Colonialism And Patriarchy Wide Sargasso Sea - 1886 Words

Colonialism and Patriarchy: Wide Sargasso Sea Wide Sargasso Sea is a prequel, background story to a character called â€Å"Bertha Mason† in Jane Eyre. The Wide Sargasso Sea text is set in the aftermath following the Emancipation of slavery in 1834 in Britain and colonizes, specifically the text is based on the Windward Islands of the Sargasso Sea. The narrative follows the heroine Antoinette, a white creole girl born on the West Indies Jamaica island to creole parents. Her mother, Annette, was born on Martinique, a French colonized West Indies island, and her father, Alexander Cosway, was slave and sugar plantation owner of several generations prior to slaves’ freedom. Wide Sargasso Sea portrays Colonialism and Patriarchy through ignoring†¦show more content†¦Prior to Emancipation, â€Å"the estate was going downhill for years before,† and when getting ready for their marriage Annette bought â€Å"yards of muslin† purchased through selling â€Å"her last ring† (Rhys 16-17). This is the scene in which Antoinette, as a little girl in Jamaica, and her mother are trying to survive the downfall as their land can no longer give them the means to support themselves. Colonialism and Patriarchy are at the forefront of the novel Wide Sargasso Sea, both having similar ideology of cultural hierarchy and supremacy. For the empire, the native people are subjugated, subdued, and used. A woman, in this patriarchy, is chattel, an infant, with no inalienable rights than their guardian allows or deems worthy to bestow upon them. Wide Sargasso Sea had shown Mr. Mason ignore a woman’s wisdom when he dismissed his wife’s intuition about leaving the house of Calibri. Not allowing women to have an opinion and denouncing their desires and tastes as frivolous is apparent as Mr. Mason deflects any power to himself alone, removing his wife’s voice. â€Å"[Mr. Mason] would laugh even louder than he did when my mother told him that she wished to leave Coulibri† (Rhys 19). This was Antoinette s perception of her step-father, indicated that her fear also doesn’t matter, just as the fear her mother stated to Mr. Mason doesn’t matter to him. In this quote, it was referring to a fear of what she would find in theShow MoreRelatedWide Sargasso Sea By Nadine Gordimer Essay971 Words   |  4 PagesWide Sargasso Sea author is Jean Rhys. July’s People’s author is Nadine Gordimer. The stories in these two novels are happened in different places. In Wide Sargasso Sea, the story took place in Indies. In July’s People, the story took place in South Arica. These two stories are different and take place in different coun tries, but they both reflect the issue of gender discrimination. We all know that both of Indies and South African run the systems of patriarchal society. This common point makes theseRead MoreBeing the Meat in the Sandwich: Implications of the double colonisation of empire and patriarchy by the female characters in Wide Sargasso Sea2201 Words   |  9 Pagestext [where a colonialist discourse is developed directly or indirectly], and unveils [its colonialist] assumptions, subverting the text for post-colonial purposes’. (Tiffin, 1987) Such a revolutionary literary project is evidently realised in Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, a prequel that ‘writes back the centre’ of Charlotte Brontà «Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s Jane Eyre (1847). Rhys is categorical about her conscious authorial intention: ‘I immediately thought Id write a story as it (the story of Bertha/Antoinette) might reallyRead MoreRace and Caribbean Culture1709 Words   |  7 Pagesexamples of social inequalit y, often appear in controversial and important works of literature. In the Caribbean Sea, people have had to deal with centuries of racial prejudices and sociological inequity, since the first explorers arrived on the island and demanded that those with darker skins become the slaves of those with light skin. Three particular works of literature, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpenter, and The Farming of Bones by author Edwidge Danticat