The Male Suppression of Female Power: Antoinettes Downfall in Wide Sargasso Sea

Lauren Gallegos

Professor Boscagli

English 114WR

April 20, 2011

The Male Suppression of Female Power: Antoinette’s Downfall in Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea is much more then an appropriation of the classic novel Jane Eyre. It evokes poignancy because it serves as a metaphor for female oppression in patriarchal society. Set in the Victorian era, and written during the first wave feminist movement, Wide Sargasso Sea explores the destructive control that civilization pressures men to posses over women. Forced to marry someone subordinate to himself and rely on her economically, Mr. Rochester suppresses Antoinette in order to regain his sense of power and identity. The control driven relationship between Antoinette and Mr. Rochester juxtaposes the two characters’ antithetical philosophies, forming Rhys’ main leitmotif–the potency of despotic power and its interconnection to sex and culture. Through Rochester’s anguish over Antoinette’ s economic and sexual dominance, Rhys examines the male tendency to reduce powerful women to objects, stripping them of all emotion, in order to regain their “mandatory” feeling of superiority.

Almost immediately upon his arrival at Granbois, Rochester begins to question his hasty and financially motivated marriage to Antoinette. Threatened by the lack of power he holds in his new home, Rochester begins to resent his overwhelming reliance on Antoinette. Practically sold to the Cosway’s similar to that of a slave, Rochester is left with the degrading realization that “[he] has not bought her, but she has bought [him] (Rhys 70). Cast into a typically female-centric

role, Rochester’ s inability to adapt to his new surroundings only accentuates Antoinette’s power, according to his thoughts.

Raised in an extremely patriarchal society where men not only reign supreme over women but also nature, Rochester is completely intimidated by the untamed and powerful essence of the island. Throughout his narration Rochester makes known his feelings of not belonging among the forests and rivers in wilderness, but instead belonging among the people of “rational” cities such as London. Completely perplexed by Antoinette's home, and what it stands for Rochester views Jamaica as “brightly coloured, very strange, and ultimately meaningingess” (Rhys 76). To him the island seems like a dream, mysterious and secretive, just like his wife. Frustrated with his impotence to conquer and understand his environment, Antoinette begins to stand for everything Rochester hates about Jamaica; “I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets of whatever colour, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty. And above all I hated her. For she belonged to it” (Rhys 172). Rochester's hatred of the natural landscape stems from his inability to read it or commune with it. While his servants and his wife find an abundance of meaning in their surroundings, Rochester sees it as alien, bombarded by its beauty and excess. As Rochester moves further into the wilderness, watching his privilege as white englishman slowly diminish, he begins to blame Antoinette for his loss of identity. Striped of all of his patriarchal power, Rochester’s self contempt, pushes him to regain control. Knowing he is incapable of conquering the island, Rochester instead turns his hatred towards Antoinette, hoping to assert his dominance over her. By paralleling Antoinette to the island, Rochester turns her into an object that he must assert his power over.

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Without a sense of identity for himself, Rochester believes the key to regaining his control is by trying to "break [Antoinette] apart," (Rhys 144). While at first Rochester accepts the role of dutiful husband “riding wearily after [Antoinette]” (Rhys 70). Once Rochester discovers her thirst to be loved, he exploits her weakness, becoming a godlike tyrant who can kill her with his words alone. This is all too apparent during a game of death the two play together one night. To prove her devotion to Rochester, Antoinette vows to die at his command; “say die and I will die” ( Rhys 92). This is a defining moment in Rochester’s struggle for power because men tend to associate women with death in order to control them. Since Antoinette does not fear death, in Rochester’s case he must kill her emotionally in order to suppress her power over him. “ Die then! Die!’ I watched her die many times. In my way, not in hers...more lost and drowned than before” (Rhys 92). By Rochester stressing that Antoinette's “death” is “in [his] way” his dominance over her is completely apparent. Even something as personal as death is under his control, making Antoinette a puppet in Rochester's full control.

Antoinette's obsession with being loved also creates an increase in her sexual desire. In the novel, Rochester is clearly afraid of Antoinette’s sexuality, which at first attracts him but ultimately, after time begins to repel him. Since men are suppose to desire a sexual relationship more than women, Antoinette's stronger sexual appetite, is yet another threatening aspect to Rochester’s need for male dominance. Wanting her to be like “any other pretty English girl” (Rhys 50), Rochester tries to suppress her sexual nature in order to make her more conservative and victorian. While Antoinette sees her sexual connection to Rochester as a substitution for the love she desires . Rochester on the other hand views sex as a way to rob Antoinette of her love and emotions. Rochester uses sex with a maid, Amélie to once again assert his dominance and weaken the sanity of Antoinette. Giving little thought to his wife being in the next room, Rochester has sex with Antoinette's rival killing her emotionally. For Rochester, neither Antoinette nor Amélie are worthy of romantic love because of their inferiority; instead, they are objects to be owned and manipulated at his desire. Rochester also uses sensitive sexual topics to further objectify Antoinette. After retelling how she witnessed her mother being raped, Rochester reenacts the scene: "I put my arms round her to help her up, I kissed her, but she drew away." (Rhys 157). This scene show the figurative rape that Rochester preforms on Antoinette repeatedly. By taking her fortune and having sex with her without loving her equivocates to a sense of rape. Although in the beginning of the novel Antoinette radiates passion, Rochester’s manipulation of her feelings transforms her into the powerless and manhandled woman, he longs to control.

As the novel progresses and Antoinette falls deeper under Rochester’s control she begins to lose her sense of self, similar to the way Rochester does in the beginning of their marriage. To further complicate Antoinette's already unstable identity, Rochester asserts his dominance by renaming her “Bertha”. Antoinette immediately protests the name declaring “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 145). Renaming Antoinette is yet another way in which Rochester exerts his masculine power over his wife. Although she protest at first, Antoinette eventually submits to Rochester’s taking control of her identity. Just like he assumed her fortune when they married, Rochester takes away Antoinette’s only remaining source of power and independence, obeah. A Caribbean type of voodoo, obeah serves as Antoinette's last resort to regain control of not only her husband but her life as well. With Rochester’s “use” of obeah, however, any hope Antoinette had left of being happy is crushed.

The more Rochester tries to control and suppress Antoinette's powerful nature, the more he notices her mad tendencies. Convinced he has been tricked into marrying an insane woman, Rochester looks to imprison her as a final act of his supreme control. After failing to define her as mad, Rochester decides he will move Antoinette away from her home and back to england. Never filling comfortable with the culture or the landscape of the island, the move back to England signifies the Rochester’s complete regain of power. As he is about to leave the island with his completely emotionless wife, Rochester finally asserts his dominance over the island, by willing all the tropical elements out of his landscape. He commands the "brazen" sun to leave the sky as he repeats the words "no sun, no sun" (Rhys 167). Just as he has taken away Antoinette's tropical nature, Rochester’s asserts his control over the tropical island, leaving it broken just like his wife.

Once the couple reach England Rochester finally rids himself of Antoinette, imprisoning her and removing any sense of pleasure she can feel. A shell of a woman, completely emotionless, Antoinette becomes almost unrecognizable in the final section of the novel. Cooped up in room, separated from her childhood land, Antoinette eventually loses the will to live. In a final act to regain power over her oppressive husband, “knowing what [she] has to do” Antoinette sets fire to Rochester’s estate, killing herself in the process. While Antoinette sees her death as an escape and revitalization of her stolen dominance. Her death signifies the overwhelming control Rochester possessed over her. Just like her mother Antoinette’s only escape from patriarchal suppression is death. Since society trains men to associate women with death in order to control them, Antoinette’s death can be seen as Rochester’s complete control over her.

Although in the end, Rochester appears to be the more powerful being in his marriage, he is ultimately incomplete. Abandoned by his family, full of shame, Rochester’s constant need for control only highlights his extreme inferiority complex. The reason Rochester feels a need to be dominate over Antoinette is because he realizes what a strong, powerful, unique woman she is. Taught that woman should never embody any of those qualities, Rochester submits to his patriarchal culture by breaking down the only person who can understand his pain and abandonment. By purposely breaking down a powerful woman because of his own impotence, Rochester should be seen as the weakest and most cowardly character in Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea.