deck_15301523 Flashcards
Jean Rhys has set out to vindicate “the madwoman”, she emphasized her role as “the legacy of imperialism concealed in the heart of every English gentleman’s castle”
Penny Boumelha; the madwoman.
Rhys’ writing focuses on giving “a voice to the voiceless”.
Steve Padley; author’s intentions.
“original achievement in Wide Sargasso Sea was to extend, explore, modernize, while also rendering timeless, that cry, that yearning, and all those other vital elements she rediscovered in Bronte’s novel”
Alexis Lykiard; what Wide Sargasso Sea achieves.
“That’s only one side - the English side”.
Letter by Jean Rhys; Bronte’s story of Bertha Mason.
“dreams [in Wide Sargasso Sea] provide glimpses of the repressed or unexpressed emotions of characters…they also foreshadow events for the benefit of the characters and the reader.”
Alan Gordon; dreams.
“In contrast to her husband’s ostensibly fixed nationality and race as an English white man, Antoinette’s identity is unstable, leading her to constantly seek reinforcement through her image in a mirror”
Rebecca Ashworth; Antoinette’s identity compared to Rochester’s identity.
“Antoinette perceives the house as made of cardboard, symbolic of her entrapment ‘between the pages of a book’”
Veronica Gregg; significance of Antoinette viewing Rochester’s house being made of cardboard & theme of women’s role in society.
‘demands that the reader interpret the plot from a marginalist perspective’
Missy Dehn Kubitschek; what Wide Sargasso Sea demands of the reader & theme of colonialism.
‘In Antoinette’s final dream, she conjures her own destiny, perhaps taking control for the first time in her life’
Maritza Stanchich; significance of Antoinette’s third & final dream.
The novel explores the ‘negotiation of the space between audiences and performers, sanity and madness, expectation and fulfilment, acting and being’.
Angela Smith; the novel explores the in-betweens & theme of belonging.
“voices that Bronte’s novel pushes to the margins”
Angela Smith; “Rhys hears…” & theme of colonialism, racism, giving a voice the voiceless.
Likens the narrative presentation of truth to Heart of Darkness - “fleeting and uncertain”
Angela Smith; presentation of truth.
“What haunts the reader of this text is the knowledge of what will happen to Antoinette”
Angela Smith; foreshadowing.
Compared to Jane Eyre’s definitive opening, Rhys offers “a hesitant tone” of rumour, hinting at the subjectivity of truth & the unreliability of the narrators throughout the entire novel.
Angela Smith; Rhys’ achievement with the opening lines of Wide Sargasso Sea & theme of truth.
“Mason and Rochester both demand that those around them should play the parts they would have in England.”
Angela Smith; similarity between Rochester & Mr. Mason & theme of patriarchy & theme of colonialism.
“…the Victorian cult of domesticity by suggesting that Bertha’s madness in Jane Eyre is due to abuse from an English patriarch”
Susan Lydon; “Jean Rhys further deflates…” & theme of women’s role in society.
Having been viciously denied the identity of a white English girl or that of a Creole, “the identity Antoinette claims is also simultaneously the recognition of an unbridgeable difference”
Lee Erwin; Antoinette’s identity.
Christophine is “a model of female independence and self-reliance for Antoinette.”
Sandra Drake; Christophine.
“she [Antoinette] envies the ex-slaves and their sense of self definition”
Angela Smith; why Antoinette envies the ex-slaves.
an “authentic” reflection of women’s social and psychic realities
Molly Hite; feminist critics view the text as…
