WSS: Caribbean - Setting and Religion

Question 1

Religion:
OBEAH
1) Antoinette as Zombie, Othering
CHRISTIANITY
2) “Everything was brightness, or dark”

Answer 1

1) “Bertha” is Antoinette’s soulless, zombie form - is Rochester’s fear just a racist colonial fear of native culture?
-> Rochester also rejects this as a female power in a masculine world.
- Threatens Christophine with the law -> the same way
plantation owners punished this practice!
2) (Like JE) in that constraint, you can find freedom/a sense of self/guidance.
- In WSS there is French Catholicism, described as much more colourful, relaxed and like a refuge.
-> Rochester espouses a Protestant work ethic
opposed to the peaceful, relaxed rules of Ant.’s
convent school -> CONTRAST IN RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS!
- In JE there is a rejection of the formulaic Evangelical Protestantism.

Question 2

Caribbean: ANTOINETTE…
1) The death of the parrot:
“Coco on the glacis railings with his feathers alight”
2) Antoinette as an embodiment of the Caribbean:
“Save me from the long slow death by ants”

Answer 2

1) A burning of childhood innocence/shielding/her freedom? -> caused by OTHERING.
-> + Natural part/symbol of Caribbean, almost
spiritual - suggesting Ant. liminality -> she/her family
considered unnatural in the setting.
2) The ‘voice’ of her house references Antoinette’s decay in the attic, and therefore expresses her inner fears.
-> It becomes almost like the narrative voice she has
had taken away from her.
-> She is taken away from this house, implying she is
leaving her voice/true self/identity in the Caribbean.

Question 3

… Caribbean: ROCHESTER
3) The Caribbean others Rochester:
“I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know”
4) “Confused impressions” / “very strange”

Answer 3

3) The sublime/idillic turned oppressive - othering by landscape, feels othering therefore from the one who represents it - Antoinette -> SHE HAS NO VOICE TO DEFEND?
-> Fear of a coloniser?
-> Has the power, stemming from race and gender to
destroy her as a result.
4) A sense of his own kind of madness - similarities in the conditions of Ant/Roch, self in the other.
-> Reaction to take back power by using his masculine
superiority to alienate, blame and take control of Ant.
-> A power imposed, born out of discomfort and
colonial entightlement - must know/be the top of
everything.
* Opposed to the relaxed show of power in England (comfortable setting) seen in Jane Eyre.