Discuss the portrayal of insanity in Wide Sargasso Sea.
Wide Sargasso Sea is a post-colonial novel published by Jean Rhys in 1966. Publishing this book is a prequel to Jane Eyre that allows the reader to view Bertha’s experiences prior to her life in the attic. Jane Eyre is a gothic fiction tends to focus more on social criticism and draws away from Bertha’s character who has been locked up in Rochester’s attic and been viewed as an animalistic creature with little to now information into her background or what led to her madness. Hence, Rhys closely explores the life of bertha, known as Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea. Rhys criticizes the divisions inherent in European social structures and addresses this issue by means of depicting all those typical characters and stereotype which even after the end of slavery and colonialism decide people’s identities and values on the basis of their skin color. The relationship between men and women portrayed within society is often unequal and reflects a particular patriarchal ideology. This is a direct link to the historical context during which the book is set in. Rhys sheds light on the mental stability of Antoinette which is factored by various things in her life. Also, allowing the readers to read different narrations as well as experience Antoinette’s life from a young age, one has the ability to see the development of her mental state deteriorating throughout the novel. Therefore, providing a strong sense of time and historical context as well as a power structure, Rhys is able to depict the various factor that justifies the decline of Antoinette’s mental stability. Antoinette is worried and anxious about her identity or even the absence of identity thus affecting her mental and spiritual health.
From the start of the novel, we are introduced to Antoinette as a young white girl, daughter of an ex-slave owner living in Jamaica with her mother and brother. After her father’s death, they were left financially unstable and at the time during the Emancipation Act which freed all the black slaves leading to a stronger barrier between both races. Rhys focuses on part one of the novel primarily through Antoinette’s narration where we gain a deeper insight into her life. One sees an evident absence in an emotion relationship between Antoinette and her mother who is the only other person who could relate to her regarding their situation. She drives her to complete to complete isolation, resulting in her having to seek comfort in her garden, her escape from reality, as well as seek comfort in Christophine, the house maid. This leads to her becoming more of an outsider which is more visible with the racial dynamic present at that time which is presented through her relationship with Tia and her longing desire to fit in with the black community. Yet they disregard her and refer to her as “white cockroach” and a “white nigger” devaluing her and making her feel even more like she doesn’t belong. Antoinette is trying to find her true self and origin and people of her kind which she seeks to find within the black community but is rejected. This identity crisis along with her lack of motherly care and consolidation leads to a serious identity crisis for Antoinette which in turn leads to her slowly becoming unstable. After the fire in the Coulibri Estate, Antoinette is left in the convent and is met by other kids who call her mad and tell her that her mother is mad too and nearly killed her husband (Mr. Mason) and even her own daughter. Yet Antoinette experiences this when she meets her mother and she shouts to get her away but Antoinette doesn’t revisit this moment again which is obvious from the beginning of the book: “I thought if I told no one it might not be true” Rhys portrays her of having a tendency of denying the events and situations that occur in her life. Almost as if she stores all her emotion and anxiousness leading her to slowly shutting off and leading to a loss of her sanity. Due to the fact that Antoinette is a response to Bertha’s character, part one of the story allows the readers to see what has led to the madness of Antoinette and her identity crisis and Rhys characterizing her as an outsider contributes to her portrayal as an insane person.
Part 2 of the novel is a vital contribution to the overall story and the insanity. It moves away from the idea that insanity is influenced by only identity but also by the oppressive colonization that is presented in the patriarchal system that is evident. This oppression is visible between Antoinette and Rochester’s relationship where Rochester is the colonizer and Antoinette is the colonized. Rochester's marriage contract with Antoinette becomes a type of colonialism in itself. Antoinette is economically powerless and emotionally enslaved all due to Rochester actions. He is conflicted between his desire for Antoinette and his power status that he wants to maintain. When he first arrives in Jamaica, he views everyone as primitive and the place being exotic. Antoinette is seen going through all odds to make him happy. Rochester receives a letter from Daniel Cosway informing him that Annette and her daughter Antoinette is a mad family, he tells him Antoinette “is worthless and spoilt, she can’t lift a hand for herself and soon the madness that is in her, and in all these white Creoles, come out” then this is further portrayed when Antoinette seeks help from Christophine who gives her a love poison in order to deceive him with it and make him love her more. When he finds it out he begins to question her insanity.
Part 3 is the final section of the novel presented through Antoinette’s narration where we see not only her transition from Jamaica to England, but rather the transition of her mental health. In this part of the book, Rhys evidently creates moments that portray Antoinette as a madwomen locked up in Rochester’s attic. Antoinette is seen continuously hallucinating and at some point seeing her own mother. Antoinette's narrative in Part three works to humanize the perception portrayed of the Creole madwoman. Given the emptiness of Antoinette's days and her isolation from the outside world, she loses track of time and place and starts to mentions a woman that haunts the place but not realizing it is her. Throughout part 2 of the novel one sees how Rochester takes over a dominate role, he rejects Antoinette, leaving him with the satisfaction of having greater power as he wishes, therefore, part 3 of the novel emphasises the power he gains as he drives Antoinette to complete insanity. There is a significant contrast between the third part of the story and the beginning of the second part, where Antoinette being in her home and comfortable setting shows a healthier mental stability whereas being locked up in an attic in England contributes to drive her to insanity.
Conclusively, Jean Rhys has a purpose of writing back to the empire, follows the postcolonial trend of writing back to the powerful empire. In postcolonial discourse, this is the deconstructive approach to retell a narrative from a different perspective and thus look for the earlier erasure and deliberate gaps in the original narrative. Through portraying Antoinette as insane she establishes the cause and effect of a colonized empire and in a sense, Antoinette also represents the suffering of a marginalized community during colonization. Rhys focuses to disallow the specific traits of the literature of the empire as well as its principles is the hallmark of postcolonial literature. Rhys wants to disrupt, disassemble or deconstruct the kind of logic, ideologies of the West. This is Jean Rhys approach and her use of the language shows her unusual power to challenge the colonial canonical text, Jane Eyre, therefore challenging the hegemonic tendency of the imperial powers.
