One of the things that I have
been most impressed by in Wide Sargasso
Sea is Jean Rhys’s ability to convey the emotion underlying a situation without
confronting it directly; she chooses words and phrases that not only accurately
describe the situation, but also have certain connotations that allow us to
better understand the narrator. The beginning of Part II, in my opinion, is the
perfect example of this. The narrative switches from Antoinette’s point of view
to Rochester’s, and so one might think that we would get a short introduction
to our new protagonist. Rhys, however, dives right into describing the new
setting, and yet is still able to indirectly give us enough information about him
for us to orient ourselves.
Rochester’s reservations
about what is to come now that he has left England are made clear from the
first two sentences. He says, “So it was all over, the advance and retreat, the
doubts and hesitations. Everything finished for better or for worse (59).” In
my opinion, this doesn’t sound exactly like the language one would expect from
a man who was just married, about to arrive at his honeymoon house. First of
all, he seems to be characterizing the events leading up to his marriage as
full of “doubts and hesitations.” Then, rather than being happy, optimistic
about life as a married man, he says that he is afraid that this new chapter in
his life could be “for worse.” Already, Rhys is foreshadowing the tragic
outcome of their relationship.
Rochester’s next sentence
compounds this feeling of a lack of affection towards his wife. He describes
the setting by saying “There we were, sheltering from the heavy rain under a
large mango tree, myself, my wife Antoinette and a little half-caste servant
who was called Amélie (59).” This is the first time we learn that Antoinette is
married, and yet the words, “my wife Antoinette,” are only given as an aside, shoved
between “the heavy rain” and “the half-caste servant who was called Amélie,”
both of which Rochester seems to think are a lot more important.
Such subtle clues about
what the characters are really thinking, without acknowledging their thoughts and
emotions directly, occur throughout the book, and this gives it a very
Hemingwayesque feel. Indeed, I think it is clear that Hemingway and his
characteristic “Iceberg Theory” were major influences on Jean Rhys’s writing
style.
On my blog recently I posted about Jean Rhys's "iceberg" style, and all of my examples are drawn from Antoinette's narrative--she has a particularly flat but deeply suggestive style, with seemingly plain statements that carry huge emotional weight and thematic implications. You do a great job of showing how this same effect is at work differently in Rochester's narration--and his own "iceberg" style is compounded further by his own disorientation, the way he sees the West Indian culture and landscape as a kind of iceberg that is hiding something beneath its surface. He never feels that he's getting the whole picture, and his narrative style reflects that.
ReplyDeleteI saw in another blog how this writing style was like that of Mrs. Dalloway and I think that Wide Sargasso Sea is a mix of the two. It uses the iceberg along with the viewpoints of more than one person to give us a full story. I think that this is the most intriguing part of this book.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how, with Rhy's "iceberg" style, we are given the ending way before the last pages of the novel. Another example would be when Antoinette shares how Christophine told her to not stay out under the moon, for she will go crazy. It could be argued that Antoinette's being in the dark for so long in her relationship with Rochester, left to wonder with only the moon as her light source, she eventually went insane. Rhy's uses these small jabs everywhere in her writing style, keeping the reader constantly on edge.
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