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Patriarchy And Colonialism In Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea

1495 Words6 Pages

Wide Sargasso Sea

Patriarchy and colonialism are both used as a form of repression, in the book Wide Sargasso Sea, we were introduced to Antoinette, a White Creole woman who lived in Jamaica and hailed from a family of ex-slave owners. Fast forwarding into the brilliantly, crafted storyline by Jean Rhys, we learn about the man called Mr. Rochester/Mr. Mason who enjoyed the promise of gain, in this case - Antoinette’s estate. While she held little wealth that he had set his own eyes on, he later conveniently decided that she was ‘mad’ and that she was no longer a proper companion or a functional human being. He decided to confine her to the attic of her/their house; an act that no human, ‘mad’ or sane, should have endured. The effects of colonialism showed just how different being a woman was, all the while the traditional, patriarchy system did nothing but devastate the livelihood of those around her including herself which played a vital role in regards to her torment and ultimately, her death. …show more content…

Rochester or the “mad” Creole woman whose skin color relentlessly played a part in dehumanizing her of that label- Creole. Kamau Braithwaite says in the Contradictory Omens: Cultural Diversity and Integration in the Caribbean; “White Creole cannot meaningfully identify or be identified with the spiritual world of the contemporary West Indies. That spiritual world is essentially the culture of the black ex-African majority.” (38) Growing up, Antoinette found herself marginalized due to the fact that she was white and not wealthy. Many times in the text Wide Sargasso Sea, she was referred to as “White cockroach”, showing that she was not accepted by the Jamaicans or by the whites or English people because she was not “white” enough. Her treatment was a direct result of her descent of ‘Indian

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