Race and Gender in 'Wide Sargasso Sea' by Jean Rhys

1. Race and Gender in
‘Wide Sargasso Sea’
By Jean Rhys
Prepared by Gopi Dervaliya

2. Personal Information
● Name : Gopi Dervaliya
● Roll no. 08
● Sem : 3
● Paper Name : The Postcolonial Studies
● Paper no. : 203
● Submitted to : S. B. Gardi Department of English-M.K.B.U
● Email : gopidervaliya02@gmail.com

3. Table of Contents
About the novel
3.
Significance of Race &
Gender
1.
About the author
5.
Comparative analysis of
the novel
6.
Conclusion
4.
Women trapped in
patriarchal societies
2.

4. About the author
● Jean Rhys, original name Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams, (born
August 24, 1890, Roseau, Dominica, Windward Islands, West Indies—
died May 14, 1979, Exeter, Devon, England), West Indian novelist.
● She was a prominent English author known for her contributions to
modernist and postcolonial literature.
● Her early life was marked by a multicultural and complex identity, as
she was of mixed heritage – white Creole, Scottish, and Welsh.
● Throughout her career, she writing often delved into the experiences
of women, particularly those on the fringes of society, and examined
the impact of race, gender, and displacement on their lives.
● Her work is noted for its vivid and evocative prose, as well as its keen
exploration of the psychological and emotional complexities of her
characters.

5. ● Rhys's most renowned work is ‘Wide Sargasso Sea,’ published in 1966, which is a prequel to
Charlotte Brontë's classic novel ‘Jane Eyre.’
● This novel, often considered a postcolonial response to "Jane Eyre," explores themes of
race, gender, and identity in the context of colonial Jamaica.
● A well-received work of fiction, it takes its theme and main character from the novel ‘Jane
Eyre’ by Charlotte Brontë.
● The book details the life of Antoinette Mason (known in ‘Jane Eyre’ as Bertha), a West
Indian who marries an unnamed man in Jamaica and returns with him to his home in
England.
● Locked in a loveless marriage and settled in an inhospitable climate, Antoinette goes mad
and is frequently violent, Her husband confines her to the attic of his house at Thornfield.
Only he and Grace Poole, the attendant he has hired to care for her, know of Antoinette's
existence.
● The reader gradually learns that Antoinette's unnamed husband is Mr. Rochester, later to
become the beloved of Jane Eyre.
About the novel

6. ● The themes of race and gender are significant in ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ because they help us to
understand the experiences of mixed-race people and women in 19th-century Jamaica.
● The novel also shows how racism and sexism can lead to violence and oppression.
● In addition, the novel is significant because it challenges the traditional portrayal of
Antoinette in ‘Jane Eyre’. In ‘Jane Eyre’, Antoinette is portrayed as a madwoman.
● Race :
● The novel explores the racial dynamics of 19th-century Jamaica, the novel shows how racism
could lead to psychological trauma.
● Antoinette, for example, is deeply scarred by her experiences of racism, and she often has
nightmares and flashbacks.
● Gender :
● The novel also explores the gender dynamics of 19th-century Jamaica. Women were often
seen as property, and they had few rights.
● Antoinette, for example, is raised in a patriarchal society where men are in control.
● Her mother is a weak and submissive woman, and her servants are often mistreated by their
male masters.
Significance of Race and Gender

7. ● If women's work is organized differently from men's, if the day is structured differently, if
space is inhabited differently, if styles of verbal communication are different, then it
follows that women will have a different sense of beauty and pleasure.
● The first lines in the novel set up the alienation of Antoinette's family, while placing the
reader on shifting ground:
● "They say when trouble comes close ranks and so do the white people. But we were not
in their ranks. The Jamaican ladies had never approved of my mother, 'because she is
pretty like herself' Christophine said".
● "They" is both nobody and everybody, and "trouble" has no referent. Use of the phrase
"the white people" suggests that the speaker is not white, but the "But" of the but the next
sentence lends uncertainty to the speaker's skin colour.
● On the one hand, critics like Benita Parry contend that we need to recover historically
repressed knowledge and to construct "the speaking position" of the subaltern, a
"conception of the native as historical subject and agent of an oppositional discourse."

8. ● On the other, Spivak and her followers emphasize that our
very effort at resuscitating the subaltern's voice/self by
invoking historical contexts reproduces the "epistemic
violence" of imperialism: it imposes on the subaltern
Western assumptions of embodied subjectivity and fails to
acknowledge that the other has always already been
constructed according to the colonizer's self-image and can
therefore not simply be given his/her voice back to Spivak and
Parry both invoke ‘Wide Sargasso Sea's representation of
black Creoles to illustrate their respective approaches.(Spivak #)

9. ● Antoinette who is torn between two different identities finds herself belonging to
nowhere.
● “Realising the dimension of her loss, Antoinette becomes a displaced person in
her own country, entirely dependent on a dowry supplied by her English
stepfather and at the mercy of an arranged marriage with an Englishman who has
been sent to the West Indies to seek his fortune” (Howells,p. 111).
● As the representative of the colonial power, the first thing he exploits or tries to
Anglicize is his wife, Antoinette.
● His first attempt is to name her “Bertha” trying to give her a new identity:
● ‘Don’t laugh like that, Bertha’. ‘My name is not Bertha; why do you call me
Bertha?’ ‘Because it is a name I’m particularly fond of. I think of you as Bertha’.
(Rhys,p. 111).
Antoinette Cosway : a mixed race woman

10. ● Rochester's calling Antoinette another name is his way of taking control over
her entire identity, just like having legal control over her fortune when he
married her.
● Antoinette's response to Mr Rochester is not the same when he calls her
Bertha for the second time, she says,
● “Bertha is not my name. You are trying to make me into someone else,
calling me by another name. I know that's obeah too” (Rhys, 2000, p. 121)
● Throughout the novel, Antoinette being regarded as neither white nor black tries
hard to establish her own identity which is shattered by the hostility of Mr.
Rochester towards the end of the novel.
● She begins to feel lost and helpless growing more dependent on her husband.
[Howells, C. A. (1991).

11. ● We all know that the British had colonized many countries and the Caribbean is one of
them. But here the character of Rochester is shown as a different and new type of
colonizer who had colonized a Creole Antoinette.
● So, here we find an oppressor who neither respects creoles nor the black ones. Rochester’s
dominated identity is reflected in Antoinette’s capture and his domination over her. There
is nothing like identity for the poor woman as Rochester destroys it and changes her name
as well.
● By the end of Part 2 of the novel, where he is leaving the Caribbean and going to England
with Antoinette, he utters that:
“I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain... She had left me
thirsty...”(Bronte #)
● These lines mean that he does not love the Caribbean people and their lifestyle and
therefore he is willing to go to England and to satisfy the thirst that he had.
Mr.Rochester : as a racist

12. ● For example, Antoinette Cosway is forced to marry Rochester against her will. She has no
say in the matter, and she is unable to leave him even after he becomes abusive.
● Women are expected to be obedient and subservient to men. For example, Antoinette's
husband expects her to obey his every command. When she fails to do so, he becomes
abusive.
● Women are often denied access to education and employment opportunities. For example,
Antoinette's mother is never given the opportunity to learn how to read or write. She is also
unable to get a job to support herself and her daughter.
● Women are often subjected to violence and abuse. For example, Antoinette is raped by her
husband. She is also physically and emotionally abused by him.
● Women are often blamed for their own misfortune. For example, Antoinette's husband
blames her for her own madness. He also blames her for her inability to bear him children.
Women trapped in patriarchal societies

13. ● Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’ (1847) and Jean Rhys’s ‘Wide
Sargasso Sea’ (1966) mutually manifest the emphasis,
extent, and consequences of British rule on the home front
as well as on the West Indies islands.
● The effect of British power is illustrated in both of these
novels via the use of two frequently recurring images that
impart how Britain’s rule affected women from each region.
● Jane Eyre of England and Antoinette Cosway of Jamaica
find themselves repeatedly surrounded by fire and the color
red; these symbols are used to convey a deeper meaning
that over the course of each novel develops into a dissimilar
foreshadowing of the same fundamental concept.
Comparative analysis of
‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ & ‘Jane Eyre’

14. ● In ‘Jane Eyre’, fire and the color red may be interpreted as symbols of emotional power,
romantic love, and beneficial gain, whereas in ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ the same represents
destruction, insecurity, and emotional and physical loss.
● As the result of the contradictory uses of these symbols, two very different women’s lives
are fused together in such a manner as to make fortune seem biased toward one and
hopeless destruction the regrettable destiny of the other.
● Both ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Wide Sargasso Sea,’ which are novels written by Charlotte Bronte and
Jean Rhys, represents the women in any historical period of protesting patriarchy and
oppression.
conclusion
In conclusion, "Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys underscores the profound significance of
race and gender in the lives of its characters, set against the backdrop of postcolonial Jamaica.
This novel skillfully unravels the complex interplay of identity, power, and societal norms,
revealing the ways in which race and gender intersect and shape the character’s destinies.
Rhys's work serves as a poignant reminder of the enduring impact of race and gender on
human lives, making "Wide Sargasso Sea" a timeless exploration of these critical themes in
literature and society.

15. References
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Peacock Books, 2000. amazon.in, https://www.amazon.in/Jane-Eyre-Charlotte-
Bronte/dp/8124800278. Accessed 18 October 2023.
Gilchrist, Jennifer. “Women, Slavery, and the Problem of Freedom in Wide Sargasso Sea.” Twentieth Century
Literature, vol. 58, no. 3, 2012, pp. 462-494. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24246943?read-
now=1&typeAccessWorkflow=login&seq=16#page_scan_tab_contents. Accessed 18 October 2023.
Howells, Coral Ann. Jean Rhys. St. Martin's Press, 1991. Accessed 18 October 2023.
Mardorossian, Carine M. “Shutting up the Subaltern: Silences, Stereotypes, and Double-Entendre in Jean
Rhys's "Wide Sargasso Sea."” Shutting up the Subaltern: Silences, Stereotypes, and Double-Entendre
in Jean Rhys's "Wide Sargasso Sea", vol. 22, no. 4, 1999, pp. 1071-1090. JSTOR,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3299872?read-
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16. Patel, Ripal. “Racism in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea.” International Journal of Social
Impact, vol. 1, no. 1, 2016, pp. 68-69. International Journal of Social Impact,
https://ijsi.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/18-02-010-20160101.pdf. Accessed 18
October 2023.
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Edited by Judith L. Raiskin, W.W. Norton, 1999. W.W.
Norton, https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393960129. Accessed 18 October 2023.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism.” Three
Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism, vol. 12, no. 1, 1985, pp. 243-261.
JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343469. Accessed 18 October 2023.