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Kelly Doyle
Dr. Maxwell
ENGL 700
November 20, 2014
Annotated Bibliography
Berman, Carolyn Vellenga. "Indicting Domestic Fiction: Wide Sargasso Sea." Creole
Crossings: Domestic Fiction and the Reform of Colonial Slavery. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell UP, 2006. 169-86. Print.
Berman’s book focuses on the Creole identity as a result of slavery and
displacement. In this specific chapter of her book, Berman focuses on Antoinette and her
presumed madness. Berman is in conversation with Frantz Fanon in this chapter to
discuss and argue Antoinette’s fear of “unacknowledged self” (174). I find this argument
so fascinating in relation to my own research because Antoinette’s unacknowledged self
is precisely why she has so many dreams that she is unable to decipher. This inability to
understand or acknowledge her own identity is precisely why at the end of Wide Sargasso
Sea, she jumps to a renewed salvation, because she has acknowledged her truest self.
However, what I’m still struggling with is the claim in this chapter that Antoinette
“contributes to her own victimization” (175). In many ways she does contribute to her
situation and in many more ways she does not. I think that this claim is an
oversimplification but still worthy of inclusion within the confines of my research and
final paper to provide the scope of the critical discourse on the role of Antoinette’s
unconscious in Wide Sargasso Sea.
Drake, Sandra. "Race and Caribbean Culture as Thematics of Liberation in Jean Rhys'
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Wide Sargasso Sea." Wide Sargasso Sea. By Jean Rhys. New York: Norton,
1999. 193-206. Print.
What I found most compelling about Drake’s article was her lengthy discussion
about Antoinette’s “real” death in the Caribbean versus her actual physical death in
England. Drake also brings in the concept of zombi and how Antoinette could function as
a zombi figure after her “real” death. Drake argues that Antoinette’s real death is her
relationship with Rochester and what he represents: colonization. Her existence as a
zombi, as Drake argues, is evidenced through her dream sequences and through her
“real” death. Drake also interprets Antoinette’s physical death at the end of the novel as
the African belief in the community of the dead and the belief that after a physical death,
the soul will return to the ancestral land. All three of these theories that Drake presents
relate to and aid my argument for my final paper because they all focus on the concept of
death and what death within the confines of Wide Sargasso Sea symbolizes. Drake
presents the idea of the soul returning home but doesn’t explicitly connect it to the myth
of flying in the slave culture of the Caribbean or the Americas. However, I believe that
this is what she is calling on and I intend to take this idea further to present Antoinette’s
final or physical death as both her “real” and spiritual death because of what the myth of
flying would represent for Antoinette: going home.
Emery, Mary Lou. "The Politics of Form: Jean Rhys's Social Vision in Voyage in the
Dark and Wide Sargasso Sea." Twentieth Century Literature 28.4 (1982): 41830.JSTOR. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.
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The argument that Emery sets forth in her article is that of Antoinette as a cultural
and sexual outsider in the Caribbean and England, the colonial and the postcolonial
world. Emery also focuses on the function of Antoinette’s dreams throughout Wide
Sargasso Sea and how these dreams affirm Antoinette’s reality and eventual reality. The
dreams represent the unspoken, things that cannot or are not spoken but need to be.
Emery argues that Antoinette’s jump in the end of Wide Sargasso Sea signifies the literal
fulfillment of her own dreams. As Antoinette trusts the reality in her dreams and the
fantasy of waking life, the reasoning behind her decision to jump becomes clear. In her
dream world, Antoinette is her true self and in jumping she aligns with this truest form of
self. The seeming fragmentation of the dreams throughout Wide Sargasso Sea actually
gestures towards Antoinette’s fate. The role of sexual and cultural outsider that
Antoinette occupies throughout the novel is diminished through her final act towards
escape. I plan to use Emery’s article to focus on the dream imagery throughout the novel
and how these dreams point to both Antoinette’s fears and the reality that she is unable or
incapable of confronting. While I think that the ending of the novel is more than just
Antoinette’s alignment with the prophecies of her dreams, I do think that this aspect of
the text is important to discuss within my paper to point towards why this interpretation is
compelling but still not entirely satisfying.
Gates, Henry Louis. "The Vernacular Tradition." Introduction. The Norton Anthology of
African American Literature. Ed. Nellie Y. McKay. New York: W.W. Norton,
2003. 3-150. Print.
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The discussion of language and the tradition of that language within the displaced
African community that Gates presents in this introduction are necessary for my
continued understanding of the function of folklore and the legend of flight. Included in
this section are spirituals, work songs, and folktales that offer a more complete view of
the oral tradition in African communities and specifically displaced African communities.
This section offers examples of the legend or myth of flight through specific folktales and
songs that are important to perhaps include in my paper to provide examples of these
legends and how they fit within the confines of Wide Sargasso Sea. While these folktales
and songs are categorized as African American, they offer a view into the oral tradition of
the diaspora that aids in my understanding of the function of these types of tales.
Gregg, Veronica Marie. Jean Rhys's Historical Imagination: Reading and Writing the
Creole. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina, 1995. Print.
Gregg’s book is an invaluable resource for my research because it provides key
historical and background information about the Caribbean while linking this history
specifically to Rhys’s literary works. The interpretation Gregg offers of Wide Sargasso
Sea and Antoinette’s relationship to Tia has forced me to look more closely at Rhys’s use
of foreshadowing throughout the novel. For example, Gregg notes how Tia and
Antoinette’s encounter the night Coulibri burns foreshadows Antoinette’s final moments
at Thornfield Hall. Gregg also goes on to discuss how Antoinette’s dreams function as
foreshadowing for this ending as well. This text has allowed me to view Wide Sargasso
Sea in a greater and deeper historical and cultural sense that will benefit my research and
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final paper. By placing Antoinette more firmly in relation to her island culture, Gregg
asserts Antoinette’s connection to these islands and ultimately to Tia.
Halloran, Vivian Nun. "Race, Creole, and National Identities in Rhys's Wide Sargasso
Sea and Phillips's Cambridge." Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 21
(2006): 87-104. JSTOR. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
What interests me most about Halloran’s article as it relates to my final paper is
her discussion of Tia and Antoinette and white versus black identity in the Caribbean.
She incorporates W. E. B. Du Bois’s concept of “double consciousness” to connect Tia
and Antoinette, which is something I hadn’t previously considered but is compelling in
relation to my own argument. Halloran goes on to discuss how Tia and Antoinette mimic
each other verbally in their encounters and how this reflects the connection between them
that they are unable to perceive. Both girls attempt to put down the other through racial or
economic means and yet they fail to realize that these means are the bond between them.
I find Halloran’s article impactful in relation to my own argument about Antoinette’s
final moments in Wide Sargasso Sea. The link between Tia and Antoinette is a crucial
aspect of the novel and Halloran’s argument about the economic and social standing of
each girl sheds valuable insight on Antoinette’s desire to connect with Tia, and what Tia
represents for Antoinette in her final moments. Halloran also makes a claim about the
racial identity of Antoinette that I want to explore further in my consideration of
Antoinette as a woman of color as opposed to the reading of her as a white islander.
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Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism.”
Critical Inquiry 12.1 (1985): 243-61. JSTOR. Web. 15 Nov. 2014.
Spivak’s focus on the impact of imperialism in this article chiefly involves the specific
ways in which imperialism impacts identity and personality. While he focuses a great
deal on Jane Eyre and Frankenstein, which for the purposes of this paper I won’t
necessarily need, his interpretation of these texts in relation to imperialism are still
altogether helpful in determining his aim and argument in the article. His most
compelling argument for the purposes of my own paper is the concept of mirroring in
Wide Sargasso Sea through both Antoinette’s dreams and her relationship with Tia.
While I find the concept of mirroring within Wide Sargasso Sea interesting I don’t think
this interpretation takes the relationship with Tia far enough. What I think Spivak is
missing is Antoinette’s desire to connect with Tia on a familial level and Antoinette’s
racial identity. Spivak interprets the ending of Wide Sargasso Sea as, “an allegory of the
general epistemic violence of imperialism, the construction of a self-immolating colonial
subject for the glorification of the social mission of the colonizer” (251). I completely
disagree with this interpretation and instead view Antoinette’s final fate as a salvation, a
complete escape from the confines of colonialism, not dying at the hands colonialism as
Spivak suggests. I intend to use Spivak’s article as a way to introduce the critical
discussion of the relationship between Tia and Antoinette, the interpretation of other key
critics, and my own interpretation of their important relationship.
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Wilentz, Gay. "If You Surrender to the Air: Folk Legends of Flight and Resistance in
African American Literature." MELUS 16.1 (1989): 21-32. JSTOR. Web. 15 Nov.
2014.
Wilentz’s article offers a compelling approach to the African folk legend of flight as a
form of salvation, or a personal choice for freedom. She discusses this myth of flight as a
group or communities ability to collectively represent transcendence from one physical
state. Wilentz additionally approaches this topic by discussing retention of culture in the
displaced African slave community and also the function of the collective unconscious.
While the title of this article would point towards a chiefly African American focus on
the legend of flight, I found this article helpful because Wilentz definitively states the
pervasiveness of the legend throughout the United States and the Caribbean. While
Wilentz does focus on African American texts while I will focus on a Caribbean text in
my research, much can be extracted from this information. Additionally, the analysis of
the importance of this legend is integral to my understanding of the legend of flight and
serves as a crucial starting point to researching this topic. I plan to use this article in my
paper to provide a definition of this myth and why it is important within the context of
the Caribbean, slavery, and post colonialism. Wilentz also quotes from the folktales
themselves and her research on the folktales in their various forms has led me to some
key slave songs and folktales that I think are necessary to include in my paper.