Ahmed 1

Rasel Ahmed

Prof. Md. Mizanur Rahman

Registration No. : 2014226023

Department of English

November 24, 2016

Transitory Period and the White Niggers in Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea sketches a society undergoing huge and significant

change and relates the turmoil endured by a distinct part of the society owing to this change

occurring at the backdrop of the “Emancipation Act” (Rhys 1) and a transitional shift as a

result. It incorporates descendant of the Creole, Antoinette Cosway, and her conflict as a key-

point to visualize the conflict of the West Indies: a conflict conjoining three distinct races- the

Blacks, the European Whites and the Creoles as they interact during extreme racial tension in

nineteenth century Jamaica. The disturbing animosity begins to cause a conflicting separation

among the white plantation owners and the newly freed black slaves followed by suspicion

and hatred towards each other owing to the act (1). The condition of the people of mixed

race, people like Antoinette, who is physically European and yet belongs to the culture of the

black Jamaica, gets more and more critical owing to that transition. Nobody approves of her

and rather views her as a “white cockroach” (61), and thus she gets less chance of acceptance

into elicit British society. Her birthplace dually condemns her. This paper aims at studying

the transitory period and its impact, i.e. anxiety, identity crisis and conflict, upon the White

Jamaicans.

While the whole text sings of the psychological stresses being forced upon the White

Jamaicans, this is rather a universal problem accommodating thousands of people of different

identities, not owing to colonialism. This idea incorporates with The Shadow Lines which

deals with the riot among the Hindus and Muslims, not seemingly an outcome of colonialism.
 Ahmed 2

This results in religious anxiety, religious identity and religious conflict causing the death of

people. This evidence is present in May’s speech, the English lady from the novel. It goes

like this:

They’d[the rioting Muslims] cut Khalil’s stomach open. The old man’s head

had been hacked off. And they’d cut Tridib’s throat from ear to ear [during a

riot back in 1964 in Dhaka]. (Ghosh 251)

It holds to the point that colonialism is not the reason behind the struggle and change in the

lives of Antoinette. This incident traces back to the partition of 1947 implemented by the

colonizing English empire, and thus, by employing the policy of divide and rule, they enroot

the conflict among the Muslims and Hindus in Indian Subcontinent. This, thus, is the evil of

the colonial spirit that provokes violence and so, in Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette’s family

vanishes, she goes on to suffer all through her life. Transitory period and the changes

followed by are not mere universal problems. This is rather a problem the core of which is in

colonial rules and thus all the problems arise owing to that simple problem.

Rhys’ use of varied narrative voices is one of the most striking aspects of the novel,

and this in turn promotes a beautifully expository style, capable of disclosing the personal

perspectives of both central characters. This feature becomes of paramount importance as the

relationship between Antoinette and Rochester, two characters who come from entirely

opposing cultures, and yet who exhibit many biographical parallels, is analyzed. As Rhys

allows readers into the minds of Antoinette and Rochester, it is seen that they struggle with a

sense of belonging, both culturally, as well as within their families. In a sense, they are each

islands, each a representative of the island culture that they consider theirs, and each a lonely

body adrift in a sea of strangers.

Jean Rhys’ writing itself, focusing on male exploitation of women, on women’s

resistance and collusion with that exploitation, on marginalized, exiled figures from the Third
 Ahmed 3

World, on the power politics of colonialism, and on class antagonisms and conflicts, makes

her a writer much in tune with contemporary critical concerns. The ways in which Rhys’

work explores the anomalous position of the white West Indian woman and her position in

the half-slave and half-free culture of the early nineteenth-century Caribbean, exposes the

interrelations of domination and submission between England and its colonies, male and

female, and black and white, and makes a criticism of the tangential imperialist plot of Jane

Eyre with Wide Sargasso Sea. At the same time, Rhys’ identity as a white West Indian

woman and her long time inhabitance in England and other European countries neither make

her acceptable to West Indian nor to European culture (“Jean Rhys”). This very identity crisis

of Rhys is uttered in the novel in Antoinette Cosway’s, whose identity to the Englishman is

Bertha Mason, voice “… between you I often wonder who I am and where my country and

where do I belong and why was I ever born at all” (Rhys 63). This very crisis faced by those

white West Indians, no doubt, Jean Rhys was one of them, shapes the background of the

novel. In doing so this novel serves as background information on Jane Eyre which focuses

on the disposal of mad Bertha Mason in order to establish the English girl Jane Eyre as the

perfect wife of Rochester (Geetha 3).

Just the same as of Jean Rhys’ life, identity crisis is very deeply enrooted in

postcolonial lives. Although instances from twenty first century sociopolitical context suggest

that here the generations are widely introduced as hybrid generation in lieu with the capitalist

system and different terms, giving this a legal basis, are being applied by many—

globalization, global village, global citizen, netizen, free-market are few terms to name in this

regard—this tendency doesn’t provide identity to people with a hybrid cultural identity just

the same as Wide Sargasso Sea’s Antoinette. “White cockroach”(Rhys 61) hasn’t become an

identity for Antoinette. It rather pulls her back into a longing for an identity of her own. To

put this argument into further depth, Lingua Franca doesn’t cater to the needs of people living
 Ahmed 4

in marginal level, and in most cases mother language serves the most part of communicatory

needs. This is because mutual communication itself requires a mother tongue. And the

generations who neither belong to native nor to any particular culture are in the Sargasso.

This tendency is the result of a mutual communication of cultural Diaspora and an intimate

connection of a generation to a different culture alongside the native culture. These two

different cultural variants are, as a result, predominating in a generation. Ila from Amitav

Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines and Antoinette from Sargasso Sea are cultural refugees cause

they got in touch with more than one culture. Especially Antoinette portrays amalgamation of

two or more cultures inside a person and thus undergoes sufferings and cherishes a distaste

towards own culture. This crisis gradually gives birth to a transitional conflict which gives in

anxiety, identity crisis and conflict.

This fact is further established in the novel, first with the abolition of slavery act in

1833 (1) and then, when this results in a violent conflict among the Creoles and the black

West Indians. The evidence that establishes it is when “a horrible noise swelled up, like

animals howling, but worse. We heard stones falling on the glacis” (19). The worse

indication to this is relevantly present in the text when “they [the blacks] set fire to the back

of the house” (19) denoting an attack upon the dwelling place of Antoinette’s father. This

occurrence of violence therefore sets the rest of the novel’s plot and even plays the role of the

key point in forming the luck of the protagonists. Drake notes—

The struggle for Antoinette's survival—for the survival of the Caribbean—

against European patriarchy and empire, the struggle for a voice to re-inscribe

a past history and construct a future out of genuine indigenous cultural

materials—to become something other than a copy—is the struggle

Christophine and Sandi fight and apparently lose to Rochester at the end of

part Two. (195)

 Ahmed 5

This defeat separates Christophine and Sandi, Antoinette’s colored friends, from her. This

sounds alike the divide and rule policy of the English empire in India and make the white

West Indians confront the black West Indians as rivals as the violent attack is mentioned

above.

This rivalry isolates Antoinette from the black community and thus gives space to the

colonizers to take advantage of her solitude by marrying her off to an Englishman. In this

aspect, her opinion has been of greater significance. At first she is afraid of marriage as she

talks to Rochester—

‘You don’t wish to marry me?’

‘No.’ She spoke in a very low voice.

‘But why?’

‘I’m afraid of what may happen.’ (Rhys 45)

The unfortunate truth is that she marries him. The facts that drive her towards doing that are

her isolation from the black community and the violent experience which she had to undergo

in her early girlhood. All of these serve well to separate her and force her into confronting the

ugly truth that she is a white West Indian woman and, therefore, belong to another white

man, be it anyone of the Creole community or from England; but not black. With Mr.

Mason’s intervene she is “shy about [her] coloured relatives” (27). She is married off to

Rochester who is English and thus it provides her an entrance to Englishness, a seemingly

end of the Sargasso situation and a beginning of belonging.

Englishness means a disaster upon her which takes away her properties and thus she’s

made a doll in the hands of patriarchy. Although it’s still debatable that she chooses this for

herself and succumbs to her husband for shelter and safety, this yet doesn’t mean an easy

bargain for her. In return she has to handover everything that she possesses (68). Rochester’s
 Ahmed 6

arrival in Jamaica has been on purpose and he wants to achieve a big fortune by marrying a

Creole girl. With one of his letters to his father he confesses that disdainful truth—

Dear Father. The thirty thousand pounds have been paid to me without

question or condition. No provision made for her … I will never be a disgrace

to you or to my dear brother the son you love. No begging letters, no mean

requests. (39)

This letter proves the cruel intention of the English man who comes in Jamaica and woos

Antoinette just to disinherit her from her properties and in return takes all her possessions

away. Marrying Antoinette has been a way of earning money and this he does in a deceptive

way. Earlier, she had lost her ties with her colored relatives and neighbors and this time, she’s

lost her fortune to Rochester who seems to have earned a big fortune by marrying her. This

has been the established English norms and as a realist person Rochester takes the advantage

of it. The death of Antoinette’s parents and only brother left her all alone and the

emancipation act, too, reckons her no good future. Rochester, therefore, cannot be blamed

alone. Still, his attitude towards her proves this all wrong. When he says her “you are safe”

(56), it sounds most alike a promise and reassurance that her time will no longer be like the

time of her past. But inside he holds to a distasteful spite towards her as he wishes, “Die then.

Sleep. It is all I can give you” (57).

Losing every penny to Rochester, Antoinette becomes an Englishman’s wife who in

turn despises her in every possible ways. Cultural differences may seem to play a role in their

relation as they fail to understand each other and thus, this despise in Rochester’s mind is

acceptable. He neither understands Antoinette nor does he understand her ways of living in

quite warm relations with the black servants dwelling in their house in Coulbiri. Although

seemingly innocent, Rochester has a minimum idea of cultural difference and as a stranger,

he has to give it a try to understand the new culture he is acquainted with, which he doesn’t.
 Ahmed 7

He’s dominated by the colonial mindset that makes him the superior among the colonized.

According to English law, as a man he’s superior to women and thus becomes a dominant

from both perspectives. Further, to add to the oddness of the situation, he, although marries

Antoinette, doesn’t approve of her, “It was all very brightly coloured, very strange, but it

meant nothing to me. Nor did she, the girl I was to marry” (44). Her identity, with his

attitude, now reaches a point where it has no value at all and this is furthered by the hatred of

the black people.

All these discourse naturally hint at some wider aspect, here Antoinette is not merely

a character, she is something more than that; a representative of Creole society just like Ila

from The Shadow Lines. They are created, not born, by a colonized society and thus they are

put into a Sargasso situation, and even there’s doubt regarding that, too. The novel’s narrative

is suggestive of that. While Antoinette goes towards madness, her husband is reluctant,

devoid of any feeling of responsibility and he doesn’t act like a husband. Rather, he acts like

a slave owner by taking her to England (108) as though he owns her and astonishingly

slavery has been over through the emancipation act of 1833. Yet, he has been compelled to

do so by his father to who he writes letters from time to time expressing his inertia. This may

relieve him of what he has done to Antoinette. From her early childhood she has been

tormented with anxiety and separation owing to her mother’s madness. And the trauma she

has had in herself after her brother, Pierre, “died on the way down” (24). All these get back to

her as a cure, make her life difficult. Aforementioned patriarchy makes it impossible for her

to find any place of her own, she can neither go away nor can she endure such torments, but

she has budding hopes after meeting him, “I never wished to live before I knew you. I always

thought it would be better if I died” (54). The trauma she had had in her childhood took away

all her wishes and desires to live anymore until he comes in her life. Her hope gradually fades

away leaving her with all these anxieties, conflicts that victimize her. But before that, makes
 Ahmed 8

her a Creole, takes away all her possessions and thus makes her identity crisis paramount and

she maintains

It was a song about a white cockroach. That’s me. That’s what they call all of

us who were here before their own people in Africa sold them to the slave

traders. And I’ve heard English women call us white niggers. So between you

I often wonder who I am and where my country and where do I belong and

why was I ever born at all. (63)

This proves Antoinette’s awareness about the change that has been happening around her and

her traumatized childhood full of anxieties and conflicts should have made her very cautious

of every step she is about to take. Surprisingly she doesn’t do that. This very fact releases

Rochester of his guilt and any of the conflict, anxiety and identity crisis teaches anyone a

great deal of lesson which goes amiss in Antoinette. Her over-dependence serves her with

people who trick her and consume her sanity from time to time and thus she gradually goes

towards madness. Despite this, it’s the English law that lies in the root of all her sufferings

and ensures supremacy of the male upon the female. Besides, the Western feeling of ego

keeps her from marrying any black man. So, for the very complex chained reaction, she is

bound to fall prey in the hands of English society that consumes her identity as Antoinette

Cosway and makes her Bertha Mason, disposes her after finishing the consumption as

Antoinette maintains, “Christophine, he does not love me, I think he hates me. He always

sleeps in his dressing room… He was not like that at first” (67). It denotes an alteration of

attitude and love, the reason has been the conflict and anxiety. Had this not been because of

that, it might have been different. Christophine maintains—

All women, all colours, nothing but fools… I thank my God. I keep my

money. I don’t give it to no worthless man. (68)

 Ahmed 9

Antoinette has given away all her properties including herself to Rochester. She’s thus proven

a fool. But her foolishness has nothing to do with her suffering because there’s another

important thing about the English people, “they thief your money” (69). This is bit subtle and

denote the deepest of the colonial purposes and Antoinette is a scapegoat in their attempt to

expand the British Colony. This is the final nail to the coffin of her hope and thus she

becomes startled with the feeling of anxiety, conflict and identity crisis that keep on haunting

her all through her life.

The penultimate result of these is her schizophrenia; she loses her track and ends up in

nowhere. Rochester’s takig her to Thornfield Hall makes up the idea that she’s physically in

England and thus answers the disputation that she’s physically in England, this means she’s

no longer in her Creole identity. Yet, when she wakes up at Thornfield Hall, she narrates, “It

was that night, I think, that we changed course and lost our way to England” (117). This idea

of schizophrenia is further symbolical. Her memories of the past fades away, she’s no longer

anyone who belongs to any time, any group. She’s become empty, devoid of any dream or

desire. Her conversation with Grace Pool goes on like this—

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me that you don’t remember anything about last

night.’

‘When was last night?’ I said.

‘Yesterday.’

‘I don’t remember yesterday.’ (117)

The transitory period and the position of the Creoles, as are suppressed by the impacts

of anxieties, identity crises and conflicts, render a deep impact in their lives making them full

of torments as outcomes of these. Emancipation act has thus negatively affected the Creoles

of the novel that surrounds several problems being the biggest part of everything that it

covers; a new change in the social structure of West Indian colony acknowledging white
 Ahmed 10

English and black West Indians, there remained another group of people who had to live

unacknowledged and they were prone to a wide range of problems owing to this act. No

society is free from problems and bitter realities, and there’s always a gradual change taking

place in everywhere. In that process change is commonly noticeable where a group of people

falls down and the other group raises up, that’s a universal truth of societies and thus, it is

maintained that change is life. Now, there’re concepts of right and wrong, evil and good those

come into consideration. Righteous changes bringing good outcomes for the people without

causing any harm to others are the expected and accepted types of change and on the

contrary, the changes visible in Wide Sargasso Sea don’t benefit the Creoles and rather put

their identity at stake. These types of changes are not what a society needs. It’s better to avoid

such changes and make sure no such people as Creole are put at stake. Thus, this may help

ensure stabilized peace in society.

 Ahmed 11

Works Cited

Drake, Sandra. “Race and Caribbean Culture as Thematics of Liberation in Jean Rhys’ Wide
Sargasso Sea.” Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea Backgrounds Criticism, edited by
Judith L. Raiskin, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1999, pp. 193-206.

Geetha, B.J. “The Retrieval of Relegated Identity of Bertha Mason in Jean Rhy’s Wide
Sargasso Sea.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 4, no. 2,
2013, pp. 125-133.

Ghosh, Amitav. The Shadow Lies. Oxford UP, 1988.

Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Penguin Books, 2001.

Wikipedia contributors. "Jean Rhys." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The
Free Encyclopedia, 12 Oct. 2016. Web. 23 Nov. 2016.

http://web.williams.edu/Economics/wp/AshrafGalorCulture.pdf