Resistance to Double Marginalization of Female in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea
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Faculty of English
Abstract
his thesis is a study of some displaced Caribbean and Italian American women
examine identity within a literary tradition.Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea has been the
object of several postcolonial and feminist critical readings. Taking those interpretations
into account, this paper attempts to focus on female oppression based on two
protagonists, Antoinette and Rochester. The apparent dichotomies male/female,
black/white, sanity/madness,rationality/unconscious are exasperated and result into the
ghosts of womanhood, madness, blackness and magic through which he represent his
wife. Antoinette’s psychological evolution, on the other hand, is seen as a growing self-
division into those artificial polarities, until in the end she finally accepts her inner
inescapable and positive complexity. Such complexity is seen as the principal upshot of
the novel, in which an emotionalized in narrative blurs the boundaries and reveals the
manifold nature of personalities and situations.This is identified the causes of the
protagonists’ displacement, and analyze the actions she takes to make herself heardina
tradition that has formerly silenced her. The protagonists, with one exception, enter an
unhealthy marriage which further pushes her into a marginalized space.Ultimately, she
is not only labeled “Other”because of her ethnicity, but also because of her gender.