LITR 5831 Colonial-Postcolonial
Literature
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Amy Shanks
Research Post 1
Jane Eyre
and Wide
Sargasso Sea: a relationship analysis
I recently read Jane Eyre for a
women’s literature course, so when The
Wide Sargasso Sea was mentioned in our class discussion, I was immediately
interested in finding analyses of the novels’ colonial-postcolonial
relationship. The colonial-postcolonial coursework has focused on the vast scope
of world literature; therefore, I found the prospect of analyzing closely
related texts to be an interesting supplement. My focus for the first research
posting is identifying the relationship between
Jane Eyre and
The Wide Sargasso Sea and finding
comparative analyses over their colonial-postcolonial connection.
The
Novels’ Relationship
Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea has
been referred to as a “creative response” (Cappello 47) to Charlotte Bronte’s
canonical Jane Eyre. Through the life
of the protagonist Antoinette, Rhys reworks the past of Bertha Rochester, who
received a diminutive spotlight in Bronte’s tale. In her article “The Other
Stage: from Jane Eyre to
Wide Sargasso Sea,” Sylvie Maurel
praises the latter novel’s departure from its predecessor, describing it as a
transformation from a “wintry romance into a tropical romance” and commenting
that the story “liberates the romantic material that is suppressed in
Jane Eyre” (155). Maurel also notes
Rhys’s shift to the postcolonial perspective of the “mad Creole, that figure of
otherness put to good use in Jane Eyre
to represent Jane’s suppressed angry self, and shows us her ‘other’ life in
the Caribbean islands” (155). Maurel’s lauding of
The Wide Sargasso Sea provides a
candid comparison of the novels and successfully piqued my interest in it,
specifically a curiosity for its critical reception (which I plan to research in
my second posting).
Differing Perspectives
Susan Arpajian Jolley provides similar accolades for Rhys’s work, but from a
pedagogical perspective. In her article “Teaching ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ in New
Jersey,” Jolley states that it “grabs us and throws us into another world of
sights, sounds, smells and, most of all, alternative perspectives” (61). Jolley
spends some time analyzing Rhys’s work through a feministic lens, stating that
it reveals the “effects of a male-dominated society on women” (62). Jolley
alludes to Bronte’s disparaging depiction of Bertha as the “madwoman who stands
in the way of happiness for Jan and Edward Rochester” (61) in order to extol
Rhys’s reconstruction of the character, stating that the novel is “both a
prequel to Bronte’s novel as well as a deconstruction of many of the assumptions
inherent in it” (61-62). In addition, while analyzing gender relations, Jolley
observes, “In a cruel demonstration of the power of naming, Rochester, who
eschews all reminders of her island descent, calls his wife the more
British-sounding Bertha” (62). Jolley provides a wealth of background
information on the two novels’ interconnectedness and serves as a perfect segue
into my research of the their colonial-postcolonial relationship.
The Colonial-Postcolonial Relationship
The relationship between colonial and postcolonial literature can be hostile.
Silvia Cappello’s “Postcolonial discourse in Wide Sargasso Sea: Creole discourse
vs. European discourse, periphery vs. center, and marginalized people vs. White
Supremacy” delves into the intricate aspect of language analysis and
postcolonial perspective. The in-depth evaluation of the two texts is a
provocative read. According to
Cappello, the postcolonial literature agenda “subverts the imperial privilege of
the ‘centre’ in order to give voice to the ‘periphery,’ which has been silent
for so long” (47). In her article
“Navigating the ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’: Colonial history, English fiction, and
British empire,” Laura Ciolkowski contends with Cappello’s observations, further
exposing Antoinette’s complicated status by observing that she is “Not quite
English and not quite ‘native,’ Rhys’s Creole woman straddles the embattled
divide between human and savage, core and periphery, self and other” (340). Rhys
provides a voice for the colonized minority by basing her story on Bertha’s
past. Cappello does not spend time vacillating over whether or not the colonizer
is the “villain;” she unwaveringly supports the binary opposition relationship
by capturing the victimization of the colonized (Bertha),
stating,
“It is a time that the world hears ‘the other side’ (Rhys 82) of the story, the
voice of the denigrated and supplanted native cultures, the point of view those
who have been considered inferior for unjustified reasons” (47). While
Jane Eyre focuses on the titular
character’s point of view, depicting the Creole minority as an inconvenient
burden, Wide Sargasso Sea flips the
perspective to show the postcolonial side: “The choice to rewrite canonical
narrative of Western discourse is a common colonial practice where the telling
of a story from another point of view is considered an extension of the
deconstructive project to explore the gaps and silences in the text”
Ciolkowski’s article provides a range in criticism, expressing both praise and
censure for Rhys’s work. Not
completely convinced in the author’s subversive attempts, Ciolkowski suggests,
“In spite of Rhys’s celebrated promise to give Bronte’s silent madwoman a chance
to tell her story...Antoinette persists in replicating many of the basic
elements of the English imperial narratives she scorns” (346). She further
elaborates, “Antoinette follows in the path of the Englishman who routinely
elides the differences among the native populations over whom he rules” (346).
Cappello instead focuses on praising Rhys’s intentional use of language, stating
the author “represents her extraordinary ability to subvert the ideologies of
the West, deconstructing the European discourse and monocentrisim” (47).
Cappello believes that Rhys intentionally uses specific language to emphasize
the colonial-postcolonial divergence, noting her use of “both Standard British
English (in order to represent the European discourse in the character of
Rochester) and the Jamaican varieties of English as the language of the
periphery, i.e. Creole and the English of the black community” (48) to emphasize
the unique voice of the “other.”
In this preliminary research,
Ciolkowski’s
article was the only criticism I found that negatively commented on
Wide Sargasso Sea. Discovering a
range of critical responses to Rhys’s novel is the direction I would like to
take for my second research posting. Additional areas I would like to pursue are
finding other colonial-postcolonial comparisons to see if areas other than
language usage and perspective are analyzed and researching how
Wide Sargasso Sea and
Jane Eyre were received upon their
initial releases and seeing if those responses subsequently changed over time.
Works Cited
Cappello, Silvia. "Postcolonial discourse in Wide Sargasso Sea: Creole discourse
vs. European discourse, periphery vs. center, and marginalized people vs. White
Supremacy." Journal of Caribbean Literatures 6.1 (2009): 47+.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Oct. 2011.
Ciolkowski, Laura E. "Navigating the 'Wide Sargasso Sea': colonial history,
English fiction, and British empire." Twentieth Century Literature 43.3
(1997): 339+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Oct. 2011.
Jolley, Susan Arpajian. “Teaching ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ in New Jersey.”
The English Journal 94.3 (2005):
61-66. Jstore. Web. 1 Oct. 2011.
Maurel, Sylvie. “The Other Stage: from Jane Eyre to Wide Sargasso Sea.”
Bronte Studies 34.2 (2009): 155-161.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Oct.
2011.
