ipl-logo

Wide Sargasso Sea Gender Analysis

983 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Themes of wide sargasso sea

Resistance to Traditional Gender Roles in Wide Sargasso Sea The short literary work, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys explores the life of Antoinette Cosway, a young white Creole heiress who marries a white English man, Edward Rochester. Rochester’s name is never mentioned in the novel but it is implied that he is the character from Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre. Antoinette’s marriage to Rochester is forced and arranged by her step brother Richard Mason. Antoinette and Rochester both lived in Granbois, Jamaica and later in their marriage relocate to England. The novel is polyvocality meaning that it is primarily narrated by many voices that of Antoinette, Rochester and Grace Poole. Rochester merely agrees to marry Antoinette to become a rich man in the English society; no feelings attached. During the course of their marriage he suppresses her to the point where she goes lunatic. The reader will be able see how Antoinette’s resistance to patriarchy gets her confined; through her marriage to Rochester, her sexuality and her psychological state because of the cultural programming of gender roles in colonized British Jamaica. Rochester sees marriage as a form of economic power and dominance. He agrees to marry Antoinette so that he could sustain and support himself. “I have sold my soul or you sold it, and after all is it such a …show more content…

Rochester promises Antoinette “peace, happiness, safety” in bargain of their marriage which according to Lois Tyson is the patriarchal concept of masculinity (Rhys 47). Men are expected to provide security for women. According to Robert Kendrick, Rochester accepts her only because of the symbolic value she carries within the dominant order- her fortune and her beauty make her a prized possession for him, an easy way to acquire his status as an “independent”

Show More
Related
2253 Words | 10 Pages

She falls in love with the man that she gets to know on the inside, not by what is on the outside. She falls in love with the man who speaks French to her and tries to spoil her any chance that he gets. Rochester said to Jane “My bride is here," he said, again drawing me to him, "because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?” (Bronte, 87).

Read More
1536 Words | 7 Pages

How do we see courage in The Red Badge of Courage and hunger game” Hunger game and the red badge of courage are two classical works that describe one of the greatest things in the world----courage. In those masterpieces, both author put a great effort on describing how did their story’s protagonist overcame those difficulties in the war in order to structure a perfect story and impress their audiences. Although the two author used different way to present “courage” on their protagonists, there are still two way that the two author both used to present courage; first, both authors show courage on their story’s protagonists by illustrating their protagonists’ feeling after they made the decision and the reason of why they made their decision.

Read More
239 Words | 1 Pages

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

Read More
1434 Words | 6 Pages

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.’

Read More
1080 Words | 5 Pages

Rochester as her housemaid Christophine, is often seen acting as a motherly figure and acts as her protector against Mr. Rochester’s attempts to control and abuse her. In furtherance, although they have a strange relationship, seeing that Christophine was given to her mother as a wedding present, she and Antoinette still share a nurturing relationship which Mr. Rochester simply does not have. In further detail, though, Antoinette still suffers from not having two parental figures, she still has somewhat of a caretaker and “base” to report back to when she needs it. Despite, Antoinette 's lack of two paternal parental figures who deeply care for her, Christophine acts as a pseudo-mother figure who looks after Antoinette, which counters she and Mr. Rochester’s

Read More
1691 Words | 7 Pages

Both characters, venturing out of their gender roles, find ways to compliment and figure out who the other person really is, and, in the end, a burgeoning love fully blooms. When examining the gender roles of Mr. Rochester and Jane, both are a blend of each and life seems better when conventional gender roles are forgotten. In Rochester and Jane’s first meeting, the two begin to show their blended gender roles immediately. Rochester is first described as having a “dark face” with “stern features”, with a complexion that seems, “ireful and thwarted” (146).

Read More
723 Words | 3 Pages

Regardless of socio-economic background or where you live, in Finland, every child is assured the same type of education with a similar curriculum. The Ministry of Education promotes equality in education and insures a basic education for everyone. This is an initiative that has been in place since 973. A core curriculum has been established by the Finnish National Board of Education, and this education is free for Finnish citizens, including course materials and school lunches. Moving in this direction, The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers have developed U.S. Common Core State Standards Initiative for schools in the U.S., which “are the first step in providing young people with a high quality education.”

Read More
431 Words | 2 Pages

As an adult, Jane asserts her independence by rejecting unequal marriage. When Jane finds out that the man she was to marry, Mr. Rochester, was already wed, she ran away. Mr. Rochester pleaded passionately for her to stay, revealing his unfortunate history and even threatening to use physical force to restrain Jane. Both tactics failed since, as Jane puts it, her conscience personified strangles her passion for Rochester. Being a mistress to Rochester in addition to being financially and socially inferior to him prompts her to leave him.

Read More
1044 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
1910 Words | 8 Pages

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.

Read More
1454 Words | 6 Pages

The sense of belonging to a place seems to be important for people as an assistance to find their own identity that will define them as a person. In most of cases, people belong to one place, but for those who find themselves trapped in an uncertainty of whether they belong to a place or to another this search of identity becomes a much more complicated task. It is then when racial prejudices arouse, but they emerge not only from the person who is looking for his identity, but from those surrounding him. Each of them has grown up in a manner that will determine the way in which they see the rest of people, and because not all of them have grown up in the same way, some differences and controversies will show up at the time of determining where

Read More
1482 Words | 6 Pages

{Rochester admits that he could not be alone and that he has always craved some type of love even if he didn’t love his mistress back.} He tells Jane, “Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of mistresses. The first I chose was Celine Varens--another of those steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them. You already know what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered singularly handsome.

Read More
854 Words | 4 Pages

Introduction Undoubtedly, two female authors Charlotte Brontë and Jean Rhys went down in history with their novels Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea which gained the hearts of people, especially women who might see themselves in the destinies of the two women depicted in the novels, and might be inspired, amazed, indignant or resentful by Jane’s unyieldingness, adherence to principles, braveness, desire for love and Antoinette’s energy, exotic nature, and madness. Doubtless, the novel of Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre belongs to the most published and most read novels within the English literature. Among the very talented Brontë sisters, Charlotte excels the most, but it does not mean she would overshadow her sisters. Her novel Jane Eyre was published

Read More
1870 Words | 8 Pages

In Wide Sargasso Sea, it is Daniel Cosway—in his first letter—that informs Rochester that Antoinette’s family suffers from madness. Daniel writes, ‘There is madness in that family. Old Cosway die raving like his father before him’ and further writes about Mrs Cosway’s descent into madness, and that Antoinette is showing the same symptoms (Part Two, 58-59). Depending on the perspective, this could be seen as something Rochester echoes in Jane Eyre, ‘Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family;—idiots and maniacs of three generations!’ (249).

Read More
805 Words | 4 Pages

- 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

Read More

More about Wide Sargasso Sea Gender Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document