Antoinette

Wide Sargasso Sea's Antoinette is undoubtedly made an outsider. Caught between the traditional Englishmen and the Jamaican Natives, she exists without a culture of her own at the beginning of the emancipation act. This is done from the start, the very first sentence is “They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. The Jamaican ladies had never approved of my mother, ‘Because she pretty like pretty self’”. So immediately the entire family are made into freaks, and odd half-breed that is worse than either half that comprises it. It goes on to state “She was my father’s second wife, far too young for him they thought, and, worse still, a Martinique girl.” This begins to give a cultural and historical context to their isolation. Bringing to bare not only the hatred of the oppressed, but also that of the nation. It begins to involve the bloody history of the islands, incorporating the battles fought over possession of these. This is the external medium of isolation, and it goes on with phrases like “White cockroach” and actions like the burning of Coulibri Estate and “I will live with Tia and I will be like her. Not leave Coulibri. Not to go. Not. When I was close I saw the jagged stone in her hand but I did not see her throw it. I did not feel it either, only something wet, running down my face. I looked at her and saw her face crumple as she began to cry. We stared at each other, blood on my face, tears on hers. It was as if I saw myself. Like in a looking-glass.”

But there is an internal aspect to her isolation as well. Her own fear and indecisive action make her a wholly independent being. One without culture or purpose. “Our garden was large and beautiful as that of the bible- the tree of life grew there. But it had gown wild. The paths were overgrown and the smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell.” Is used as parallel to her mental state. One in which she cannot reach one cultural purity. I was certain that hidden within the room (behind the big black press) there was a dead man’s dried hand, white chicken feathers, a cock with its throat cut, dying slowly, slowly.” Contextualizes her as an outsider even in the culture she choose to identify with later in the story.

Now the key question is why? Why make this confused little girl a victim of her circumstance? The answer is rather simple and comes from what the character becomes, not what she is. That little girl becomes the depraved and manic Bertha Mason of Jane Eyre. In doing this, Jean Phys gives a voice to the voiceless creole who fell into disrepute after the emancipation act. And to further this, she writes herself into Antoinette. The lack of identity, failed marriages, and the absence of a true home all stem from her own life. This is highly relevant to context as it is a similar context to Things Fall Apart. This solidly places it as the postcolonial literature, meant to shed light on the forgotten past. Bring to the world the injustice formerly painted as an uplifting from savagery and hardship. Thus the theme, revealed by the lack of the characters own ability to realize this, is the necessity of a personal identity. It does not matter where you come from, what matters is who you are. Allowing where you come from to dictate who you are leads only to hardships and strife, be it internal or external.