Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea The Power of Relationships between Men and Women

Name of Author : Dr. Anju Bala

Abstract: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys is a deep postcolonial and feminist revision of a classic of the 19th Century, Jane Eyre, by turning the focus of the story onto the demonized madwoman in the attic, Antoinette Cosway. In this research paper, we are going to analyze the complex game of power in heterosexual relationships in the novel especially with respect to the breakdown of marriage between Antoinette and her unnamed English husband. Working as a cross-border of gendered oppression, racial fluidity and colonial exploitation, Rhys exposes how heterosexual relationships in the nineteenth century imperialism are a localized reflection of colonial conquest. Through the discussion of financial dependency provided through the Married Women Property Act, linguistic silencing of the Creole subject and the weaponization of racial anxieties through the language of madness and obeah, this paper posits that the relationship of the men and the women in the text is inherently transactional and destructive. In addition, the article addresses the role of the anxiety with his own undermined masculinity in the surreal Jamaican environment in motivating his logical psychic dismantling of Antoinette into the voiceless figure of Bertha. This paper, however, shows that Rhys reveals the heterosexual marital relationship as being not an oasis of romantic satisfaction, but rather a disciplinary machine to oppress the female subaltern.

Keywords : Colonial Patriarchy, Heterosexual Dynamics, Imperial Conquest, Psychic Disintegration, Jean Rhys.

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