Are You My Mother?
One theme that I found repeated over and over in Wide Sargasso Sea is Antoinette’s attachment and resortment to objects in order to replace the people around her. In the very beginning of the novel, her narrative voice is established as somewhat void of emotion, yet sullen at the same time. She rarely narrated her emotions or provided vivid imagery, but when describing the nature at Coulibri, her tone completely changes. Antoinette describes in detail everything about the garden, painting it as a romanticized and beautiful scene. Contrast the sheer emotion she puts into her description of the garden with the narration involving her mother. When talking about Anette, Antoinette is cold and matter of fact, and we can only derive her emotions from small side notes or the facts she gives us.
Slightly later, Antoinette describes the piece of wood that she keeps under her bed. She narrates, “I grew very fond of it, I believed that no one could harm me when it was near me, to lose it would be a great misfortune.” Antoinette has formed some sort of attachment to this plank- a greater attachment than she has with even her own mother. As a child, all of Antoinette’s attachments were ripped away from her. Her father drinks himself to death, her mother acts as if she hates her, and the only person that she has throughout her childhood, Christophine, eventually leaves her life as well. All Antoinette wants is love and protection, but her efforts to find these basic human needs are almost always rejected, so she has to turn to the stationary world around her that she know can’t abandon her. In place of the protection a parent is supposed to offer, Antoinette’s piece of wood steps in and makes her feel safe. Not receiving any love or affection from her mother, she falls in love with the garden.
Ultimately, even the stationary objects are taken from Antoinette by the people around her. The piece of wood and garden burn at the hands of the townspeople and her (ex) best friend. Looking glasses seem to be a last resort, and she relies on them for validation and sanity. Once her husband rips mirrors from her life, Antoinette’s humanity and sense of self leave with it. The only thing she is left with to love is her fire-red dress, which is her one solace during her imprisonment. Antoinette has never gotten what she needed and longed for from the people who are supposed to provide love and support, and even when she finds something else to give her what she needs, the people in her life still manage to take it away and leave her alone. Can we really blame her for going crazy? What do you guys think?
I think this idea of Antoinette longing to hold onto objects in place of affection from people is so interesting and I definitely see the validity in it. The last paragraph was especially thought provoking, as you connected her constant mentioning of the looking glass in the early parts of the novel with the removal of any looking glasses in the attic of the ending scene. I was wondering the whole time while I was reading the novel why Antoinette kept mentioning the looking glass and "seeing herself in them" - maybe she was trying to find the affection within those objects but through herself, but never actually truly finding them -like how she saw Tia as if she was looking into a mirror, but in reality Tia was a sight of lost hope in a relationship with Antoinette.
ReplyDeleteWith that traumatic of a childhood and even later life, it's not surprising that someone would break from 'normal' behaviors. We mentioned in class that it was not inevitable that Antoinette would go crazy, if people would give her a normal life. But they didn't, and so I don't see any way to blame her for her fate. She couldn't really leave, since her childhood didn't give her any sense of independence, rather it gave her a longing for dependence. She was always looking up to people, rather than down on them, so she never became very assertive. I think her insanity is a result of her environment and the people around her rather than anything she had control over.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of Antoinette's sanity has been a big theme of discussion in class. She was most definitely a victim of her environment and culture, and in that sense we can not blame her for her place in society. With having no love and affection from her family, her emotional state is also impacted and though many of her actions are questionable, I don't think it is her fault that she began to lose her sanity. The people around her and her environment played a larger role than her own actions and also because of her predestined ending, she didn't have much of her own choice in her sanity.
ReplyDeleteI think that the cause for Antoinette's madness is a combination of multiple things which may include her deprivation of comforting material things but probably the biggest reason is because of her marriage. Rochester is the reason she is taken away from her home itself and he deprives her of himself in their marriage and then cheats on her, causing her to become a drunkard and insane so I think he is more to blame than anything else.
ReplyDeleteI believe that anyone in the situation she was in could loose their sanity. In a way what Antoinette was forced to go through is a form of torture that caused her to loose any sense of self. By loosing the belongings she holds close to her she is further pushed into the realm of insanity and then ultimately lost forever.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your general description of the way Antoinette writes about the natural beauty around Coulibri, and indeed she starts to explicitly take refuge in nature as a child to escape the harsh social realm outside ("better than people"). But even in these at times edenic descriptions, there's often a subtle undercurrent of menace--the "razor grass" that cuts her legs open (still "better than people"), or the "octopus orchid" in the garden with its tentacle-like roots, which Antoinette "never went near." She later says to Rochester, who feels that the landscape is "on her side," that it is in fact indifferent to both of them--she might have more of a historical connection to and familiarity with the place, but she has no deeper connection to the environment than anyone else does.
ReplyDeleteSo much of Antoinette's self worth is based off of wealth: as a child she is pushed out of higher society because of her family's lack of wealth. So, I think the connection to objects could very likely be due to a need to have these sorts of material things that at least have some power. The plank has some sort of "magic" which makes her superior to the other people who had shunned her. She has "magic," isn't she so cool. At the same time, the red dress represents a material beauty and a need for beauty in society. When everything else is taken away from her and she feels exceedingly inferior (she is trapped in an attic and being cared for by a stranger), she has this one piece of obvious wealth and beauty that can pull her up.
ReplyDeleteI think these material things all hold some type of memory for her as well, and she draws upon these when she feels isolated/unhappy. I think the red dress is a good example: it's as if the whole of Coulibri is contained within that one article of clothing. I think the color, a fiery-red as you pointed out, is also significant because its boldness (Antionette loves color, Rochester finds the color of the island landscape overwhelming) stands in stark contrast to the gray, dreary tones of England and the room to which she is confined to.
ReplyDeleteYou could make the connection to Song Of Solomon, where Ruth also never received much affection, and what she had was taken away from her. So she resorts to getting it other places, which don't work out too well either.
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