A Study of Displacement in Jean Rhys’ Novel Wide Sargasso Sea
Introduction
Coloured people are regarded as ‘others’, outsiders and of low by some Western people, especially if they are in minority. Although coloured people seem to be displaced when taken to foreign lands and forced into slavery, they end up being the majority and outnumbering the whites who were their colonizers. With this great dichotomy in numbers between whites and blacks, it is apparent that white colonizers will begin to feel alienated and displaced in a foreign land. A feeling of isolation overpowers them when their power as colonizers declines greatly, due to the emancipation of slaves; now being a minority in a foreign land, they will feel both a sense of isolation and a lack of belonging. There are always two sides to a story, and both sides should be taken into consideration when trying to explain and understand the actions of Western colonizers. Importantly, this paper focuses on a male character of Western origin whose feelings of alienation and displacement shed light on the reasons why he mistreats his wife, Antoinette. Based on the problem as outlined above, the objective of this study is to elucidate the reasons why Antoinette’s husband feels displaced in Rhys’ novel.
Literature Review
Wide Sargasso Sea is a famous novel, by Jean Rhys, which justifies the life events of Antoinette who is given a voice to tell her side of the story, a voice she was denied as Bertha in the novel Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. It is a novel both touching and tragic with characters in conflict, from conflicting backgrounds, who are destined to meet and go through many ordeals caused by family, society and each other. Laura Fish’s review of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys includes the following:
Wide Sargasso Sea speaks of the history of cruelty and suffering that lies behind some of the West’s accumulated wealth … This is a book that gives voice to neglected, silenced and unacknowledged stories, exploring different inflections of marginality – gender, class, race and madness.
Wide Sargasso Sea, like most of Jean Rhys’s novels, is about a main female character who is ill-treated by her domineering husband. Rhys is known for her themes of oppression and victimization of the female gender. Erika Smilowitz notes that, in each of her novels, Rhys’s work involves a repetitive pattern of women being oppressed not only by men but also by society, since ‘the men are the society’ (Smilowitz, 1986,). Smilowitz also quotes from The Fiction of Sex by Rosalind Miles who notes that Rhys’s women characters always opposed to “institutionalized masculine hostility in the shape of the law, the professions, the police, the bureaucrats” (Smilowitz, 1986, p. 93). It can be said that Jean Rhys’s works are prejudicial to men and somewhat one-sided, as she mainly writes about women’s plight. Moreover, Laura Fish also makes an appraisal in her article entitled ‘Book of a Lifetime: Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys’, where she comments:
Wide Sargasso Sea is an inspiration … Jean Rhys was a post-colonial writer whose work reminds us that “there is always another side, always”. (Fish, 2008)
According to Fish, there is always another opinion about a story, the silenced and unfortunate characters have their own past that may have led them to their demise. It is apparent that Jean Rhys views the infamous novel Jane Eyre as one which favoured the ‘English side’ and thus wrote her own version of events to explain the situation of Mr. Rochester’s first wife who was locked up in the attic. This view is supported by Catherine Geenty in her journal article, ‘Her skin was darker, her lips thicker than I had thought – An Examination of Blackness in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea’.
Most of the research that has been done on Wide Sargasso Sea conspicuously centres on Antoinette, how she is mistreated by her husband and her struggle to be accepted into society. However, this research attempts to focus on Antoinette’s unnamed husband and to tell his side of the story. Although it is difficult to shed new light on Wide Sargasso Sea, since so much has already been written about it, my research focuses on the second male narrator instead of the female protagonist.
It can be argued that the unnamed character treats Antoinette badly out of frustration, because of his feelings of alienation and estrangement that render him powerless in a foreign environment. There are scarcely any scholars or critics who have attempted to study this particular character. Mezei’s comments pertaining to the second narrator’s condition during the second part of the novel support the notion of empowerment by Antoinette:
He loses control of his narration, and Antoinette’s thoughts and words invade his mind and his speech. (Mezei, 1987, p. 10)
Postcolonial Theory
Postcolonial theory is chosen to depict the poignant novel Wide Sargasso Sea by the talented Jean Rhys. Many famous theorists and scholars have contributed to this theory and had their say in their own research on it. Post-colonialism theory has come to be known by several names, e.g. “Commonwealth literature” and “third-world literature”, by Marxist critics, as mentioned by Bressler in his work Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice (2011, p. 202).
It is seen as a struggle between continents which comprise the greater and more acknowledged Western authority over the vulnerable continents of Africa and Asia, with the former power’s ending as the latter lose the identity they had. In this way, post-colonialism arose after a timespan of some four thousand years of cultural struggle between colonizer and colonized. Charles E. Bressler elaborates further on the birth of post-colonialism theory when he says that the theory evolved from:
…colonized people’s frustrations, their direct and personal cultural clashes with the conquering culture, and their fears, hopes and dreams about the future and their own identities. (Bressler, 2011, p. 202)
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin are famous theorists who have been deeply involved in this theory, and in their book Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies they define post-colonialism thus:
Post-colonialism deals with the effects of colonization on cultures and societies … the term has been used by literary critics to discuss the various cultural effects of colonization. (Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin, 1998, p. 185)
What the scholars mean is that post-colonialism is a theory that concerns itself with studying the aftereffects of Western people taking over a certain country to expand their authority over people whom they regard as weak, and the changes that occur to the colony. Additionally, the term of post-colonialism is said to be “a collection of theoretical and critical strategies used to examine the culture of former colonies of the European empires and their relation to the rest of the world” (Makaryk, 1993, p. 155).
However, Stephen Slemon mentions that the term colonialism arises from a ‘problematic category’ with its definition being largely debated since it is ‘transhistorical and unspecific’ and its usage has varied to accommodate numerous types of domination of the historic and economic state of a colony. This is supported by the critic Nicholas Harisson who claims that the theory of post-colonialism “is not an identifiable type of theory in the same sense as deconstruction, Marxism, psychoanalysis or feminism” (2003, p. 203). It can be said that this theory is not the same as others but is rather unique.
Childs and Williams mention the critic Slemon who adds that colonialism persists as an important concept to ‘past and present’ appraisers in issues regarding the world. Zandra Kambysellis agrees that colonization is an act which conveys:
The suppression, and oftentimes overt annihilation, of the native people’s former lives and culture that comes with the new presence of an Other, an Other who believes … his culture is superior. (2 November 2012)
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Post-colonialism theory has triggered many debates amongst scholars over its definition and functions since it is known for the vastness of the key terms that fall under its scope. These various terms or topics, to name but a few among many, include universality, difference, nationalism, postmodernism as well as feminism, and have been discussed by the three famous theorists of post-colonialism, i.e. Ashcroft, Griffiths and Triffin, in their work. Even though there are many topics that can be found under this heading, Bressler notes that the main concern of post-colonialism is “the struggle that occurs when one culture is dominated by another” (2011). There are several questions that have been singled out by Peter Childs and R. J. Patrick Williams regarding post-colonial theory when discussing critiques of famous theorists, such as Ashcroft, Bhabha, Spivak and Said. Childs and Williams used ‘Wh-’ questions, i.e. what, who and when, that relate to post-colonialism. They acknowledge the fact that the term post-colonialism arose after the decline of the authority of the colonizer over the colonies, which the sum up as:
…but that sense of an ending, of the completion of one period of history and the emergence of another, is, as we shall see, hard to maintain in any simple or unproblematic fashion. (Childs & Williams, 1997, p. 1)
Therefore, when the colonizers had lost their authority, the countries that were under their control began to gain independence and this was questioned by Childs and Williams, who asked: “after whose colonialism” does the period of post-colonialism refer to? They believe that the definition of post colonialism given by Ashcroft and his team was too broad and not specific enough, and therefore did not really agree with it.
We use the term ‘post-colonial’, however to cover all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day. (Ashcroft, 1998, p. 3)
It can be seen that the definition by Ashcroft is quite general as there are many forces that are associated with the colonizing party and the colonized victims. From the questions that arose and were confronted by both Childs and Williams in their research, they came up with a conclusion to the effect that:
We do think that post-colonialism as an historical period is best understood as a phase of imperialism, in turn best understood as the globalizing of capitalism, but that it is not simply or everywhere reducible to these categories. (Childs & Williams, 1997, p. 21)
Displacement
For this paper, the concept of displacement which falls under postcolonial theory is used. The concept of displacement is defined by The Little Oxford Dictionary simply as:
Displaced person – one who has had to leave his home country as result of war, etc. (2008, p. 157)
It also denotes the fact that a person is forced to move from the comfort of their familiar surroundings to a wholly new place which is unfamiliar and strange to them. In these new surroundings, a person will have difficulty assimilating into the new culture and, slowly, a sense of seclusion will start to emerge. When one experiences a lack of belonging to a place in which one is currently residing, it will be difficult to adapt to the new environment. This will lead to loneliness and paranoia.
The experience of displacement can be seen in the life of the post-colonialism author V.S. Naipul, who was born in West Indian Trinidad but lived most of his life in England. The sense of displacement that he experienced was proven when Naipul stated, “When I speak about being an exile or refugee, I am not just using a metaphor, I am speaking literally” (Evans, 62). Naipul’s statement denotes that although he had lived in England for many years, a sense of belonging eluded him. The experience that V.S. Naipul states is comparable to that experienced by Antoinette’s husband in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea.
In the novel, the main characters experience displacement and are deeply affected by it, such that it influences their behaviour and daily life. For Antoinette, although she was born and raised in the Caribbean, she never felt like she belonged as she was creole; and as for her husband, he felt displaced as he had travelled hundreds of miles from the comforts of his home country to a foreign one which was a strange new world to him, with neither relatives nor close friends. Antoinette’s husband had no one that he could relate to regarding his emotions, and as a person deemed a powerful Western man, he had to keep his emotions in check and not reveal them to the public gaze.
This concept has constantly been associated with colonized populaces, in the same sense ignoring the fact that colonizers can also experience a sense of displacement. Leorna Farber, in her journal ‘Dis-location, Re-location: Colonial & Postcolonial Narratives of White Displacement in South Africa’, mentions two critics, Melissa Steyn and Gerald l’Ange, who have had their say on the matter of the decolonization period, noting that the colonizers felt disconnected from their ‘European roots’ during this period (2009, p. 7). From this it seems the European colonizers felt displaced when they were in a foreign land, and especially when their sense of superiority was decreasing.
Lack of Belongingness: Displacement
But the feeling of something unknown and hostile was very strong. ‘I feel very much a stranger here,’ I said. ‘I feel that this place is my enemy and on your side. (Rhys, 2001, p. 82)
In her novel Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys presents the idea of a lack of belonging in the character of Antoinette; although she was born and raised in the Caribbean, she never felt like she belonged there. This was due to the fact that she grew up in a society that treated her poorly, and this drove her to become a loner. The researcher is of the opinion that Rhys focuses on the mistreatment of her main character, Antoinette, because she favours her and sympathizes with her, thus neglecting Antoinette’s husband.
This section aims to highlight the second narrator’s feeling of not belonging and his situation will be further explained with evidence presented throughout this paper. Antoinette’s husband felt like a stranger in his wife’s country and threatened in a foreign land. This can be seen in the aforesaid dialogue, taken from Rhys’s novel, which displays evidence of his feelings of discomfort. A person experiencing a sense of not belonging characterizes the concept of displacement, which comes under the theory of post-colonialism.
The concept of displacement was formed in order to describe the results of activities involving countries which, in pursuit of political authority, colonized and terrorized third-world countries for their own benefit. As Rajeswari Sunder Rajan notes, talking about:
…the large-scale displacement and dispersal of populations across the world as a result of major political upheavals, among them the European wars, decolonization and the Cold War. (Rajan, 1)
It can be said that people were deeply affected by colonization and had started to feel alienated in their own country, because of the emerging cultures and lifestyles of their colonizers, which threatened to oust theirs. However, it can also be said that the colonizers also felt displaced in the colonies that seemed completely foreign to them, and no matter how long they lived there, the feeling of displacement would linger on.
Natalie Edwards and Chistopher Hogart, in their edited version of Gender and Displacement: “Home” in Contemporary Francophone Women’s Autobiography, are of the view that the definition of the concept of displacement supports the above statement, which alludes to the weakening progressive sense of belonging of a person in a specific habitation (2008, p. 2). This shows how displacement affects people, especially Antoinette and her husband in Wide Sargasso Sea. A displaced person will feel disconcerted and the feeling of attachment to a certain place they were once familiar with will be unfamiliar to them.
Everything is too much … Too much blue, too much purple, too much green … Dear Father … I will never be a disgrace to you or to my dear brother the son you love. No begging letters, no mean requests. (Rhys, 2001, p. 39)
Family obligations can compel a person to make certain life-changing decisions, just as the second narrator of Wide Sargasso Sea did. Leaving the comforts of home and the familiarity of a routine daily life often leads to a feeling of displacement, and in the case of the second narrator, he had to travel abroad, to the Caribbean. His decision hinged on his yearning for his father’s love and respect, as well as his dignity, and to prove that he was a man capable of doing well on his own.
Conclusion
In this research, the researcher has examined the life of the character of Antoinette’s husband in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea, written by the Dominican author Jean Rhys. Countless studies have been done on the novel and a certain pattern can be seen in the approach that researchers have used to study this novel, and this involves taking the side of ‘the other’ in the novel. ‘The other’ that is mentioned is the black people in society, and it is especially the creole woman called Antoinette who has been paid much attention as the main subject matter in other research.
The stereotyping of people based on their skin colour is an act not recommended to be imitated; but in reality, it is one of the main problems currently happening in the world today. People with white or fair skin are regarded as people with a good upbringing, cultured and superior, while people who have black or coloured skin are regarded as senseless, uncivilised and inferior when compared to ‘whites’. From this viewpoint, this labelling of people according to their skin colour is unfair and, moreover, people are not what they seem to be according to their appearance.
People are to some extent unaware of the fact that the ‘whites’ whom they think of as superior colonizers may also have their flaws. They are not always as controlled and dignified as people seem to think they are, and they may also have a moment of weakness when they face a situation that drains them of their confidence.
Given the aforementioned factors, it can be concluded that Antoinette’s husband did not cross an ocean to an unknown world simply to amuse himself. Undoubtedly, his actions were involuntary and a consequence of his father’s planning. The feeling of ostracism intensified in the moment when he realized how great was the difference between his wife’s world and his own. It can therefore beconcluded that the feelings of displacement experienced by people often lead to a feeling of alienation.
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