Discourses in Wide Sea Sargasso

Race differences and the complexities of Jamaica's social hierarchy play a significant

part in the development of the novel's key themes. Whites born in England are

distinguishable from white Creoles, who are descended from Europeans who lived in the

West Indies for one or more generations. The presence of black ex-slaves, who maintain their

own forms of stratification, further complicates the social structure. Christophine, for

example, is distinguished from the Jamaican servants by her origins on the French Caribbean

island of Martinique, as she is not one of the “real white people” (14) Furthermore, because

white slave masters across the Caribbean and the Americas were known for raping and

impregnating female slaves, there is a huge mixed-race population. Sandi and Daniel

Cosway, two of Alexander Cosway's illegitimate children, live in this gray area between

black and white society. Interactions between these racial groupings are frequently hostile.

Antoinette and her mother, on the other hand, do not share the island's totally racist attitudes.

Both women know their need on the black servants who look after them, and they have a fear

and anger for them. In this way, power structures based on race appear to be on the verge of

collapse.

Further, such themes are shown through Rochester's perspective, in which he sees

indigenous people and culture through the eyes of a colonizer. Hilda's braids and the

attendants' trailing skirts are uncivilized in his opinion. He regularly compares local women

to English ladies, the latter being, of course, superior in his opinion. This is the result of the

colonial agenda, which has rendered all aspects of indigenous people and culture primitive

and savage. Another component of the text's postcolonial aim is Jamaican embarrassment at

their black identity and desire to resemble white people. Sandi embodies this by being "like a

white man," "accepted by many white people," and building a house like the white folks.
Furthermore, he receives appreciation from black Jamaicans for this, showing a collective

postcolonial alienation with one's own cultural identity in favor of that of the oppressors.

Womanhood is intertwined with concerns of captivity and psychosis. When

Antoinette is a girl in the convent school, she is presented with ideals of correct feminine

deportment. Miss Germaine and Helene de Plana, two of the other Creole girls, symbolize the

feminine traits that Antoinette is to acquire and emulate: beauty, virginity, and mild, even-

tempered manners. Mother St. Justine's praises for the "poised" and "imperturbable" sisters

reflect a femininity ideal that contrasts with Antoinette's own hot and fiery personality.

Antoinette's enthusiasm, in fact, leads to her melancholy and apparent insanity. Rhys also

examines her female characters' legal and financial reliance on the men in their lives.

Following the death of her first husband, Antoinette's mother views her second

marriage as a chance to leave her existence in Coulibri and reclaim her status among her

peers. Marriage improves the fortune of the males in the novel by giving them access to their

wives' inheritance. In both circumstances, womanhood is associated with an infantile reliance

on the nearest guy. Indeed, it is Antoinette and Annette's dependence that leads to their

demise. Both ladies marry white Englishmen to assuage their anxieties of being vulnerable

outsiders, but the men betray and desert them.

Colour symbolism in the text is a discourse in and of itself, adding to the previously

described discourses. The language is dense with light and dark binaries, which serve as

metaphors for racial problems by depicting darkness as the common denominator. Phrases

like “death came very close in the darkness” (56) are pertinent in this regard. Moreover, color

becomes a mirror for the characters’ psychological state, when examining the way it is

described from their varying perspectives. Where Antoinette pleasantly notices colors around

her, Rochester describes them as: “Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The
flowers too red”. This is related to the spatial discourse in the text, wherein Jamaican nature

is richly described by Antoinette prior to her imprisonment in London.