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REPRESENTATION OF RACIAL BARRIERS
BETWEEN ‘THE WEST’ AND THE ‘OTHER’ AS SEEN IN
JEAN RHYS’
WIDE SARGASSO SEA
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
SISTHA OKTAVIANA PAVITRASARI
Student Number: 014214055
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
i
REPRESENTATION OF RACIAL BARRIERS
BETWEEN ‘THE WEST’ AND THE ‘OTHER’ AS SEEN IN
JEAN RHYS’
WIDE SARGASSO SEA
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
SISTHA OKTAVIANA PAVITRASARI
Student Number: 014214055
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
iv
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Firstly, I would like to thank my advisor, G. Fajar Sasmita Aji S.S., M.Hum.for helping me to finish this with all the guidance and advices, and my co-advisor, Adventina Putranti S.S., M.Hum. for the corrections and helpful suggestions. To my thesis defense’s examiner, Elisa Dwi Wardhani S.S., M.Hum., for giving me important suggestion. Also, to my previous advisors, P. Sarwoto, S.S., M.A., and E. Arti Wulandari, S.S., M.A. Thank you very much.
I would like to thank all of my lecturers in English Letters Department, thank you very much for helping me to know all the lessons and knowledge on literature that I highly fond of. Particularly, thanks to Pak Hir, Mam Dewi and Mam Tata. Additionally, thanks to my lecturer in Sociology Department of Gadjah Mada, Arie Setyaningrum, S.Sos, M.A.
I would like to thank my beloved family for the loves, supports, prayers and understandings—I really appreciate it. To my dearest best friends, Eka Dina Dianti Suwandi and Theresia Dian Septi Trisnanti, thank you very much for such a great and rare friendship that I will always treasure. For my good friends in English Letters Department of Sanata Dharma and in Gadjah Mada that I cannot mention one by one, thank you all for the nice friendships that we had.
Lastly, to all my comrade-in-arms, especially the ones in Jogjakarta, thank you for the good comradeship that we have shared so far.
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1. Theory of Plot and Conflict in relation to Character... 18
2. Theory of Tone... 19
3. Theory of Representation in relation to representing the ‘Other’... 20
4. Theory of Discourse and Power... 21
5. Theory of Hegemony... 22
6. Theory of Ambivalence and Mimicry... 25
7. Theory of Stratified Structures of Racialisation... 26
C. Theoretical Framework... 27
A. Analysis of Antoinette’s Encounter to Racial-Class Conflicts.. 36
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a. Antoinette’s Creole Identity... 36
b. Antoinette’s Creole Identity in relation to the conflicts of race and class ... 41
c. Antoinette’s Encounter to Racial Conflicts... 42
2. Antoinette’s Marriage ... 46
B. Analysis of Racial-Class Conflicts Encountered by Antoinette in relation to the Representation of Racial Barriers between ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’... 50
1. Identifying ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’... 51
a. Who is ‘the West’ in the story?... 51
b. Who is the ‘Other’ in the story?... 51
c. ‘the West’ vis-a-vis the ‘Other’... 52
C. Analysis of Revelation of Hegemony of ‘the West’ Discourse towards the ‘Other’... 57
CHAPTER VCONCLUSION... 66
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ABSTRACT
SISTHA OKTAVIANA PAVITRASARI. Representation of Racial Barriers between ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’ as seen in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea.
Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2009.
Wide Sargasso Sea is a novel by Jean Rhys that narrates a story about the era of decolonisation in the islands of British colony. It depicts the failure of inter-racial marriage of a white Creole woman and an Englishman. Thus, this undergraduate thesis raises a topic on the representation of racial barriers between ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’ as seen through the racial-class conflicts in the novel.
The aim of this research is to explore the racial-class conflicts encountered by Antoinette. Yet, the scrutiny of conflicts seek to figure out the matter of racial barriers between ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’. Moreover, the research aims to reveal the representation of hegemonic discourse of ‘the West’ in the text of Wide Sargasso Sea. It is expected that this research can contribute the greatest benefit for the greatest number of those who are interested in reading this sort of research. The research is conducted by applying postcolonial approach for it has the capacity to identify and understand the complex forms and effect of colonial domination in constructing hegemony of discourse in era of decolonisation. The method of study conducted in this research was the library research. Data were gathered from books, articles, essays, glossary, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and information on the Internet. There were six steps of analysis in this research writing process. First, the close reading by focusing on the topic conveyed through the plot particularly the presented conflicts among the characters and also through the tone. The second was collecting the supporting secondary sources of related studies. The third step was examining the racial-class conflicts among characters in the efforts of representing cultural barriers between ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’. The next step was the mapping of socio-racial differentiation, and power-relations among them in order to figure out the matters of cultural barriers between ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’. The fifth step was the exploration and investigation of the text to find out the existence of hegemonic discourse of ‘the West’ over the ‘Other’. The last was drawing conclusion.
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ABSTRAK
SISTHA OKTAVIANA PAVITRASARI. Representation of Racial Barriers between ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’ as seen in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea.
Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2009.
Wide Sargasso Sea adalah novel karya Jean Rhys yang menceritakan era dekolonisasi di kepulauan koloni Inggris. Novel tersebut menceritakan kegagalan pernikahan antar ras seorang perempuan Creole dengan seorang pria Inggris. Maka dari itu, skripsi ini mengangkat topik tentang representasi permasalahan seputar ras antara ‘the West’ dengan ‘Other’ yang dapat dicermati pada konflik ras–kelas dalam novel.
Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah mengeksplorasi konflik ras-kelas yang dihadapi Antoinette. Kemudian analisis terhadap konflik-konflik yang ada ini bertujuan untuk menemukan permasalahan menyangkut permasalahan seputar ras antara ‘the West’ dengan the ‘Other’. Selanjutnya, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengungkap representasi wacana ‘the West’ yang hegemonik dalam teks Wide Sargasso Sea. Diharapkan bahwa penelitian ini bisa memberikan sumbangsih bagi mereka yang berminat.
Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan mengaplikasikan pendekatan poskolonial karena kapasitasnya dalam mengidentifikasi dan memahami permasalahan-permasalahan berkenaan dengan kompleksitas dan dampak dominasi kolonial dalam membangun hegemoni sebuah wacana di era dekolonisasi. Metode dalam penelitian ini adalah studi pustaka. Data terkumpul dari buku, artikel, essai, glossari, ensiklopedi, kamus dan informasi dari internet. Ada enam tahapan dalam penulisan skripsi ini. Pertama, close reading dengan fokus pada topik yang dilihat melalui plot khususnya konflik-konflik antar tokoh dan tone. Kedua, mengumpulkan data sekunder berupa kajian-kajian yang berkaitan dengan topik. Ketiga, meneliti konflik ras dan kelas antar tokoh yang merepresentasikan permasalahan ras antara ‘the West’ dan ‘Other’. Selanjutnya memetakan diferensiasi/pembedaan sosial berbasis ras dan relasi kuasa yang terjalin untuk menemukan permasalahan ras antara ‘the West’ dan ‘Other’. Terakhir, menarik kesimpulan.
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Literary works are product of culture produced as the result of the contestation of power within the realm of social practices. As noted earlier by Pierre Bourdieu, no cultural product exists by itself, meaning to say that it has such interdependence, which links it to other products of society (Bourdieu, 1994: 53). In the field of discourse, for instance, work of literature might be taken as an instrument to transfer a set of certain belief, concept, or knowledge of a dominant society or civilisation. Furthermore, the discourse is often utilised in order to legitimise kind of ‘truth’ of social constructs, produced, and reproduced through the ‘exercise of power’ negotiated in literary texts.
Discourse itself is defined as speech or writing on particular subject at a general level. Its lexical meaning of discourse refers to either oral and written materials or forms. Since discourse always concerns about truth, it means that it plays a constitutive role. The roles play by those who seized legitimate power. Thus, “a discourse could not be innocent”, or a value-free concept for it is shaped by certain powerful people mostly to legitimise or maintain their established authority (Hall, 1992: 294-295)
desperately needed to guard the regime’s capitalistic vested interests. By coercion, all oppositional movements were silenced and banished. The concept of “Military dual-function” was further idealised and promoted through the media and also discourse of history taught in all educational institution of schools. What happened actually is the transfer of ideological construction of meaning. So did the media since it builds a positive view to all government’s political discourses. Thus, discourse operates within the power, and never outside the power.
Meanwhile, society is a dynamic realm that constructs the patterned meanings of norms and values. These patterned meanings are constituted due to the discursive formation of social relations in their practices. The complexity of such a discursive formation hints us to the systematically unfixed, dialectical, ‘nature’ of discourse, which deeply implicated in the matter of representation. This notion has been emphasized by Stuart Hall in an anthology entitled Formations of Identity in which he refers to Michel Foucault’s concept of
discourse that ought to be understood further as the particular way of representing something and the relations between them. Moreover, discourse is discursive practice of knowledge’s production through language (Hall, 1992: 291). Therefore, language is a vehicle of discourse’s agenda moulded by certain constructed representation.
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is produced and enforced within power-relation (Hall, 1992:291-295). Based on this framework, any truths from any kinds of discourses can never be innocent in a way that it was constituted from biased representations as the effect of doing such attempts to legitimise what is considered to be ‘true’ or ‘false’ based on the constructed thought and knowledge in powerful but misleading discourse. Thus, the discourse of ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’ acknowledged in the topic discussion of this research is undoubtedly relevant as the relations between them (‘the West’ and the ‘Other’) encounter colonial-imperial discourse embodied in the Eurocentric representation of the West’s discourse towards the Other as its subject.
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys is a novel in which it conveys a number
relations designate the unfixed and dialectical power relations due to the dramatic social changes occurred at that time.
It is historically acknowledged that 1830s in West Indies was a transitional decade particularly in 1833 after the Emancipation Act was passed. This situation brought significant political implication in the change of racial structures that became ‘problematic’ to previously local dominant race of the Creoles as the ex-slave owner. The racial and social strata of the mixed race as ex-ex-slave owner family were shifting into the disrespect position in the majority of the black people. The social exclusion towards them was inevitable as they used to subordinate and enslave the Blacks (Walvin, 1992: 111-113). The text’s historical background of the post-slavery era in the late nineteenth century of Caribbean islands highlights the dramatic impact of ongoing decolonisation.
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and the Blacks are victimised by the West with racial prejudices. The language barrier also creates a distance that signifies the local resistance to achieve their identity. They interact in such a distinctive culture. Moreover, the pain of colonisation remains on the memory of local people and cannot be easily eased or forgotten.
Important aim embodied in the problem formulation, deals with the effort to argue that Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea contains hegemonic representation. At the surface level, the novel seems to challenge racism and Eurocentrism, but on the other hand, its subtle values are affirming the superiority of ‘the West’ and textually racist. The character of Antoinette represents both the oppressed and the oppressor; her hybrid identity gives her such an ambivalent position for she herself is not free from racial prejudices.
this research since the cultural context of the story depicts the era of decolonisation.
B. Problem Formulation
The research will be conducted in order for answering substantial problems to be explained in the analysis. The problem formulation consists of major questions below:
1) What racial-class conflicts are encountered by Antoinette?
2) How do those racial-class conflicts encountered by Antoinette represent the matter of racial barriers between ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’? 3) How does the text reveal the hegemonic discourse of ‘the West’
towards the ‘Other’?
C. Objective of the Study
This research aims to explore racial-class conflicts encountered by Antoinette. Yet, the scrutiny of those racial-class conflicts seeks to figure out the matter of racial barriers between ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’. Moreover, the research aims to reveal the representation of hegemonic discourse of ‘the West’ towards the ‘Other’ throughout the text of Wide Sargasso Sea.
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literature department. Particularly, this research is addressed to those who concern with or are interested in the acquirement of postcolonial studies paradigm as a tool of analysis with application of contemporary relevant theories in examining a work of literature.
D. Definition of Terms
1. Representation
In short, representation is the production of meanings out of the material world through some conceptual frameworks and languages. Hall says further in that representation is the production and circulation of meaning through language as a system of representation. Representation is part of important practice that produces culture within which meanings are produced and processed through the act of representation (Hall, 2003: 1-2, 15). Representation always concerns about the truth and the language. It has a capability to tell the truth, or to tell a lie, or to distort and misinterpret meanings (Canning, 2001: 340).
Moreover, representation can be classified into surface representation and deep representation. Deep representation emerges from the visible. It can be said that deep representation need an effort to analyze. It is a representation of essences (Gibson, 1996:81-87).
2. Racial barriers
Contemporary English, the word ‘barrier’ literally means “a rule, problem etc that
prevent people from doing something, or limits what they can do” (Gadsby, 2001: 138). The purpose of using this term is to initiate the reader to the implication of problems that resulted in the emergence of barriers between conflicting races with their cultures. Since the problem and conflicts arouse and presented in the Wide Sargasso Sea is rooted in the clash of civilisations between different races, the
word ‘racial’ serves to identify the implication of asymmetrical relation between ‘the West’ and ‘the Other’ stated in the word ‘barriers’ that implies the existence of several barriers such as differences of languages, traditions, social classes, religions, values and norms, etc.
3. ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’
‘the West’ is the term used by Stuart Hall in his essay entitled “The West and The Rest: Discourse and Power” in which he explores the problems of representation developed earlier by Edward Said in Orientalism and its relevance to Michel Foucault’s concepts of ‘Power’ and ‘Discourse’. The underlying premise in his essay is that ‘the West’ is a historical, not a geographical construct. Therefore, ‘the West’ is an idea, a concept that allows us to characterize and classify into categories. This concept functions as part of a ‘system of representation’ for it works in conjunction with others’ set of images and ideas. The important point is that it provides a kind of standard or model of comparison. In so doing, it could explain difference (Hall, 1992: 277).
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discourse of the West. In addition, Goldberg proposes that “naming the racial Other, for all intents and purposes, is the Other” (Goldberg, 1993:150).
4. Discourse
At a simplest definition, discourse can be defined as speech or writing on a particular subject according to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (Gadsby, 2001: 507). Generally, discourse is simply language in use, either written or oral (Jolliffe, 2001: 101). However, the term discourse is found to be an evolving concept. Many theorists complicate the simple conception of discourse including Norman Fairclough denoting that it is socially constitutive and it contributes to the constitution of all dimensions of social structure. Consequently, discourse is “a practice not just of representing the world, but of signifying the world, constituting, and constructing the world in meaning” (Jolliffe, 2001: 102)
By ‘discourse’, we mean a particular way of representing ‘the West’, ‘the Rest’ as representation of Otherness, and the relations between them, i.e. way of representing that implies particular knowledge about the topic of discussion. A discourse consists of several statements working together to form a discursive formation, and it is about the production of knowledge through language (Hall, 1992: 291).
5. Hegemony
a way that it often seeks consent in part through mystification and misinformation” (Castle, 2001: 505).
6. Exercise of power
This Foucault’s term emphasizes the notion that power is produced and reproduced through practices within which, systems of domination and the circuits of exploitations interact, intersect, and support each other (Wanli, 1998) <http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/ Literary_Criticism/postmodernism/>.
Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organisation that not only individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power (Slembrouck, 1998) <http://bank.rug.ac.be/da/da.htm>.
7. Discursive formation
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CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Related Studies
The reviews in this section are taken from several anthologies, which comprise essays and criticisms that mentioned or analysed the Wide Sargasso Sea in different focuses and approaches, which and encompasses a number of complex issues revealed in the novel. The anthologies used as references in this review are: The Post-colonial Studies Reader edited by Aschroft, Griffith, and Tiffin;
Postcolonial Discourses: An Anthology edited by Gregory Castle; Colonial
Discourse/Postcolonial Theory edited by Barker, Hulme, and Iversen; and Formations of Identity edited by Hall and Gieben.
Peter Hulme’s “The locked heart: the Creole family romance of Wide Sargasso Sea” states that it will be problematic to simply identify Wide Sargasso
Sea as an exemplar of postcolonial literature. In this case, Hulme is in an
agreement with Anne McClintock’s view, designating the consistently undefined historical relation supposedly suggested between ‘colonial’ and ‘postcolonial’ (Hulme, 1994: 72). He proposes critical points in questioning the novel:
Hulme’s careful attempt in reading Wide Sargasso Sea is definitely relevant for the ignorance and indifference toward the matters stated above might end to an unreliable analysis with weak standpoints. It is indeed very important to question the ‘postcoloniality’ of the text with the fact that it is a novel that presents a white Creole woman from the settler’s family as major character instead of the black people who suffer much because of the colonisation. As for Boehmer, postcolonial literature is supposed to be a writing that resists colonial perspectives in a way that the writer undercut thematically and formally the discourses, which supported colonization such as the myth of power, the race classifications, and the imagery of subordination (Boehmer, 2005: 3).
Another criticism written by Edward Kamau Brathwaite, a Jamaican historian and poet, also challenges the postcolonial quality of Wide Sargasso Sea considering its ‘stand’ for the Caribbean/West Indies’ postcoloniality through his essay “Contradictory Omens”. The fact that Antoinette is not part of the majority of black people becomes the central issue of his attention. The problematisation he emphasizes is that Antoinette, being similarly white, Creole, expatriate, and ‘West Indian born’, suggesting the idea that she is best described as ‘accidentally’ rather than ‘really’ West Indian (Hulme, 1994: 74). Although Brathwaite’s point of view is essentialist, his essay is able to capture the text’s incapability to represent the West Indies’ postcolonial resistance.
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acknowledged the ‘hybrid’ characters of Antoinette as the white Creole and as the descendant of a white Englishman. Therefore, this research questions the novel’s reputation as being postcolonial by problematising its ambivalence as the counter-productive quality of Wide Sargasso Sea to unmask the British literary canon’s racist Eurocentrism. The exploration of the text’ ambivalence manifest in the voice of Antoinette’s character is central starting point that leads the elaboration to the racial-class conflicts among characters in the novel. Furthermore, it becomes the basis for the presupposed thought about the existence of hegemonic Eurocentrism and racism promoted by the ‘West’ civilisations and culture (British coloniser and settler) over the ‘Other’ cultures and civilisations throughout the narrative representation of the novel that serves the tone of the novel as suggested by the author.
Although it is equally true to argue that Wide Sargasso Sea contains a counter-discourse quality for it challenges the British canon by suggesting a hybridised world to the reader, it is nevertheless necessary to examine further what is said to be ‘subjective nature’ in relation to cultural construction of meaning. The hybrid and subjective nature within Wide Sargasso Sea enacts and signifies that the novel has particular interest to certain class, race, and culture. As it is highlighted earlier, Wide Sargasso Sea represents a voice of white Creole planter class woman who is in the racially disadvantaged position because of the Emancipation Act (slavery abolition policy), and then sexually disadvantaged in claiming her own economic right because of the domination of patriarchal values imposed on Victorian age.
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white Creole. The text’s ambivalence, thus, is seen as a manifestation of ‘the West’s hegemonic representation implied in Wide Sargasso Sea.
Another significant writing is written by Moira Ferguson in “Sending the Younger Son across the Wide Sargasso Sea: The New Colonizer Arrives” taken from her Colonialism and Gender Relations from Mary Wollstonecraft to Jamaica Kincaid: East Caribbean Connections. Overall, Ferguson’s essay contributes a great deal in providing a remarkable critical close-reading comprehension of Wide Sargasso Sea; by suggesting ‘historical complicity’ that draws out important
historical information in regard to complex relations among the Caribbean - whose ancestry was African, and the European ancestry of white Creoles’- and the white Englishman whom formerly was considered as the ‘coloniser’. As noted by Castle, Ferguson does a reading with an exploration of intertextual critique engaged by Jean Rhys in Wide Sargasso Sea towards Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (Ferguson, 2001: 309).
seemingly, an indication of the attitude to sympathise with his ‘dutiful’ mission to the family.
However, the long description of nameless English husband’s contextual background to the breed of his ‘evil’ character is definitely might not be interpreted as any sort of ‘justification’ or ‘excuses’ for his falseness becomes tolerable, though, perhaps, conditionally ‘understandable’. Yet, what is conditionally ‘understandable’ no longer relevant, considering that it has oppressed and victimised women and the non-whites respectively. The text embodies counter-discourse strategy but unfortunately articulating the bourgeois vested interest and patriarchal normative values that implies Rochester as the ‘luckiest’ character at the end of the story.
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Similarly, other studies have utilised another term to describe the conflicting war of discourses such as Edward Said’s ‘the West’ and ‘the Orient’. In the study of international politics, for example, ideological war between American government and Islamic countries like Afghanistan is described as representing the contestation of power between ‘the West’ and ‘the East’. Hall’s preference to use ‘the Rest’ as his writing’s term was due to the social setting of analysis took place in New World (West Indies/Caribbean) at the age of European exploration, which affected in the construction of discourses (Hall, 1992: 276-317). However, ‘the Rest’ is unacknowledged in postcolonial studies. Therefore, the writer prefers the term ‘Other’, which has been acknowledged and widely used in postcolonial studies. Spivak designates ‘Other’ in relation to its position of colonial subject or precarious Subjectivity (Spivak, 1995: 24). Moreover, the writer tends to utilise ‘Other’ to designate plurality and to encompass the complexity within its conception as it is frequently used in postcolonial studies.
It can be found in many literatures that previous studies or criticisms mostly concern with the intertextuality between Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre. Unlikely, this research only focuses on Wide Sargasso Sea as being
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theory of Plot and Conflict in relation to Character
M. H. Abrams in his book entitled A Glossary of Literary Terms explains that the plot is constituted by its events and actions. They are rendered and ordered toward achieving particular emotional and artistic effects. The actions include verbal discourses as well as physical actions, which are performed by particular characters in a work. Actions are the means by which they exhibit their moral and dispositional qualities. Thus, plot and character are therefore interdependent critical concept (Abrams, 1993: 159). In the broadest sense, it can be said that plot is its entire sequence of events (Stanton, 1965:14).
Furthermore, Stanton proposes that the two important elements of plot are conflict and climax. In his book, An Introduction to Fiction, he states that fiction contains internal conflicts or external conflicts. Internal conflicts are between two desires within a character, whereas external conflicts are between characters or between a character and her environment (Stanton, 1965: 16). Furthermore, central conflict is about fundamental issues related to the major themes and characters. Thus, conflict is the embodiment of major themes or issues through the acts of its characters.
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2. Theory of Tone
It is explained in An Introduction to Literature: Fiction, Poetry, Drama that tone can be understood in two manners. Firstly, it refers to speaker’s attitudes (Barnet, Berman, and Burto, 1993: 438). Secondly, it refers to the author’s attitude toward the invented speaker. It might be found that there is difference or even contradiction between the speaker’s tone and the author’s tone (Barnet et al, 1993: 439).
4) Situations, and, 5) Words or dictions used in the story. <http://www.delmar.edu/engl/wrtctr/handouts/Literature_Website/ToneStyle.htm >. Particularly, it refers to the author’s implicit attitude toward the reader or the people, places, and events in a work as revealed by the elements of the author’s style <http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/glossary_htm>.
3. Theory of Representation in relation to representing the ‘Other’
Representation is the act of representing the ‘Other’ as the subject, which is being represented by ‘the Self’. Robert Miles explains in his book Racism that human migration is determined by the interrelation of production such as trade and warfare, that has been a precondition for the meeting of human individuals and groups over thousands of centuries (Miles, 1989: 11). Due to the course of this interaction, Miles states that beliefs, imagery, and evaluations about the ‘Other’ have been generated and reproduced amongst all the participants in the process. By so doing, the appearance and behaviour of those with whom the contact has been established can be explained, and a strategy for interaction and reaction can be formulated. Consequently, there has been the production of “representation” of the Other contained images and beliefs that categorise in terms of attributed differences when compared with Self (Miles, 1989:11).
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competition for land, the introduction of private property rights, labour force, and perceived obligation of conversion to Christianity. These demands are embodied in the discourse of ‘civilisation’. The discourse, which deals with the ‘civilising mission’ were implemented by spreading negative representation about the backwardness of the represented Other (Miles, 1989: 20, 26). Several influential tools in constructing, spreading, and maintaining the Eurocentric discourse were historical documentations from the travellers’ reports (those written by Columbus Hawkins, Fitch, Cavenders, Lancaster, etc), literary works, and other textual or material artefacts that could articulate the claim of ‘factuality’ (Miles, 1989: 20-24).
4. Theory of Discourse and Power
Michel Foucault proposes that discourse is the thing for which and by which there is struggle; discourse is the power, which is to be seized. He thinks that power is employed and exercised through a net-like organisation (Kritzman,
1988:103-104; McHoul and Grace, 1995.
<http://www.thefoucauldian.co.uk/mchoul.pdf>; Wanli, 1998. <http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw>). Discourse is the whole ‘mental set’ and ideology to govern the thinking of all members of a certain given society (Barry, 2002: 176). According to Foucault, discourses of modernity are knowledge systems, which inform institutionalised technologies of power (Slembrouck, 1998. <http://bank.rug.ac.be/da/da.htm>).
means to silence those considered as ‘defiant’ people, like criminals or mad people whose lack of ‘reason’ and sanity (Lechte, 1994: 113). It can be concluded that exercise of power in producing a discourse implies the significance of bargaining position achieved within the field of struggle. It is always about the relation of power. However, the important idea to grasp is the deep relationship between discourse and power. Discourse constitutes ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ in specific context according to particular relations of power, whereas the regime of truth itself is owned by each society as the operational system of discourses to judge or determine the quality of being true or false.
Nevertheless, the important thing to ask is whether a discourse is effective in practice. In the case of this research, it is necessary to interrogate whether or not discourse of ‘the West’ effective in regulating relations of power and producing sort of regime of truth (Hall, 1992: 295). The effectiveness of particular discourse asserts its enabling practices in gaining the hegemony. The significance of discourse in literary as well as cultural context refers to socially produced groups of ideas or ways of thinking that can be tracked in individual text, and group of texts, demanding to be located within wider historical and social structures or relations (Turner, 1996: 30). The boundary between textual and contextual work is eventually degraded. Thus, the degree of relevancy of cultural theories in analysing literature is becoming more evident.
5. Theory of Hegemony
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Gramsci’s famous concept, explaining a transformation in the mode of domination and leadership. Jonathan Culler explains further that the ‘ruling groups’ are no longer practising coercion or pure force (Culler, 1997: 48). In other words, hegemony is a practice whereby the ruling class achieves the consent of the governed through such a non-coercive means (Castle, 2001: 505). A structure of consent is systematically conducted to maintain a ‘disguised’ domination. Thus, culture plays major rule in the process of promulgating and maintaining this new face of ‘domination’, that is, hegemony.
Hegemony itself is one of the key theoretical approaches within cultural studies that methodologically examine the link between power and practice (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996: 237). Bennet’s explanation on hegemony as quoted by Turner in British Cultural Studies describes that hegemony exists thereby cultural leadership is achieved by the dominant group after there has been a negotiation with the subordinated or opposing groups. This indicates that hegemony is maintained through the “articulation of opposing interests into political affiliations of the hegemonic groups” (Turner, 1996: 195).
colonialism about the inferior Other and the superior White are implicitly admitted or textually reproduced by its ‘non-West’ author. Within the novel, the author’s choice to depict a story of the Caribbean (the coloured people of creoles, mulattos, and blacks in post-colonial era) and put it as central context is a manifestation of articulating the voice and interest of the ‘non-West’ or ‘coloured’ people as the ‘Other’ or the opposing side of ‘the West’.
On the other hand, the novel also presents the ‘divided interest’ amongst its ‘coloured’ characters, representing the barriers amongst the ‘Other’ themselves because of the differences in the specific condition of classes and races. More importantly, the novel seems to articulate ‘consent’ metaphorically to the politics of differences that creates hierarchical relations. As such, that reflects the idea of racism, that is, by conducting politics of differences. In practice, it was not merely based on the racial categorisations, but it expanded on sexual and class categorisations. This is why the writer analysed the novel as being hegemonised since it takes side not to the most marginalized people, and appears to be racist upon the black people as revealed in Antoinette’s characterisation. Antoinette is uneasy to be seen as the ‘Other’ by her British husband, but she is doing the same thing to the black people whose lower economic position than she is as middle-class woman. It is also implied that the author gives too much sympathy to the white British character, and somewhat persuades the reader to sympathise him and ‘understand’ his racist behaviours.
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hegemony during post-colonial condition was done through the power of discourse (Ratna, 2005: 187). Thus, the knowledge about the superiority of Western civilisation was narrated and yet widely acknowledged by the ‘non-West’ so as to take it for granted and consequently, accepting the inferiority of ‘non-West’ cultures and civilisations. Frankly speaking, conducting hegemony through discursive practices is historically proven as more effective, persuasive, and influential. A literary work is the energy through which the cultural aspects (including ideological construct) are manifested (Ratna, 2005: 191).
6. Theory of Ambivalence and Mimicry
Ambivalence is Homi K. Bhabha’s key word to describe “a continual fluctuation between simultaneous attraction toward and repulsion from a person, an action or object, also between wanting one thing and its opposite” (Young, 1995: 161). It refers to a process of identification and disavowal (Young, 1990: 148). The concept of ambivalence is formulated as a response to Said’s Orientalism. Bhabha, according to Robert Young, illuminates Orientalism as it
might be a representation that takes part in entire discursive field with such necessary consideration towards the question of enunciation (Young, 1990: 142), of who is speaking to whom and how they represent Other. Of who represents it and to whom it is addressed, yet it goes on to who they are that are being represented and how they are being represented.
contrary, he is unconsciously having “positivity of fantasmic desire” (Young, 1995: 161). His racist behaviour and sexual desires for Antoinette and Amelie have shown this indication. Furthermore, this research conceptualise the text’s ambivalence between attempting to decentre western Eurocentrism and racism and unconsciously affirming the white western supremacy and superiority represented through the characterisation of Antoinette. Antoinette is a sort of racist in a way that she underestimates Christophine’s opinion. She thinks that the opinion is unreliable because it belongs to the mind of a black servant. Conclusively, Antoinette is both the ‘coloniser’ and the colonised. She is a model of colonial subject who is mimicking the similar attitudes with her coloniser.
Mimicry is later developed by Bhabha to denote a practice whereby the colonised rewrite the colonial discourse (Castle, 2001: 507), as it is done by Rhys in Wide Sargasso Sea. Bhabha theorises that mimicry turns the colonial discourse into a hybrid product of the native intellectual labour, revealing both contradictions and inconsistencies (Castle, 2001: 507). This is what Fanon argued that the colonised often imitates their colonial master in the act of mimicry as elaborated in Black Skin, White Masks. Entirely, the whole text reflects the notion of mimicry as way to write back the canonical literature of Bronte’s Jane Eyre.
7. Theory of Stratified Structures of Racialisation
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(Ritzer, 2004 <http://www.mhhe.com/ritzer>). Racialisation in definition signifies racial categorisation, an ideological process of classifying persons by primary reference to supposedly inherent and biological characteristics (Miles, 1989: 74). Hence, the ideological racialisation requires the employment of the racialised discourse in practical level. There is a need to identify the class position at issue with racial configurations since class position correlates with the social privileges achieved from the result of hierarchical race-relations.
In Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning, Goldberg precisely defines that race is a set of conceptions; racisms are sets of conditions. Racism is further in principle, “promote, reify, and rationalize any social system incorporating differential relations of power and politico-economic exclusions” (Goldberg, 1993: 98, 106). In conclusion, the politics of racism is conducted due to the process of racialisation. Moreover, the problem became intense because racialised and class discourse, intersected by gender in various ways has altogether defined the modern conceptualisation about Otherness (Goldberg, 1993: 107).
C. Theoretical Framework
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CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The object of this research is a novel written by a Dominican born author named Jean Rhys entitled Wide Sargasso Sea. The novel was published in 1966, 27 years after her previous novel Good Morning, Midnight. In this research, the writer analysed Wide Sargasso Sea that was published in 2001 (Penguin Student Editions) by Penguin Books. The novel consists of one hundred and twenty-three pages that are divided into three parts. Part One is narrated by Antoinette; Part Two by her unnamed husband and Antoinette; Part Three by Antoinette predominantly and Grace Poole.
Wide Sargasso Sea won the Royal Society of Literature Award and W.H.
Smith Award in 1966. Jean Rhys achieved prestigious accomplishment when she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (Jenkins, 2001: 161). In 1993, the novel was adapted into movie under the same title by Fine Line Features, starring by Karina Lombard, Nathaniel Parker, and Claudia Robinson. It was an hour and forty-minute movie directed by John Duigan with a terrible quality of adaptation.
Wide Sargasso Sea depicts about the story of Antoinette Cosway, a white
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1833. Moreover, it tells about the disastrous relationship between England and her colonies reflected in the failed marriage faced by Antoinette and her English husband. A story of a white Creole girl, who was born and grew up in Caribbean, ought to face the impact of social transformation due to the withdrawal of British colonisation. Her mother’s negligence, the social exclusions from the white affluent communities also the local black people there contribute her childhood hardship. She grows up with the lack of caring and this makes her mentally vulnerable. As a young woman, she has to engage in marriage of convenience to secure the family inheritance that brings her into multiple conflicts and resentment. Eventually, the story ends up with her mental breakdown and ‘domestic’ confinement done by her own husband.
B. Approach of the Study
The research is conducted by applying postcolonial approach for its scientific capacity to examine the problems of this research. The challenge to identify and understand the complex forms and effect of colonial domination in constructing hegemony of discourse in era of decolonisation expected from approach is indeed the attempt of the writer in understanding the novel. Wide Sargasso Sea itself is a novel in which the conflicts signify complexity in such
particular issues on class, race, and gender.
marginality, plurality, and perceived ‘Otherness’ seen as sources of energy and potential change, to reject the claims of universalism made on behalf of canonical Western literature, to foreground questions of cultural difference and diversity and treatment in relevant literary works, and to celebrate the hybridity and ‘cultural polyvalency’ (Barry, 2002: 199). In addition, it is said that postcolonial criticism in general draws attention to questions of identity in relation to broader national histories and destinies (Selden, et al., 1997: 227).
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intersecting varied methods inherent in postcolonial studies is definitely a necessity.
C. Method of the Study
The method of study conducted in this research was the library research. Data were gathered from books, articles, essays, glossary, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and information on the Internet. The primary data were surely the novel itself that is Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. Meanwhile, the finding of secondary sources were collected and selected from many sources and references from books of literary theory/ criticism/ approach, books and anthologies on postcolonial studies, glossary of postcolonialism, encyclopaedias of postmodernism and of world cultures (Mid America and the Caribbean), dictionaries of Michael Foucault, cultural and critical theory, world atlas of cultures (South America), also websites that could provide a fruitful contribution to the research elaboration.
The writer obtained significant help by reading fine essays mainly in: Ashcroft’s Post-colonial Studies Reader, Castle’s Postcolonial Discourses: An Anthology, Hall and Gieben’s Formations of Identity, Boehmer’s Colonial and
Postcolonial Literature, Rice and Waugh’s Modern Literary Theory: A Reader,
which, provided important criticism, reviews, and critiques toward the same text, as well as the writings of related issues and studies useful to this research.
theories, the writer was highly indebted by the some books namely Racism by Robert Miles, Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning by David Theo Goldberg, and White Mythologies: Writing History and the West by Robert Young. In addition, Dow and Van Kemper’s Encyclopaedia of World Cultures: Mid America and the Caribbean Vol. 7, Walvin’s Black Ivory: a History of British
Slavery offered extremely beneficial information about the historical information
and socio-cultural configuration in West Indies (Jamaica and Dominica) concerning the races and ethnicities there.
There were six steps of analysis in this research writing process. First, the close reading by focusing on the topic conveyed through the plot particularly the presented conflicts among the characters. The writer scrutinized the intrinsic elements of in the text especially conflicts in the plot, by paying a serious attention to the details that were evident in giving the clues, hints, or indications. The further deconstructive close reading was later taken with great consideration on the ‘nature’ of the text as revealing something hidden or covert meaning, which is contradictory to the text’ suggested meanings (authorial meanings or intentions), by doing critical over-viewing the whole story’s tones.
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categorising them into the mapping of social stratification, racial differentiation, in relation to class positionality and power-relations among them in order to figure out the cultural barriers between ‘the West’ and the ‘Other’.
The analysis of racial-class conflicts was done by applying the theory about racialisation with particular consideration towards issues on class and gender, postcolonial theory on race-relations and racist culture. By so doing, the representation of cultural barriers could be clearly uncovered on the result of conflict mapping. The fifth step was the exploration and investigation of the text to find out the existence of hegemonic discourse of ‘the West’ over the ‘Other’ by searching for ambivalences found throughout the text and by interpreting the whole content and context of the story in light of intrinsic and extrinsic approaches under the paradigm of postcolonial studies applied in this research. In depth, it was done by seeking covert meanings moulded in the text’s ambivalent aspects such as its act of mimicry and ‘hybridised’ nature through the characterisations and the tone of the text. In short, that was the attempt to unmask or to reveal about the eurocentrism of such dominant discourse within the text, which enabled it to be textually hegemonic representation. Theory of hegemony, ambivalence, and mimicry were highly necessary in this step.
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CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
A. Analysis of Antoinette’s Encounter to Racial-Class Conflicts
The discussion about racial-class conflicts encountered by Antoinette are closely related to the historical context of the story and Antoinette’s problematic identity that actually refers to the broader view of the political and socio-cultural condition of the coloured/mixed race people of West Indies in general. Precisely, it captures the time of political transition that is shortly after the Emancipation Act, which was finally passed in 1833. The Act was bringing a remarkable change to West Indies concerning the matter of slavery formerly implemented there. The shift of race-class relations was inevitably occurred. This situation is of course contributes a great deal of implications faced by all members of societies of West Indies.
Thus, the issue of racial-class conflicts encountered by Antoinette as a socially rejected citizen who encounters several kinds of racial conflicts due to the transition is central to the analysis. The issue will be scrutinised through the life of major character, Antoinette. In this sub-chapter, the analyses are divided into these:
1. The Life of Antoinette before Marriage in Jamaica
a. Antoinette’s Creole Identity
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her family. Antoinette’s father is a man named Mr. Cosway, and her mother is Annette who comes from Martinique, as she says, “She was my father’s second wife, far too young for him they thought, and worse still, a Martinique girl…” (Rhys, 2001: 3)
The Cosway family owns an estate called Coulibri, and has several slaves to serve them. It can be learned that The Cosways is the family of planter class in the Caribbean islands since the family’s ownership to slaves explains the family’s social identity and role in the society. Due to the slavery in the Caribbean islands, the slaves are needed to look after the plantation and the household matters. The estate owned by The Cosways is situated in Jamaica, i.e., one of British colony in the island (West Indies), in which the daily activities of the society evolve around the sugar plantation.
Meanwhile, many of the local people of black Jamaican are in fact the slaves that were imported from Africa. Furthermore, there are Jamaican mixed races or coloured people too there. In addition to this matter, as the coloniser of Jamaica is English, so the Jamaican coloured people are the descendant of the English (their coloniser). The French was the former coloniser in several islands of West Indies and had colonised Britain previously. As it is known later, the British turns out to be a very powerful coloniser in the islands. They were succeeded in dominating West Indies after defeating “the old colonisers” (the former generation of colonisers) of the islands. Such a complex history of diversity of racial configurations in Caribbean islands, particularly in Jamaica indeed provides us the view of why one’s race matters. Since one’s race attributes an identity, one’s race explains the history. This answers why one’s racial identity defines any of social attributes (roles, status and privileges, positions, class) they have in relation to the daily basis of social interactions.
Inasmuch, the question of identity becomes very important. In the novel, Antoinette is occupied with a question of identity for she is saying this:
“It was a song about a white cockroach. That’s me. That is what they call all of us who were here before their own people in Africa sold them to slave traders. And I’ve heard English women call us white niggers. So between you I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why I was born at all…” (Rhys, 2001: 63)
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child that she begins to accept the reality that she will always be a ‘white cockroach’ in the minds of the black ex-slaves.
On the other hand, she has to endure another form of racial rejection from the white English people that call her ‘white nigger’. The labels that are given to her contribute the way she shapes and acknowledges her sense of identity. She becomes aware of her problematic Creole identity. She thinks of her as being racially and culturally “in between” and this confuses her. Therefore, she is questioning her identity for she wonders about who she really is, where should she belong to, and why should she was ever born to this world if only to suffer from many forms of rejections and exclusions. One’s identity is constituted from one’s knowledge of the Self and one’s knowledge about the Self that gathered from the Others’ evaluation.
enemy to the black people that belong to the slave class. The majority of mixed race people are the mulattoes that are the mixture between the white men (slave-owner) and the black women (the slaves/servant). The mulattoes are the illegitimate children of white Englishmen with their female black servants/slaves. Therefore, Antoinette is racially a minority though socially she and the family belong to the middle class society.
Regardless of the fact that she senses the exclusion and rejection, Antoinette always feels that the islands will always be a home to her no matter what others say as she thinks, “The sky was dark blue through the dark green mango leaves, and I thought, ‘this is my place and this is where I wish to stay’…” (Rhys, 2001: 67). She feels a strong connection with the nature surrounds her that she loves it more than the people do. Her bitter experiences with those people who are constantly rejecting her existence have left her heart deeply wounded. Then she realises that the beautiful landscapes on the islands do not hurt her as much as people do. After the quarrel with Tia, Antoinette thinks that the razor grass that can cut her legs and arms are better than people are. So do the black or red ants, the rain, or even a snake. All better than the people, that constantly mock her. (Rhys, 2001: 11). As she thinks like this:
“And if the razor grass cut my legs and arms I would think ‘it’s better than people’. Black ants or red ones, tall nests, swarming with white ants, rain that soaked me to the skin—once I saw a snake. All better than people. Better. Better, better than people.” (Rhys, 2001:11).
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and all things that come along with it. The colonisation itself carries the issue of race with it. The colonisers are all The Whites (e.g. the British, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch), and the colonised people are all the non-white races. The colonisers create such racial hierarchy in order to impose colonial power towards the natives/local inhabitants in their colonial territories. They conquer the minds of these colonised Other by spreading the myth of non-whites racial inferiority. Therefore, the seed of conflict within the heart of colonisation is inseparable with the race issues. In the case of Antoinette on that matter, her Creole identity causes her, an “in between position” in the society. Racial relation she encounters is complex that she becomes the oppressor and the oppressed at the same time.
b. Antoinette’s Creole Identity in relation to the Conflicts of Race and Class
Discussing Antoinette’s Creole Identity in relation to the conflicts of race and class requires explanation about the Creole’s position in race-class configuration before and after the Emancipation. Before Emancipation, the position of Creole can be portrayed as socially comfortable. Creole family like the Cosways as presented in the novel can have a prosperous living, with assistance from the slaves; obtain the benefit from the running of sugar plantation. After the Emancipation, the family ought to face difficulties in their economic condition and social life. Their house, Coulibri Estate with its garden, had gone wild and deserted (Rhys 2001: 5). This can be found in this quotation:
Furthermore, no more slavery for the family means no slave to take care of all things they need. They are no longer prosperous, they have to face financial crisis. As a result, in the novel we learn that the Blacks mock Annette’s shabbiness for the Cosways are bankrupt. As Antoinette thinks, “…why should anybody work? This never saddened me. I did not remember the place when it was prosperous” (Rhys, 2001: 5).
In conclusion, there is a drastic shift in their race and class position in the society. Antoinette’s identity as a Creole no longer puts her in advantaged position in society. On the contrary, she has to confront with many forms of hostility and rejection from the people surround her. In the context of class, Creole’s planter families are degrading, not having significant power anymore. Ironically, they are ‘victimised’ during the Emancipation process that brings better condition for the black community.
c. Antoinette’s Encounter to Racial Conflict
The atmosphere of hostility or enmity at that time after the Emancipation Day (abolishment of slavery) conducted in the island of Jamaica is obviously revealed through the realisation of little Antoinette. Antoinette understands that the black people hate her mother, a white Creole’s widow of an ex-slave owner in the island. In other word, she is aware of the racial conflicts among the people in the society. Antoinette’s realisation to the situation is stated in this passage below:
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As it can also be seen in this below quotation:
“…Standing by the bamboos she had a clear view to the sea, but anyone passing could stare at her. They stared, sometimes they laughed. Long after the sound was far away and faint she kept her eyes shut and her hands clenched. A frown came between her black eyebrows, deep - it might have been cut by a knife…” (Rhys, 2001: 5)
The hostility from the black people is, without a doubt, the result of contradictions during colonisation in which the black people were treated as slaves, a commodity in that they were not fully treated like human beings. The colonisers exploited the natural resources of the islands and oppressed the natives particularly the blacks in all aspects. The white Creole planters like Antoinette’s father take part in that process of exploitation and get the benefit from that situation. Either social or cultural stratification was determined by the race since “race has always been culturally constructed, and vice versa, culture has always been racially constructed”. Thus, the pain of being colonised still lingers on the memory of the enslaved people.
after she finds out that somebody has poisoned her horse (Rhys, 2001: 4). People’s disapproval toward her mother affects her very much since Annette’s depression makes her an indifferent mother to Antoinette. Instead of strengthening the bonding between mother and daughter, Annette’s victimisation makes her feels depressed and develops an emotional distance to Antoinette.
Antoinette also learns it directly when she becomes the subject of a mockery done by a little girl calling her as white cockroach:
“I never look at any strange negro. They hated us. They called us white cockroaches. Let sleeping curs lie. One day a little girl followed me singing, ‘Go away white cockroach, go away, go away.’ I walked fast, but she walked faster, ‘White cockroach, go away, go away. Nobody want you. Go away’" (Rhys, 2001:7)
Antoinette is able to notice the sense of hatred through the mockery. Using the word “cockroach”, the mockery is definitely a harsh one. This harsh mockery forces her to realise about the racial tensions existed surrounds her and her victimised position, as she appears to be one of the addressee of the people’s anger and hatred.
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people in the society surround them. Antoinette’s realisation to that is expressed in this passage:
“Plenty white people in Jamaica. Real white people, they got gold money. They didn’t look at us, nobody see them come near us. Old time white people nothing but white nigger now, and black nigger better than white nigger.” (Rhys, 2001: 8)
Antoinette’s realisation is driven by drastic shift after the abolishment of slavery, which brings significant impact upon planter class family like her own (The Cosways). By having this realisation about the impact of ongoing abolishment of slavery, she learns about the significance of one’s race and class in gaining certain position in the society.
It is soon after her realisation about the existing racial tensions that little Antoinette encounters her direct and personal racial conflict. Antoinette’s childhood playmate, Tia, is one of the person from whom she learns the rejection and strong hatred. The quarrel with Tia becomes Antoinette’s real encounter to racial conflict. Antoinette’s black friend named Tia turns out to be unfriendly and insincere to her. Tia makes her to bet all the money she has and makes her to admit that she loses the bet though she does not think so. At last, Tia steals Antoinette’s clothes, and this makes Antoinette hates her. Moreover, the fact that Tia is black worsens her hatred. The part of the novel that narrates the anti-social feelings of Antoinette after having her quarrel with Tia can be seen in this below quotation:
with white ants, rain that soaked me to the skin – once I saw a snake. All better than people. Better. Better, better than people.” (Rhys, 2001:11) Antoinette is very angry with Tia as she always thinks that they are friends. It feels like Tia betrays her. This conflict initiates Antoinette to have a sense of distrust especially to the black people. At first Antoinette thinks that they are the same, they are children who belong to this island, live side by side as friends. This happens at the height of racial tension after the Emancipation that Antoinette bitterly learns that differences do matter. That is the bitter lesson Antoinette soon comprehends from the quarrel with Tia. She learns that Tia is different from her. Tia’s betrayal hurts her very much that she feels a moment of anti-social emotion as stated above, the kind of emotion that is difficult to forget.
2. Antoinette’s Marriage
It is told in Part One that Antoinette is sent away for school in the convent. Antoinette’s mother has gone mad at that time, and her stepfather, Mr Mason has gone away too from Jamaica that he is seldom to visit Antoinette at the convent (Rhys, 2001: 25-26, 31). It can be learnt that Antoinette’s mother is eventually died (Rhys, 2001: 35). After the death of her mother, it can be said that Antoinette is a wealthy heiress. In time of patriarchal Victorian society, Antoinette can do nothing about the legacy of Cosway family. She cannot do something without a guardian or a husband. Her stepfather last visit at the convent is implicitly signifies the marriage plan for Antoinette in the future as he says,” I want you to be happy, Antoinette, secure, I’ve tried to arrange it…” (Rhys, 2001: 33).
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as a Creole woman marries the English man. Antoinette suffers racial and gender inferiority. In terms of class position, Antoinette and her English husband can be told equal for both are coming from middle class family. The marriage itself is basically a marriage of convenience. It is such a marriage of convenience since the couple gets married for financial security as well as social status. Economic motif is the strongest reason behind that arranged marriage. The fact that Antoinette is wealthy heiress and the fact that the English husband is a second son explains why they need the marriage desperately. Antoinette has no better option but marrying an English fortune hunter for gaining the access to her inheritance since woman has a very weak position according to the law. In addition, it is like an “unwritten law” for a white Creole girl like her (Antoinette) to marry someone’s whiter with such an equal or a higher background of class in order to preserve or gain better social status. The English husband of Antoinette seems to fit the requirements.
It can be found in the novel in the part that shows the reader the letter written by the English man to his father:
“…Dear Father. The thirty thousand pounds have been paid to me without question or condition. No provision made for her (that must be seen to). I have a modest competence now. I will never be a disgrace to you or to my dear brother the son you love. No begging letters, no mean requests. None of the furtive shabby manoeuvres of a younger son. I have sold my soul or you have sold it, and after all is it such a bad bargain? The girl is thought to be beautiful, she is beautiful. And yet…” (Rhys, 2001: 39).
It can be learnt that the arrangement seems to be very profitable for the English husband. Immediate payment of a great deal of money without any condition, and a beautiful wife sounds good. The marriage process is no different from a business negotiation. There is a bargain and then there is an agreement to be made from both sides. Consequently, according to the agreement, there is no financial security assurance given for Antoinette. Antoinette is legally inferior since the agreement gives no beneficial outcomes for her. Antoinette is not just racially, sexually inferior, but also legally inferior to her English husband.
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Antoinette seems to emotionally clinging on it too much. When it eventually torn apart, she becomes more like a ‘zombie’, as many criticisms too often say, just like what happens to her mother Annette when her husband (Mr. Cosway) dies followed by her beloved son, Pierre. A condition of this ‘zombie-like’ is when someone actually still lives—breathing, eating, talking—but seemingly dead in the inside since the soul is wandering. As Antoinette says, “There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about” (Rhys, 2001: 81). Antoinette is marooned too when she is married to her husband. She is being cut off from her identity, sense of belonging, and self-being. She lives in such divided worlds, among the black people who reject her as a white Creole by calling her ‘white cockroach’, the white society in the islands who reject her because of the same reason, because she is a white Creole, not white enough, not pure but coloured, by calling her ‘white nigger’, and finally the white English ‘coloniser’ that she marries.
