LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 16:9 September 2016
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Jean Rhy’s Controversial Post Colonial Text Wide Sargasso Sea Implicitly Agrees with and Elucidates the Colonial Project

Farhana Haque, M.A.


Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discover how the author Jean Rhy’s controversial post colonial text Wide Sargasso Sea elucidates and agrees with the colonial project through her protagonist Antoinette. The embedded colonial spirit has been stretched to its full strength also in this so called post colonial text. Jean Rhy’s attempt was to raise the voice against the colonizers (Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and give the proper right and reverence to the colonized other (Charlotte Bronte’s character Bertha Mason) through her own madrebellious character Antoinette in the text Wide Sargasso Sea.

The works of the Nineteenth century British novelists was filled with the depiction of superiority throughout their texts. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre was one of them. In this novel Jane Eyre has been presented as a disciplined, modest, and pure English woman. On the other handBronte has portrayed Bertha Mason as a mad Creole woman who was savage, mad and an indisciplined character. After this British novel which was based on Englishness, Jean Rhys'Wide Sargasso Sea was presented as a post colonial text where she has tried to proclaimthat Bertha Mason will be no longer a mad Creole woman but a strong white negress. If the readers would make an attempt to sink inside of Jean Rhys' ideologies regarding the Englishness, they will be astonished to knowher acceptance of Englishness through her character of Antoinette.

To analyze the importance of English attributes through the colonizer (Jane Eyre) and the colonized body (Wide Sargasso Sea) eventually has brought forth the controversial elements in Jean Rhys'Wide Sargasso Sea.While Bronte’s text constructs a definition of Englishness by juxtaposing English characters against the colonial other, Rhys' text fights against Bronte’s cultural hierarchy while simultaneously colluding with the colonial project. This is how the text of Wide Sargasso Sea and the character of Antoinette became fashioned and attached with the superiority of Englishness trying to adopt the English touch in every step of her life throughout the novel.

Keywords: post-colonialism, colonial project, Englishness, colonizer, colonized other, white English girl, Creolized West Indian woman

Introduction

In the novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte has depicted the Creole woman Bertha Mason as inferior and helpless in front of Jane Eyre. While in Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys has created a counterpoint through the strong and rebellious character of Antoinette. She has therefore tried hard to give an answer back to the colonial text Jane Eyre. Inside the novel Wide Sargasso Sea the predominant protagonist (Antoinette) was certainty the bearer of post colonialism’s flag. But unfortunately, the superiority and desirability of Englishness has been found to be an effective impact even on this post colonial text and proved that Englishness has prevailed over all and remained as superior among the standards of ideals in all eras.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.


Farhana Haque, M.A.
Department of English and Humanities
Brac University
Mohakhali
Dhaka
Banglades
h dhak_121@yahoo.com
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