In the Wide Sargasso Sea the narrators both feel alienated wherever they are in two ways: they are unfamiliar with their surroundings and they are disliked by the people around them. Antoinette's alienation comes from her history and her family's history in the area. she feels alienated because her family is ostracized by both the white and black inhabitants of Jamaica, and because she personally is disliked by just about everyone--even her own mother. Rochester experiences something similar in part two, where he feels looked down on by everyone, which is caused by his marriage with Antoinette and the history surrounding her family. He even has similar problems with a parent that doesn't seem to care for him.
They both also experience alienation that comes from being in an unfamiliar place. Rochester spends his entire time in Jamaica disoriented and uncomfortable, unable to deal with the abundance of nature and color surrounding him. He also compares his experience to a dream, but not a good dream--he does not feel at home in any way. Antoinette also has to deal with this kind of unfamiliarity. In part one, she is sent to stay in a convent, and doesn't feel at home at all. Then in part three, she is taken to England and feels even more alienated even having a similar dream-like experience to Rochester's and describing it as 'card-board' (although by this point in the novel she isn't completely stable mentally, she also compares England to a dream in part two while she still is).
The isolation that both characters feel ends up contributing strongly to the unraveling of both characters' minds. Once Rochester's paranoia is vindicated and he realizes that he is being laughed at his situation rapidly declines resulting in his thought process resembling Gollum's more than what we had come to recognize as his own. Similarly, once Antoinette is isolated in England in Rochester's attic, she starts to fall apart and resembles the narrator of the yellow wallpaper quite strongly.
I think parallels are super interesting and I agree that Rochester and Antoinette both suffer some form of mental breakdown. The fact that both of them view the other's culture as a dream really shows that they're two sides of the same coin.
ReplyDeleteGood post. I also found it interesting that although Antoinette and Rochester both feel alienated, and largely for the same reasons, this alienation does not help them connect to each other but drives them farther apart.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to think about this in terms of todays discussion. Like Sophia pointed out, the alienation of both of them are what drives them apart. Back to todays discussion, what caused the breakdowns, was it a commonality in experience or a difference in culture and the associated social forces? No matter what it is, the commonalities that you pointed out are very interesting.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. The alienation is central to the whole story. However, while most parts of the characters' alienation align, one part doesn't. Antoinette's mother's alienation results in bother the mother and Antoinette going off the deep end, while Rochester's dad just doesn't give him money. I hardly find these things to be equivalent.
ReplyDeleteAlienation was definitely a central theme in the novel, and the two perspectives worked well to illustrate the similarities between the two. However, the differences in their alienated situations eventually showed that Rochester and Antoinette were different. Rochester's reaction to his alienation is negative and results in many malicious actions, and his situation isn't bad at all compared to Antoinette.
ReplyDeleteI like how you described the two different aspects of the alienation, the environment and the people. I think social perceptions play a lot into this book, as a lot of the defining events wouldn't have happened if it weren't for class/racial tensions. The point you made about both of their parents not liking them is super interesting and I hadn't thought about that before.
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