The selected passage is the ending of Wide Sargasso Sea. Most of the selected passage describes the final dream that Antoinette has in the novel. This dream takes place after a conversation with Grace Poole

        Colour plays an important part in the dream. Antoinette finds herself in a red room. This is important in terms of intertextuality as there is a red room in Jane Eyre where Jane is locked up as punishment. The room however is not just red, it is white as well. This could be ‘suggesting the clash between herself and Rochester.’ Even the sky at the end of the dream is red. The color of the sky is mentioned twice. One when she says that it ‘was red and all my life was in it’ and ‘the sky was so red.’ The colour of red could represent the warmth and the colour as well as the temperature of Coulibri as her dream progresses from England back to Coulibri. Her self destruction can be described as’ an act of assertion, at reconnection with the warmth, red, beauty and passion of her West Indian identity.’The last word Antoinette speaks in her dream before jumping is Tia’s name. This links with Antoinette trying to reconnect with her past identity. Antoinette’s final dream is a way to escape from being Bertha.

 However it also represents the fire. There is a time at convent school where Antoinette is doing some needlework when she says ‘I will write my name in fire red…’ These words can be seen as foreshadowing her fate. The fire in the novel seems to represent destruction. The symbol of fire recurs throughout the novel. In part one the fire is present as the factor that drove her mother mad. In part two the candles that used at night are described by Rochester. He describes the moths burning in the flames. Finally in part three the fire marks the end of Antoinette.

        Towards the end of her dream where there is mention on many images. It is as though all these images are flashing before her eyes. She mentions ‘the orchids, and the stephanotis and the jasmine.’ The idea of nature is present throughout Wide Sargasso Sea. Antoinette seems to feel a sense of security amongst nature: ‘There was a smell of ferns and river water and I felt safe again.’ This security is highlighted further when she decides that despite the bad points of nature it is ‘All better than people.’ The deep involvement Antoinette has with nature emphasizes her detachment from people. The use of the images of nature towards the end of the dream may show that as Antoinette slowly realizes what she must do, she is starting to feel a sense of security, the same feel of security that nature gives her.

        The fact that the dreams are a series of three could represent stages in Antoinette’s life, these stages being a beginning middle and an end. The novel is also written in three parts which could also symbolize a beginning middle and end. Her third dream’ is the dream of return. And it is a dream of escape.’ The escape, being the end of her life.

 It is useful to note that the first dream is recalled quite vaguely and without much detail. The second and third dreams however, are much more detailed than the first one. There is also a shift in tense from the first dream to the second. The first dream is in past tense whereas the second is in present tense. This is important as it could signify that distance between Antoinette and her dreams. The shift in tense could show that Antoinette is getting closer to her dream consciousness. By the third dream she is so much into her dream consciousness that she cannot distinguish between dream and memory. The three dreams show the progression of Antoinette and her dream consciousness.

In her dream Antoinette hears the parrot. ‘I heard the parrot call as he did when he saw a stranger’ There is a parallel between the parrot and Antoinette. The parrot, Coco is important as the parrot that dies in the fire at Coulibri is a metaphor for Antoinette’s fate. So in the final dream ‘Antoinette becomes the parrot who jumped with clipped wings to its death at Coulibri.’

Wide Sargasso Sea can be described as a modernist novel. A typical characteristic of a modernist novel is intertextuality. As Wide Sargasso Sea is based on the novel of Jane Eyre, intertexuality is a major characteristic of the novel. In terms of intertextuality the fact that Antoinette has a series of three dreams in the novel is an important factor as these dreams parallel the dreams that Jane has in Jane Eyre. The dreams in both Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre seem to give clues to the character’s future. The parallel between the two characters is important as it shows in a sense that the two females can be seen as ‘doubles’ of each others. Antoinette and Jane both go through similar experiences and both can be referred to orphans. While Antoinette goes to a nunnery Jane has a similar experience at Lowood. They both seem to experience a kind of seclusion. It is in the final dream ‘that she, like Jane, recovers her childhood, her identity.’ It is the dream that ‘becomes the instrument of her awakening...’

        The selected passage highlights a sense of lost identity. The main character Antoinette is a White Creole. Jean Rhys herself was born in the Caribbean. Her father was Welsh and her mother a White Creole. At the age of sixteen Rhys moved to England. At this point there was a ‘feel of displacement that characterizes both Rhys’ own like and the lives of her characters…’ The loss of identity that is highlighted in the selected passage may be seen as a reflection of the author’s own life: ‘On the whole her auto biographical background enriches the entire fabric of Wide Sargasso Sea...’

        Rhys lived part of her life traveling in Europe. It was here that ‘she became familiar with the innovative works of modern artists and writers’ Which is most likely what influenced her as a modernist writer. However despite the modernism in Wide Sargasso Sea: “We are also aware that the sensibility is clearly of contemporary understanding’Before Wide Sargasso Sea Rhys wrote four novels. The final one before Wide Sargasso Sea was Good Morning Midnight in 1939. However these novels did not go far enough in establishing Jean Rhys as a leading Modernist. Wide Sargasso Sea was written twenty five years after the previous novel. The novels from the 1930’s are described as mirroring her life. Furthermore Wide Sargasso Sea is described as:

not all that far distant from Rhys’s novels of the 1930’s. If not a fulfillment, it is certainly an extension of her most basic themes and the same quality of feeling pervades Wide Sargasso Sea as the earlier novels.

The Sargasso Sea is an area in the North Atlantic; it is a hard to define area. It stretches from the east of the Bahamas towards the Azores. The title comes from the geography. The fact that it is a hard to define area links in with identity. Even at the beginning of the novel the identity of Antoinette can be describes as hard to define. It is at the end where she tries to reconnect with her past identity.

The selected passage describes a dream in detail. As mentioned before the dreams show Antoinette as getting closer to her dream consciousness. This closeness highlights her isolation. The isolation Antoinette feels ‘is the condition of despair for Rhys’s heroines’  In Wide Sargasso Sea Rhys has not only used romantic elements she has ‘combined them with important aspects and themes so characteristic of literary modernism, namely the emphasis on psychology, sexual motivation and human alienation’ This human alienation is the reason for Antoinette’s feeling of isolation. However there is a difference in the heroines in Rhys’s work:

The heroines in Rhys’s four earlier novels, in spite of their frequent lassitude and indirection, have in varying degrees not only an instinct for survival but an understanding of human nature and the world that is completely lacking in Antoinette.

Taking this into account it seems as though the character of Antoinette has limitations. These limitations are described by Staley as ‘confining’ and according to him these have come about due to the ‘demands Rhys imposed upon her novel by using Jane Eyre…’ However, some of these may have come about due sensibility being the contemporary understanding.

During her time in France Rhys had ‘began to question the codes and traditions of the male-dominated urban environment.’ This is explored in Rhys’s work. The selected passage ends with Antoinette on her way to burn the house down; this shows the madness that she has fallen into. In the novel there is a line between womanhood and madness. It is the dependence on men that:

precipitates the demise of Antoinette and Annette. Both women marry White Englishmen in the hopes of assuaging their fears as vulnerable outsiders, but the men destroy and abandon them.

The term ‘vulnerable outsiders’ links back to the loss of identity and the feeling of isolation. Both women try to find somewhere to belong through marriage.

        The final dream is a form of escape for Antoinette. She is transported to England, has her name changed to a more English one and is locked up. Furthermore ‘Antoinette is bought for a profit, and is regarded as exotic, hysterical and incomprehensible by her buyer.’ Antoinette is actually treated similarly to the black slaves. She is show to share the history that apparently divided her from the blacks.

        When Antoinette has the images of nature in her dreams she sees ‘the tree of life in flames’. This refers to a pre Columbian myth. A group that occupied Dominica before the Caribs called the Arawak people has a myth about this tree. The tree was referred to as the tree of life. This tree was meant to reach to heaven. According to the myth, during was the Arawaks climbed the tree of life into the branches for security. The tree was burnt down by the Caribs. The fire drove the Arawaks higher and higher until they finally burned. They were then changed into sparks. These sparks flew into heaven and were converted into stars. Therefore Antoinette is entering heaven. However according to:

Christian myth, fire and hellfire go together. Antoinette however takes flight into a heaven of a different culture

This also links back to the loss and corruption of identity as by taking these steps Antoinette is reclaiming her own cultural identity.

        John Su has written a journal about nostalgia and narrative ethics in Wide Sargasso Sea in 2003. John J Su mentions the third and final dream in his journal. It plays a large part in his work. He says that in order for us to be able to explore and analyze the ethical implications of the novel we have to face that ‘Antoinette’s own search for moral purpose depends on the articulation of a nostalgic fantasy of return to a community that no longer exist’ Su’s essay focuses on nostalgia and the way that Antoinette’s fate depends on ‘nostalgic evocations…’This illuminates the passage through the corruption of identity and through the great distance that Antoinette feels between her and what she calls home. Due to this she experiences a feeling of nostalgia. This is apparent as by the end of her dream she is trying to reclaim her identity. We know this by the continuous different images of home in appear in her third and final dream.

        The nostalgia that Antoinette feels is a different kind of nostalgia because it is not accessible to her: ‘Antoinette opposes a disappointing present with a comforting and inaccessible past’ Su believes this feeling is present throughout the novel. He believes her leap of suicide is to ‘establish a communion with her friend and past.’ This again links back to the theme of the corruption of identity as Antoinette is reaching to her past.

        Su’s work also explores the lack of empathy towards Antoinette. This absence is shown in the selected passage as Antoinette’s dream shows her fantasy of reuniting with Tia. However Su reminds us that the last form of communication that Antoinette had with Tia was in fact in a violent form. It is mentioned that the girls share an empathy that is born of identification. Here Su brings in the context of the novel as he feels that the identification with Tia shows that in a world without racial barriers the two girls could have existed as good friends. According to the journal Antoinette’s dream ‘imagines a restoration that is not possible within her life and expresses regret for the intimacy far too late.’

        Su also mentions the links between Wide Sargasso Sea and Rhys’s other novels. Wide Sargasso Sea shares the idea of time with Rhys’s other novel called Voyage in the Dark.  ‘The nostalgic narrative time of Wide Sargasso Sea represents the final development in Rhys’s longstanding preoccupation with time.’ Rhys’s preoccupation with time is highlighted in the selected passage. In the final dream we are able to see that Antoinette has lost the sense of time as she cannot remember when exactly it was that she had passed the room before. She cannot even remember if it had been days, weeks, months or even years. Before this Antoinette mentions how time does not mean anything to her. Su also points out that in a letter Rhys wrote that a large part of the novel has ‘something “to do with time being an illusion I think.”’ This further illuminates the passage as we can see that for Antoinette time is like an illusion that does not matter.

        Su talks of nostalgia allowing a type of recovery for the character of Antoinette. According to Su when Antoinette is standing on the building it is the only time where she regains a sense of consciousness of her place and identity. It is in this dream where Antoinette’s nostalgia becomes very apparent. According to Su the feeling of regaining a sense of place for Antoinette comes from her being able to ‘locate her memories in a place…’  Su feels that in fact Antoinette’s leap of suicide represents a form of ‘resistance against the history of colonial violence’ and it is not just an act of a madwoman, which is the way it is shown in the intertextually linked novel of Jane Eyre. Su’s journal shows us that nostalgia in the novel of Wide Sargasso Sea can be disturbing as we are left wondering with what could have been.

        Su’s journal provides us with a different way of looking at the dream. We are able to look past seeing the dream as just something Antoinette decides she has to do. It enables us to look further into Antoinette’s position and situation. Antoinette’s suicide gives her a release and primarily gives us a slight feeling of joy for her because we feel a kind of relief for her. However by looking at the passage through Su’s perspective we seem to feel a different feeling which is an empty disturbing feeling. This is because even though Antoinette is getting released from a false identity mixed with a life of confinement and is reaching her goal; this goal is in fact inaccessible to her. However by reading Su’s work we are able to see not only the disturbing side of Antoinette’s suicide we are able to see the better side. We are able to see it as a symbol for resisting the violence in colonial history. This source is useful because through reading it we can read the selected passage of the ending of the novel without seeing Antoinette as just a mad woman who kills herself. We are able to realize what the unwritten depths of her death are, what they mean and we are able to place it in context with the rest of the novel.

        

        

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys, Penguin books 1968

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, A reader’s guide to essential criticism., Icon Books Ltd 2001

Jean Rhys, Coral Ann Howells, Harvester Wheatsheaf ,1991

Jean Rhys, A Critical Study, Thomas F. Staley, Macmillan Press Ltd

Journals

ABELL

Author: Su, John J.

Title: 'Once I would have gone back ... but not any longer': nostalgia and narrative ethics in Wide Sargasso Sea.

Publication Details: Critique: studies in contemporary fiction (Washington, DC)

Source: Literature Online

Websites

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