Abstract

Women in the contemporary age have been labeled as revolutionary and anti-traditional depictions of their existence. Jean Rhys (24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a Caribbean novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose writings vehemently advocated women’s modernist innovations and Creole civil rights. She is recognized for her post-colonial works which are primarily distinguished by their analysis of the quest for third-space identity, Creole Hybridity, and the impact of colonialism on them. Most of her writings are autobiographical and are regarded to be her life’s reflection. Rhys through her novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), henceforth “WSS” in quotations, portrays Antoinette Cosway, a white Creole woman and descendant of the colonizers, who is silenced and pushed mad in an attic. She is conflicted between her white Creole identity and her loyalty to postcolonial Caribbean black inhabitants. Rhys’ Antoinette is considered as the marginalized standpoint of Charlotte Brontë’s Bertha Mason, a Caribbean bride who was portrayed as a sinister madwoman in her novel Jane Eyre (1847).Rhys examines women question through Wide Sargasso Sea, as she depicts key feminist ideals that are still relevant to date. In that novel, Rhys explores fundamental concerns of women’s liberty and autonomy, manifesting their discrimination and marginalization by patriarchy and their silence and suffering, further, attempting to deconstruct the imposed notion that women are the weak representation of society. Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea serves as both a patriarchal inscription and a challenge to male-dominated discourse and in many occasions of the novel, is linked to Rhys herself.Wide Sargasso Sea by replies to the marginalization and exploitation of a Caribbean woman, ironically portrayed as the insane woman in the attic in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Further, in Wide Sargasso Sea, she associates madness with the quest for identity, isolation, and suffering, as well as a fascination with oppressive behavior by colonists from England's patriarchal society.

Keywords

The article was added to IASJ on 2023-01-25

37 Total full text downloads since the date of addition