Prompt 3.  Discuss how class and wealth or Empire, Colony, and the “British Gaze” function in the excerpts from both WSS and JE. 

Wide Sargasso Sea is written in a time where social class differences between white and colored people were extremely clear, and it is shown throughout the text. History taught us that even after Emancipation Act and the 13th Amendment which theoretically ended slavery, slavery was still present in Jamaican society just under different circumstances. Through the use of imagery and symbolism, the author emphasizes and compares the two worlds in Jamaica, the wealthy world, white people, and the poor world, colored people.

White people in West Indies kept their Victorian and aristocrat traditions which were expressed not only on their looks but also on their dinners. “Yet they brought presents of fruit and vegetables,” (12) stands as a symbol of wealth and gives a better image of white people’s “aristocrat” dinners compared to most people. Even though Antoinette’s family was struggling economically, her mother seems to not accept it. “I got used to a solitary life, but my mother still…rode about every morning not caring that the black people stood about in groups to jeet her, especially after her riding clothes grew shabby,” (10) implies that even though white people had the same economic stability with colored people, they still saw themselves socially higher than them and did not accept to be in the same rank with them.

While white people of Jamaica try to keep their wealthy reputation, colored people’s struggles are shown through the way they dress and live. Because of the harsh history of black people and the way they were treated, they were introduced to hard physical work. The hard work made them physically resistant. This idea is reinforced when Antoinette states, “Then Tia would light a fire (fires always lit for her, sharp stones did not hurt her bare feet, I never saw her cry)” (13). Even the way how people dressed differenced white and colored people. “But my dress, starched, ironed, clean that morning,” (14) emphasizes the white people clothes and their obsession to their appearance. Compare to the whites, blacks dressed very simply, and appearance was not very important to them, maybe not because they didn’t want too but because they couldn’t afford it. “My dress was even dirtier than usual…Throw away that thing. Burn it,” (15) gives a better image of social classes and their differences. “That thing” (15) symbolizes Tia’s dress and emphasizes how “disgusted” whites were toward blacks, they can’t even name their clothes.

Because of a long cruel history toward black people, they struggled to make a place in society and to have the same opportunities and equalities with white people. The use of imagery and symbolism in the Wide Sargasso Sea emphasizes social classes in West Indies, by comparing white and colored people appearances, and their lifestyles.

Prompt 7.  Knowing that WSS is written after and in direct response to JE, discuss how mental illness and “sanity” are treated differently in WSS.

Wide Sargasso Sea is written as a direct response to Jane Eyre and the way how mental illness and sanity is treated to both texts is different. Although Jane Eyre describes Antoinette as a mad wife who tried to kill her husband and set a whole house in fire, the Part One from Wide Sargasso Sea reveals that Antoinette’s madness was a result of many difficult life experiences and the way how society treated her.

Being the daughter of an ex-slave owner and living in an area with colored people led to her being seem as a racist person, and to be insulted by black people. When her best friend at a time, Tia, threw a stone toward her, Antoinette’s character changed. “We stared at each other, blood on my face, tears on hers. It was as if I saw myself. Like in a looking-glass,” (27) expresses the first betrayal that Antoinette faced. She couldn’t believe to people anymore and became an introvert person by holding everything to herself. Even when she went to live with her aunt and then when she enrolled a convent school, she was bullied by colored people and was forced to believe that she was mentally ill. “Look the crazy girl, you crazy like your mother…she have eyes like zombie and you have eyes like zombie too,” (29-30) reveals how her mother’s “mistakes” and acts followed Antoinette her whole life and she was imposed by society to think she is really mentally ill and she started to accept it when people compared her with her mother. “My aunt told me she was going to England for a year,” (33) implies that she was lonely and didn’t have anyone where she could rely on. This reinforces the idea that she was “betrayed” by people she loved and trusted more.

Clearly, Antoinette’s sanity is transparent to both texts but in the Wide Sargasso Sea we understand the reasons of her madness, while in Eyre’s text she’s served just as a mentally ill woman without reason. Being betrayed, left alone, and being bullied and insulted by the colored people of the society where she lived because of her parents’ past led to her mental disorder and to Antoinette losing herself.

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