . . she must
be right on stage. She must be at least plausible
with a past, the reason why Mr. Rochester treats
her so abominably and feels justified, and the
reason why he thinks she is mad and why of
course she goes mad, even the reason why she
tries to set everything on fire, and eventually
succeeds. . . " (Gregg 82; emphases added)
• General Q: Is Antoinette doomed to be mad?
Couldn’t there be different endings? Is the novel
too sad?
Rhys's Revision of Jane Eyre:
Shift of Dates:
• Jane Eyre -- towards the end of the novel
reads a book published in 1808
Bertha confined in the attic in the first decade
of the 19th century.
• WSS's time frame shifted to 1830's onwards:
Emancipation Act 1833
Antoinette – born 1839, a year after the full
emancipation; a child in the 1840's (Mark
MaWatt qut in Gregg 83)
Wide Sargasso Sea:
General Introduction – (1) the Title
• Sargasso Sea: The heart of the Bermuda
Triangle is covered by the strangest and most
notorious sea on the planet— the Sargasso
Sea; so named because there is a kind of
seaweed which lazily floats over its entire
expanse called sargassum. (source)
• signaling the wide division between Antoinette
and Rochester and the race and gender entangled
relationships in the Caribbean area.
FYI: Sargasso Sea
•
An oval-shaped area of the North Atlantic Sea, bordered by the Gulf Stream and
encompassing Bermuda Islands. It is characterized by weak currents, eerie little wind,
and a free-floating mass of seaweed called Sargassum .(textbook 1)
WSS: Settings
• Part I: (Martinique), Jamaica: Coulibri estate,
near Spanish Town
Part II: Granbois, Dominica,
Part III: “Great House” England
Plot and Structure
• Part I: Antoinette's Childhood –
–
–
–
–
Isolation after Mr. Cosway’s death and the emancipation;
The mother’s re-marriage to Mr. Mason;
The riot;
Antoinette in the convent.
• Part II: Rochester and Antoinette
– Upon arrival, R tries to adjust, writes letters to his father;
relations between A & R.
– Daniel’s letter and the letter from England.
– Antoinette’s taking action
– Leaving for England.
• Part III: Antoinette in England
Characters
•
Wide Sargasso Sea: General
Questions
I. What are the subject positions available in this
society?
2. What roles do the parents (Annette, Mr. Mason,
Christophine) play in this story?
3. How does Antoinette respond to her environment at
different stages—




‘When trouble comes’
Her time with Tia
the mother’s re-marriage
The riot
4. What do the symbols of mirror, garden and parrot
means?
Symbolic Order (1)
Racial Hierarchy and Antagonism expressed in
Language

I. White Masters, New & Old:




II. White against creole


e.g. the town people’s gossip p. 82 ; Aunt Cora's husband
82
III. Black against creole:


Christophine’s comment 80
Mr. Luttrells p. 77; death of Mr. Lutrell  new Lutrells
New masters after the Emancipation of slaves [Mr.
Mason—82 hires new servants]
poor "white cockcroaches" p. 79; white niggers p. 80 (Tia)
black Englishman p. 87 (at the riot)
IV. The position of obeah woman (82)
Symbolic Order (2):
Before and after the Emancipation
Pre-Emancipation: racial and sexual
exploitation. (e.g. Daniel)
Post-Emancipation Problems:
Belated Compensation,
2.
Importation of contract laborers
3.
Annette’s lack of understanding of Christophine
78; distrust of Godfry, Sass’ leaving p. 79,
4.
Riot: The presentation of the black mob
Negative: Myra – hell (84-85); animal howling (p. 86),
parrot killed = bad luck 87;
Positive: At the final confrontation, some women start
to cry. 88.
1.
Symbolic Order (2):
Antoinette’s Subject Positions



Seen as a white nigger (vs. white man
with good, or real nigger)
In Tia’s dress, Antoinette sees
“beautiful” Luttrells 80 
Spanish town gossips (p. 82) see A as
“going the same way” of madness &
promiscuity? --fixed and denied.
Antoinette’s Lack (1): the
Mother Annette
Annette: 1) multiple alienations of the
creole
—from the white people in the Spanish town
because she is a Creole from Martinique
and poor;
-- from the blacks (“they”) because she is
former slave-owner and poor
-- from the FOB such as Mr. Mason (who
cannot understand her sense of insecurity)
Annette: Her Gender Position
Annette: -- 2) As a woman –
a.
Cosway: a womanizer
b.
Widowed –can only survive by marrying again.
Antoinette (solitary life)  Antoinette
(planned and hoped) p. 10
-- Marooned, she expects her son to be her
phallic symbol 77
-- borrow a horse from the new Lutrelles
gay and a good dancer
c.
2nd Marriage: Worse, since Mason does not
understand the racial relationship (83-84)
Annette
Annette: -a. Why does she care so much about the
parorot CoCo? 87
b.
the parrot’s Q & A:
Qui est la? Qui est la? 
b. Che Coco, Che Coco.
 Lack of position/identity
a.
Annette Antoinette:
Social Hierarchy Reinforced; Stronger
Sense of Lack
Antoinette’s loss of motherly love
 Her love rejected by Annette (78, 79,81),
who


cares more about Pierre 81;
Is ashamed of her 80;
(later)



pushed away after her madness;
missing her mother in the convent;
The mother’s death
Antoinette’s Substitute Mother
Antoinette:
Christophine: helpful but fearful
like a substitute mother 78;

feared by Antoinette 82-83 -- Combination
of Catholicism and voodoo (Later her help
is counter-productive)
Aunt Cora:




A. lives with her when Coulibri is reconstructed
Stands up for them at the riot
[later] cannot help when A. is married to R.
Antoinette’s Lack of and Need of
Mirror Image/Ego Ideal
A. Fixation in the Imaginary Order:
1.
Self-protection in Childhood:
1.
2.
Refusal to accept change: e.g. the horse p. 77
To be safe from strangers: garden 78; 79; 81
 [later] fatalism and death impulse
B. In Need of but Split among Different Ego Ideals
(object a) –
1.
The mother’s face -- frowning;
2.
Christophine – blue-black and thin
3.
Tia –dress exchange
4.
To be somewhere else p. 81
2.
Antoinette’s Lack of and Need
of Mirror Image/Ideal Ego
C. Sense of Rejection by Both Societies
1.
2.
Being call names by “strange negros.” 79
Her dream 81 (after the pool episode)
D. After the mother’s re-marriage, Antoinette
tries—without success--to find her position
in the Symbolic Order
1.
2.
3.
Not having a father figure as object of love (84)
Example of her split identity 85 among “The Miller’s
Daughter” Mr. Mason, her mother.  grateful and like
him  to Pierre “How will you like being made exactly
like other people?”
Failure to seek comfort from Tia. 88
Antoinette
Her childhood as a creole girl neglected by
her mother, and not protected by her
father(s)
Insecure; in lack of a firm sense of identity;
(lack of love, fear of others’ and society’s
criticism, feeling excluded.)
 Fatalistic (fear of “madness” as a
hereditary trait)
[Later—convent as a temporary refuge with
no real education]
Next Week


The Piano
“Snowed Up”