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Identity In Wide Sargasso Sea

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The desire to discover and uphold a form of self-identity is an essential and inert component in the alinement of inner mindful composure. The determination of identity is comprised of certain standards and necessitates that arise from within an individual to meet a level of adequacy for that identity. However, barriers from within a society can challenge the standards of an individual to question their own sense of identity or acknowledge and find solace in who they are. Without a certain and stable form of identity individuals suffer greatly and often feel inadequate as they search to fulfill the need to become wholesome. Similarly, the rise of challenge and crisis can empower their inner sense of self or identity. In Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso …show more content…

By doing so, Rhys highlights how Rochester is so insecure about his own personal identity that he is remained anonymous throughout the plight of the novel. Rochester’s identity crisis as a male stems from issues regarding the power of the English patriarchy. As the youngest son of an elite, upper-class English family, Rochester receives no inheritance from his father and is not required to carry on the family name, unlike the eldest son. Rochester, like the other characters described before, is an outsider in his own community. Rochester is essentially out casted by his father, leaving him no other choice than to marry a wealthy Creole bride to maintain a level of respect within the family. Names are defining and often carry their own sense of personal identity. Rhys depicts Rochester’s lack of influence and power through namelessness. Rochester is not able to claim a first name, or last name, and as a result Antoinette’s last name remains unchanged after their marriage. Instead, Rochester utilizes his authority and privilege as a white male to exert dominance and identity control over others to compensate for his own lack of identity. As a cruel attempt to dominate Antoinette’s identity, Rochester would rename her "Marionetta" to signify his control over her like a doll. Rochester’s inability to claim a sense of identity leaves him incomplete and to regain control he identifies others at his whim to feel

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The tactics he employs to get his way also provide insight into a major theme of the novel. The major motive for all of Mr. Rochester’s deception was to win Jane’s heart so he could marry her. He is shown to be very intuitive

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Rochester manipulated Antoinette in many ways, he manipulated her into marrying him, loving him, and trusting him. Rochester also alienates

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Rochester’s feels discomfort and weak when he arrives in first arrives in the Caribbean. While he experiences vulnerability in the environment, he feels more threatened by the powerful women he encounters. In order to impose his dominance, Rochester strips Antoinette of her confident identity. In the beginning of the novel, Antoinette is trying to determine who she is. She questions her mixed ethnicity and her ancestry of madness.

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It could be argued that Rochester’s malevolent wife, Birtha Mason represents the complete oppression of a woman, by patriarchal domination In both novels, there is a prominent power struggle between partiarcle masculine power and famine inferiority. Referring back to their pertinent feminist reading of jane eye, Gilbert and Gubar note that in male-authored books, if women are not categorized as ‘angels’, then they are villainized as a ‘monster’ (Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar, 1979). Alike both female protagonist, the male figure uses zoomorphic diction to describe Birtha, depicting her as an almost primal being, who has lost all intellectual communication, and instead resorted to ‘snarl’ and “crawls like an animal. ”(JE). In their pertinent feminist reading of Jane Eyre, Gilbert and Gubar describe bertha mason as Jane’s “truest and darkest double.’

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Many people, including students, are losing their true selves in society. Instead, human beings are united in their shared experiences, many of which include struggles for survival. Society’s contemporary struggles, however, are for something else, which often include the search for identity. Establishing identity is a universal struggle that all humans experience. For most teenagers, in particular, as they start to search for their adult selves, there is no worse time in their lives than when they don't know who they truly are.

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Rochester was a major influence on Jane as this was a critical time she was maturing, yet she did not let him get in the way of her work. The work that was expected of her what always her top priority, Rochester was her second. “I believe he is of mine;—I am sure he is,—I feel akin to him,—I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him” (Bronte 266). The relationship between Rochester and Jane was undeniable.

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You like the light brown girls better, don’t you? You abused the planters and made up stories about them, but you do the same thing. You send the girl away quicker, and with no money or less money, and that’s all the difference”. The word “mincing” here is especially biting here as it means “dainty” and reflects back onto his behaviour in Jane Eyre and his reasons behind it; Rochester is particularly threatened by women and femininity. He seems to perceive it as negative qualities to possess, and to have Antoinette claim such a thing in a feminine way is all too telling of Rochester’s personality.

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Madness as Identity Fragmentation The main focus of this essay is to prove that the madness experienced by a few of the characters in Wide Sargasso Sea is not necessarily an inherent mental illness, but rather a consequence of the stress that colonialism, patriarchy and/or the consequence of existing between spaces has placed on the identity of each of the individuals. Madness in this sense is the fragmentation of an identity, something that both Antoinette and Rochester experience as they find themselves displaced in the world of Wide Sargasso Sea. Wide Sargasso Sea is a complex post-colonial feminist text. The story is deeply psychological, and offers insight into a story never told.

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- Edward is an economically independent man with a favorable status and influential connections still looking for a profitable match. Jane will be the one in charge to unmask him to the audience: “I saw he was going to marry her [Blanche Ingram] for family, perhaps political reasons, because her rank and connections suited him” (Brontë 205) This manner of conduct converts Mr. Rochester from a hero into a villain, a perpetrator and “his project of

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