When we first meet Antoinette she is a child we are not told much history but can see that she is one of two children with a single Creole mother, from all historical and social contexts we are able to understand that her being a mixed race (half Creole, half English) would be a difficult society to grow up in. This is because she has no identity; she has nothing to connect to. She has no History to be proud of she is torn between two different cultures yet she manages to find nature and use this as a replacement for both of these voids.
This is reflected in the text, especially in part one where we see her brother as the favourite “She hugged Pierre” this is almost a form of rejection to Antoinette. We are also able to see what hard times it must have been for the family “ she may have sold her last ring for there was one left” this shows that her mother was having to pawn her beloved possessions in order to survive.
In both her youth and later life we find that nature is vital it is referred to as a sanctuary, a place of refugee where nothing and no one could touch her
“ Watching the red and yellow flowers in the sun, thinking of nothing, it was as if a door opened and I was somewhere else, something else not myself any longer”
This shows the intrinsic need to get away from her own surroundings, away from her life. We also see this need to escape within Denver she uses the box wood tree “hid among the box wood until it froze and cracked” We see that Denver is also a frightened young woman at the beginning of Beloved and we sense the fear which she has of her mother “she cuts off my head every night” this only emphasises that Denver is attempting to juggle her life whilst appeasing her mother through fear of being decapitated like Beloved was.
We see that both Denver and Antoinette feel isolated from the society around them “now we are marooned” and “all by themselves” Not only do they feel isolated from there society but also from there families around them. Although as the novels progress we are able to see that both of theses characters have found people or things to rely on, which almost take the place of the mother figures in there lives. Ironically for Denver it is the thing which she sub-consciously fears that she learns to rely on, Beloved and for Antoinette it is the ever-changing environment around her. So ultimately even though they find themselves isolated from their families and societies they use escapist techniques to salvage what they can of ‘normality’.
The isolation that these characters both suffer from ultimately contributes to the madness, which they sustain. As such neither of them are ‘mad’ but both of them fit in to the description of madness at the top of the page.
