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Gervanna StephensInstructor – Mrs. Lucinda PeartENGL333 – West Indian Writers28 April 2011

The candor of a deconstructive approach in analyzing Wide SargassoSea.

Deconstructionism is a philosophical method applied to the

criticism of literature commonly affiliated with French

philosopher Jacques Derrida. Deconstruction heralds that any

particular text comprises a series of dissimilar and often

antagonistic notions which lead to the belief that there is no

single interpretation of a text. (Walsh) Deconstruction revolves

around close analyses of hints, misunderstandings, inherent

assumptions and ‘unintended’ or double entendres in a text. These

seemingly undermine the truth of a text and a single, stable

meaning. (Borghino)

There are two key aspects of deconstruction. First, there

are systems or structures and all systems or structures have a

center, the point of origin, the thing that created the system

and to which it refers or returns. Secondly, all systems are

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created of binary pairs or oppositions, of two terms placed in

some sort of relation to each other. (Klages) Derrida posits,

that such systems are always designed of the basic units which

structuralism analyzes—the binary opposition or pair—and that

within these systems one part of that binary pair is always more

important than the other.

Deconstruction states that there are different meanings in a

text; Wide Sargasso Sea ergo demands a deconstructive approach which

does not exclude a feminist approach. However deconstruction does

not limit the book, but joins it with many other ideas,

conflicting and congruent, which seek to highlight and examine

Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea. Critically analyzing a text is the mandate

of readers, to determine if the novella Wide Sargasso Sea is worthy

of the philosophical deconstruction method, to examine three

pairs of binary operations and to assess the concept that

differences are what make up the essence of understanding any

literary piece of work.

It was the reading of French Philosopher’s Jacques Derrida’s

paper “Structure, Sign and Play” at Johns Hopkins University in

1966 that saw Deconstruction being brought to the fore of the

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American literary stage. In the essay, Derrida questioned and

disputed the metaphysical assumptions held by Western philosophy

since the time of Plato and it was with these questions and

suppositions that caused the commencing of what critics believe

to be the most intricate and exigent method of textual analysis.

(Bressler 100)

In 1967, Derrida sought to find the right word, as he

“wished to translate and adapt to his own ends the Heideggerian

word ‘Destruktion’ or Abbau’. Heidegger’s word was used in the

sense of historicizing tradition, its categories and concepts and

overcoming its blocks to our access to its basic elemental

sources. Its literal translation from German to French was

destruction, having a strong connotation to demolition and so,

Derrida employed the use of the term Deconstruction. (Derrida 1)

Deconstruction emerged as a result of the influence of

varying thoughts and several thinkers and philosophers upon

Derrida. Edmund Husserl was the greatest focus for Derrida’s

early works and proved a focal point for many of his

dissertations. Martin Heidegger’s thought was crucial in his

influence on Derrida, and he conducted numerous readings of

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Heidegger’s, inclusive of the essay entitled “Ousia and Gramme:

Note on a Note from Being and Time”, his studies of Heidegger and

Nazism entitled Of Spirit, and a series of papers entitled

“Geschlecht.” The philosophy of Heidegger evolved in relation to

Husserl and the use of the term deconstruction found its links

and appropriation in structural description. Derrida has also

written extensively on Sigmund Freud, commencing with the paper

“Freud and the Scene of Writing,” and extensive readings of the

works of Freud and Lacan have also been influential to Derrida.

Derrida devoted attention to the texts of Friedrich Nietzsche, in

particular Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles and The Ear of the Other, which paired

with Nietzsche’s philosophical approaches became important

driving factors of deconstruction. Andre Leroi-Gourhan is

mentioned in Derrida’s Of Grammatology which acknowledges him for

his formulation of deconstruction and the concept of difference,

which had been related to the systems of evolution and DNA.

Ferdinand de Saussure’s structuralism also aided in influencing

Derrida, with his reading and critiquing of Saussure’s Course in

General Linguistics. The concept of linguistics proved important in

the theory of deconstruction. His theories of structural

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linguistics and their contradictions, like of sign, signifier and

signified, cemented the interpretation of semiotics to the

framework of Derrida’s work. Deconstruction begins with and

affirms Saussure’s decree that language is a system based on

differences. He exclaims that we know the meaning of signifiers

through their relationships and their differences among

themselves. For Derrida, unlike Saussure, this meaning is also

applied to the signified, because like the signifier, the

signified can only be known through its relations and differences

among other signifieds. The signified cannot orient or make

permanent the meaning of the signifier, for the relationship

between the signifier and the signified is both arbitrary and

conventional. (Bressler 104) Deconstruction found its way into

the world of philosophy through the analysis of Claude Levi

Strauss, in Derrida’s “Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse

of the Human Sciences.” And it is with these influences and

different thoughts and philosophies, views, ideals that

contributed to Derrida’s theory of Deconstruction.

Deconstruction refers to the pursuing of the meaning of a

text to the point of exposing the supposed contradictions and

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internal oppositions upon which the text is based, revealing

through the process of deconstruction that those foundations are

complex, unstable and inertly impossible to be proven. In tandem,

the aim of deconstruction is to show that a text is not a

complete whole, but that it contains several incompatible and

ambiguous meanings. A text therefore has more than interpretation

and hence no single, axiomatic truth. This concept of what is

deconstruction leads to its characteristics that form its unique

structural or “deconstructural” nature.

The belief that signification is both arbitrary and

conventional allows for the assertion that Western metaphysics

from Plato to present is founded on a fundamental error, which is

epitomized in the search for a Transcendental signified. This is

an external point of reference upon which one may build a concept

or philosophy. Once found, the transcendental signified would

provide ultimate meaning since it would be the origin of origins,

reflecting itself and as Derrida heralds, providing a “reassuring

end to the reference from sign to sign.”

Unlike other signifieds, the transcendental signified finds

its understanding without a comparison to other signifieds and

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signifiers. It therefore would its meaning would originate

directly from itself, not in relation to or in difference to the

meaning of other signifieds and signifiers. A transcendental

signified thus functions as the center of meaning. (Bressler 104–

105) A center of meaning is the point of origin, the thing that

created the system in the first place. (Klages)

According to Derrida, Western Metaphysics has invented a

number of terms that serve as centers: God, reason, origin, truth, essence,

beginning, end, and self to name a few. Each can function as a

concept that is self-sufficient and self-originating and can

serve as a transcendental signified. This Western inclination for

desiring a center Derrida calls Logocentrism, which is the belief

that there is an ultimate reality or center of truth that can

serve as the basis for all our thoughts and actions. Privileging

leads to Logocentrism and it is logocentric thinking that leads

to the concept of Binary Oppositions. Western metaphysics

purports the “either-or” mentality or logic that leads to

dualistic thinking and to the centering and de-centering of

transcendental signifieds. (Bressler 105)

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The concept of binary operations or conceptual oppositions

is based on the fact that establishing one center automatically

de-centers the other. For each center, there exists an opposing

center. (Bressler 105) Such systems Derrida posits are made up of

two terms placed in some sort of relation to each other. Within

these systems, one part of the binary pair is always more

important than the other, that one is “marked” as positive and

the other as negative. (Klages) One concept is superior or more

privileged and defines itself by its opposite or inferior center.

For example, we know truth because we know deception; we know good

because we know bad. (Bressler 106) In Western culture, the first

term is always valued over the second. (Klages) It is to the

creation of these hierarchical binaries as the basis for Western

metaphysics that Derrida objects. (Bressler 106)

To Derrida, binary operations form a fragile basis for which

belief has come to be structured upon. One element will always be

privileged (be in a superior position) while the other becomes

unprivileged (inferior). As Dr. Mary Klages, Associate Professor

of English at the University of Colorado purports, in similarity

with Bressler, the first or top elements in the binary opposition

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are privileged. Derrida therefore uses this association, to

assert the privileging of speech over writing which he calls

Phonocentrism. (Bressler 106)

In his book Of Grammatology, Derrida focuses on the

privileging of speech over writing. Speech is posited as the

first or primary form of language, and writing is just the

transcription of speech. (Klages) We value according to Derrida,

a speaker’s words more than the speaker’s writing, for words

imply presence. Through the spoken form of the word, we

supposedly learn what a speaker is trying to say. From this

light, writing is merely a copy of speech, an attempt to capture

the idea that was once spoken. Whereas speech implies presence,

writing signifies absence, thereby placing into action another

binary operation: presence/absence. (Bressler 106)

Since phonocentrism is founded on the conjecture that speech

conveys the meaning or direct ideas of a speaker better than

writing which acts only as a mere copy of speech, phonocentrism

assumes a logocentric way of thinking, that the self is the

center of meaning and can best ascertain ideas directly from

other selves through spoken words. Through speaking, the self

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declares its presence, its significance, and its being or

existence. (Bressler 106)

Fittingly, Derrida coins the phrase metaphysics of presence

to include those ideas of Logocentrism, phonocentrism, the

operations of binary oppositions and other notions that Western

metaphysics conforms to in its conceptions of language and

metaphysics. His intention is to show the precarious foundations

upon which such beliefs have been established. By deconstructing

the basic grounds of metaphysics of presence, Derrida provides

the strategy for critical reading that opens up a variety of

interpretations not bound by the restraints of Western thought

and philosophy. (Bressler 106-107)

Crucial also to the theory of deconstruction, is the concept

of differance, a term which refers to the process of the

fabrication of difference and deferral. According to Derrida, all

difference and all presence arise from the operation of

difference. (Derrida 5-6) The word differance derives from the

French word differer, meaning to “to defer, postpone, or delay,”

and “to differ, to be different from.” Derrida’s word is

ambiguous, taking on both meanings simultaneously, it plays the

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role of a pun in French, as it exists only in writing for in

speech there is no way to tell the difference between the French

word difference and Derrida’s coined term differance. (Bressler

109)

Deconstruction questions the appeal to presence by arguing

that there is always an irrefutable facet of non-presence in

action. This is what is referred to as differance. Differance is

therefore the key theoretical basis of deconstruction.

Deconstruction questions the basic operation of all philosophy

through the appeal to presence and differance. Derrida argues

that differance permeates all philosophy because “what defers

presence…is the very basis on which presence is announced or

desired in what represents it, its sign, its trace.” (Derrida 7)

Derrida asserts that differance operates in language and

therefore also in writing. If one should do away with the

transcendental signified and reverse the presence/absence

operation, texts can no longer have presence: in isolation, texts

cannot posses meaning. Since all meaning and knowledge is now

based on differences, no text can simply mean one thing. Like

language itself, texts are caught in a dynamic, context-related

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interchange. A text’s definitive meaning can therefore not be

stated, for it has no one correct or definitive interpretation;

meaning in a text is always illusive, always dynamic and also

transitory. (Bressler 110)

Deconstruction recognizes systems and structures and within

these systems a center or point of origin is posited. Second to

this, is that all systems or structures are created of binary

pairs or oppositions. Each term in the pair, only has meaning in

reference to the other, similarly as how Saussure’s signifiers

only gain meaning in their relationships and differences with

other signifiers. These binary pairs are the “structures” or

fundamental opposing ideas that Derrida is concerned with in

Western philosophy. Deconstruction seeks to erase the boundaries

(the slash) between oppositions and hence show that the values

and order implied by the opposition are not rigid or static in

nature. (Klages)

Derrida proposes that one can reverse the elements in the

opposition, and that such a reversal is possible, because truth

is ever elusive, for a de-centering of the center is possible.

This reversal is not a mere substitution of one hierarchy for

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another, but a reversal allows for an examination of those values

and beliefs that give rise to both the original hierarchy and the

newly created one; an examination which will reveal how the

meaning of terms arises from the differances between them.

(Bressler 107)

The first binary opposition to be examined in the novella

Wide Sargasso Sea is the narrative techniques used to advance the

plot in contrast to its narrators. The different ways in which

the plot of Rhys’ story is portrayed to the reader allows for a

sense of drama to be evoked and wariness as well due to the

numerous methods used in the narration which allow for distrust

to fester on the part of the reader as they do not know whom or

what to believe.

The narrative techniques employed in the novella other than

the narrators, include letters and gossip. Letters are the

easiest means of long distance communication in that period of

time. Antoinette’s husband is central to these letters, as he

both writes letters of his own and receives letters that have

been written to him. The first instant of Antoinette’s husband

composing a letter is only done so in his mind, “I thought about

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the letter which should have been written to England a week ago.

Dear Father…” (WSS 40), the letter however was not written.

Shortly afterward however, the reader is made privy to its

contents

“…Dear Father. The thirty thousand pounds have been paid to

me without question or condition. No provision made for her

(that must be seen to) … I will never be a disgrace to you

or to my dear brother the son you love. No begging letters,

no mean requests. None of the furtive shabby manoeuvres of a

younger son. I have sold my soul or you have sold it, and

after all is it such a bad bargain? The girl is thought to

be beautiful, she is beautiful. And yet…” (WSS 42)

The second letter, the formal one, that he actually writes,

“Dear Father., we have arrived in Jamaica after an

uncomfortable few days. This little estate in the Windward

Islands is part of the family property and Antoinette is

much attached to it… All is well and has gone according to

your plans and wishes. I dealt of course with Richard Mason…

He seemed to become attached to me and trusted me

completely. This place is very beautiful but my illness has

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left me too exhausted to appreciate it fully. I will write

again in a few days time.” (WSS 46)

The letter continues, but it reveals in its opening lines, that

not only does Antoinette’s husband not possess a name, but his

father seemingly does not either. His thoughts to his father,

before his sending of the third letter, reveal his animosity, “I

know now that you planned this because you wanted to be rid of

me. You had no love for me. Nor had my brother. Your plan

succeeded because I was young, conceited, foolish, trusting.

Above all because I was young. You were able to do this to me…’”

(WSS 104) and these thoughts reveal to the reader the true

feelings of Antoinette’s husband towards his father, feelings

that would never be made known to the characters or even the

reader if not having his hand forced. The letter,

“Dear Father, We are leaving this island for Jamaica very

shortly. Unforeseen circumstances, at least unforeseen by

me, have forced me to make this decision. I am certain that

you know or can guess what has happened, and I am certain

you will believe that the less you talk to anyone about my

affairs, especially my marriage, the better. This is in your

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interest as well as mine. You will hear from me again. Soon

I hope.” (WSS 105)

This letter, is the last recorded one that the husband writes to

his father and like the first set of letters the reader is

unaware if the letters have been sent or if they have reached

their destinations, the only thing the reader knows is that with

each letter, the emotions of the son to the father are revealed

in this form that his narrations would not have given.

The letters sent by Daniel Boyd, Daniel Cosway or Esau

whichever his name really is, allow for aspects of the novella to

be brought to the light that the narrators would not have dared

speak about. Similarly the gossip or whisperings and knowing

looks that the husband seems to be receiving from the servants

reveal to the reader a sense of knowing and pervasive secrets and

deception, all things that the actual narrators have failed to

make known unto the other characters and the reader. (WSS 59-61,

75)

The letter from a Mr. Fraser to Antoinette’s husband reveals

to the husband, that Christophine Dubois or Josephine as she was

called was in jail. And after being released from jail, seemingly

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disappeared and shortly afterward was befriended by old Mr.

Mason. I had been rumoured that she had gone back to her own

country, Martinique, but news that she had not and Mr. Fraser

cautions the husband to alert the inspector if Christophine gets

up to any of her tricks. (WSS 92)

The novella is narrated by Antoinette Cosway, her husband

and Grace Poole, a woman who Antoinette’s husband hires to look

after her when he locks her away in his English house. The

husband’s narration epitomizes an air of alienation that is

brought to the fore in everything he says or thinks. He is not a

part of the island; he is not at home there and does not feel the

least bit comfortable in his new surroundings that are too

overwhelming for him. The fears of the husband and his doubts are

revealed with his narration and his perspective on Antoinette’s

descent into madness is given from a more objective view than

Antoinette herself could have provided.

The narration given by Antoinette when she visits

Christophine shows her very distraught and trying to save her

marriage, it also gives her view on the relationship she has with

her husband. Both Antoinette and her husband are seemingly

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concerned with how their relationship is viewed by others. Many a

times, the husband comments that the servants seem to know

something that he does not and hence they mock him. Similarly,

Antoinette is concerned that “the servants know” that she and her

husband sleep separately and her most important reason that she

gives Christophine for not leaving is the fear of what persons

would think, “then everyone, not only the servants will laugh.”

Antoinette’s narration like her dreams before foreshadow her

demise and she thinks, “I know that house where I will be cold

and not belonging, the bed I shall lie in has red curtains and I

have slept there before, long ago. How long ago? In that bed I

will dream the end of my dream.” It gives the picture of her

locked away in the attic in the English house of her husband,

Antoinette seems to posses some sort of prophetic insight with

this premonition that she has.

The narration of Grace Poole, as an outsider to the

situation is detached and unemotional. Grace Poole serves as the

enlightening figure to the reader as Antoinette’s mental state

makes her incapable of narrating the story from a lucid

viewpoint.

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In pitting the narrative techniques against the narrators,

it is clear that privileges are awarded to the narrative

techniques employed as they allow for the reader to see an

alternative side or personality of the characters that the

characters fail to reveal in the presence of the other characters

in the novella. The use of gossip and letters both enhance the

suspense of the plot and add to its secrets, which the narrators

seek to keep hidden from us. The narrators are seen as the

beacons of the novella and any truth that it holds, but they also

act as the weavers of deception and the keepers of secrets. The

narrative techniques therefore in contrast to the narrators leave

many areas of grey still uncharted, as both the narrative

techniques and the narrators prove to be influenced by varying

means, Daniel Cosway by his hatred for his father and Grace Poole

by the money she receives. The barrier of this opposition is

therefore non-existent as both oppositions have found their

center being de-centered by the other.

The second opposition under analysis is the stability versus

the instability of the characters in the novel.

Stability/Instability mirrors the opposition of Sanity/Insanity.

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Why would the characters be seen as stable or instable? Is there

really a difference between the two? And is stability or its

mirrored version of sanity really the way to go?

Stability refers to continuance or permanence, the most

permanent of defining thing a person or character can posses, is

a name. The characters of Wide Sargasso Sea though not all, have

aliases and names other than their original ones. The renaming of

Antoinette as Bertha by her nameless husband shows how instable

her character is. Daniel’s many names— Daniel Cosway, Daniel Boyd

and Esau— all depict him as an instable character with no

foundations or foot hold in the world in which he lives.

Christophine or Josephine as she is known by different people is

a black servant. Being black in a slave society meant being

subjected to slavery; it meant suffering the woes of slavery and

not being able to set up a family or a home for yourself, as your

decision were not stable, they were not your own.

Antoinette’s husband does not possess a name in the novella

and is associated only with the presence of Antoinette, without

Antoinette, her husband is absent. Naturally, this would suggest

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a lack of power and identity and stability in the world, but the

opposite proves to be so. He is the driving force behind

Antoinette and her decisions, her life choices, possessions and

her entire being which he acquired upon their marriage. He now

plays the role that her black nurse had previously played. Thus

it is ironic that the persons deemed instable in the world of

Wide Sargasso Sea, because of their namelessness or the colour of

their skin seem to be the only stable characters in the novella.

They are free, self-sufficient and independent—Christophine—and

they are powerful, demanding and free not only physically, but

mentally—Antoinette’s husband.

Antoinette changes throughout the novel and becomes

emotional and fierce and dependent until she succumbs to an

insanity that comes with instability. Daniel Cosway is frivolous

and changes his mind according to his emotions and what he may

receive by performing certain actions. Christophine on the other

hand regardless of her alias, is independent and strong and

obstinate and a threat to the husband and it can be presumed from

this, that it is her stable nature that causes her to be driven

out of the novel after her exchange with Antoinette’s husband.

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“’Read and write I don’t know. Other things I know.’ She walked

away without looking back” (WSS 104) Christophine successfully

put of the chains of instability Evident too, is that now, the

black nurse, Christophine, is now more free than the white girl,

Antoinette, and this shows the upturned “perceived” societal

structure of the Blacks in respect to the Whites and hence

becomes a threat to the only other stable character in the

novella, the husband, and is therefore driven from the story.

The characters suffer from altered states of consciousness;

they are irrational, suffering from daydreams, faux on their

memories, fits of madness, drunkenness and moments of awakenings.

It can therefore be attested, that though stability mirrors

sanity, it is instability and insanity that is preferred in the

case of Wide Sargasso Sea as this state and its repercussions prove

fitting to allow for the secrets and the deceptions prevalent in

the novella to be carried out and hidden from both the characters

and the reader.

Another binary opposition to be examined and in turn

deconstructed in the novella Wide Sargasso Sea is that of dreams or

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illusionary visions in total opposition to reality. Dreams are

normally deemed inferior to reality, as they act only as mirrors

to the subconscious and are easily looked past when the workings

of reality come into play. In the Wide Sargasso Sea however, dreams

prove crucial to the plot and revealing both to the characters

and the reader what is to come.

Antoinette’s dreams or nightmares as they may be deemed

plague her sensibilities, they evoke a feeling of alienation,

fear and darkness, “I dreamed that I was walking in the forest.

Not alone. Someone who hated me was with me, out of sight. I

could hear heavy foot steps coming closer and though I struggled

and screamed I could not move. ” (WSS 11) Her second part of her

serialized dream is much more profound and acts as an omen

foreshadowing her marriage, its deterioration, her helplessness

and eventually entrapment. “It is still night and I am walking

towards the forest,” (WSS 34) this line immediately evokes a

sense of dread, the night symbolizing darkness, the forest

exemplifying the unknown. “I follow him, sick with fear but I

make no effort to save myself; if anyone were to try to save me,

I would refuse,”(WSS 34) this line epitomizes her helplessness,

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her love despite her fearfulness, her loss of self to the

powerful male who takes control. The third installment of

Antoinette’s dream occurs in part three of the novel, “That was

the third time I had my dream, and it ended…I called ‘Tia!’ and

jumped and woke.” (WSS 122-124) It is here, at the very end of

the book that Antoinette and her alter ego Bertha can say, “Now

at last I know why I was brought here and what I have to do.”

(WSS 124) In interpreting this episode, we see her as being

brought into the England of Bronte’s novel, “This cardboard

house” — a book between cardboard bindings — “where I walk at

night is not England.” (WSS 118) In this fictitious England, she

must play out her role; act out the transformation of her “self”

into the fictitious Other, set fire to the house and kill

herself, so that Jane Eyre can become the feminist individualist

of British fiction.

Her husband’s encounter in the forest clearly brings to life

Antoinette’s dream, the husband experiences confusion, fear and

distress while walking through the forest. He feels like he is

being watched and as he loses himself in the depths of the

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forest, he feels trapped and loneliness and despair permeate his

spirit.

These episodes along with a sort of prophetic vision that

Antoinette has “I know that house where I will be cold and not

belonging, the bed I shall lie in has red curtains and I have

slept there before, long ago. How long ago? In that bed I will

dream the end of my dream.” (WSS 70) It gives the picture of her

locked away in the attic in the English house of her husband,

Antoinette seems to possess some sort of prophetic insight with

this premonition that she has. Similarly, when her husband draws

a picture of a woman standing in a window, “…I drew a house

surrounded by trees. A large house. I divided the third floor

into rooms and in one room I drew a standing woman — a child’s

scribble, a dot for a head, a larger one for the body, a triangle

for a skirt slanting lines for arms and feet. But it was an

English house.” (WSS 105-106) This like Antoinette’s perceptive

thoughts or illusionary visions as they could be ascribed reveal

that dreams and visions not only speak to the world of fantasy or

the subconscious self, but that they enter reality and affect day

to day living and the characters faced with them.

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Dreams and illusionary visions alike, plague both Antoinette

and her husband and affect their decisions and how they view

their reality though these dreams and visions are the mirror to

what their reality is to be. Revealed also through these dreams,

is that the concept of what is one’s reality is perceived only

through one’s mind and the workings of the mind, whether

imaginary or logical and is deemed as fantastical or reality

depending on the circumstances which face the character and how

their psyche perceives the happenings around them.

Wide Sargasso Sea exemplifies the world of the subconscious,

its dreams and illusionary visions alike, and it pits it against

a perceived reality and in so doing shows that such an opposition

proves that reality versus fantasy can only be defined singularly

and separately to each individual. It therefore cannot be

determined as a whole or a general concept considering that

fantasy and reality are only perceived notions of the mind.

Deconstructionism connotes that one truth is not present in

any piece of literature, point in case, Wide Sargasso Sea. The

novella reveals many and varying views about a single idea hence

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allowing for misunderstandings to occur. The dissimilarity of the

characters, the different methods used to advance the plot, the

different perceptions of the characters all allow for

misunderstandings to occur with the words they use and the words

they choose not say.

One such instance of perceived misunderstanding lies in

Annette’s Cosway’s choice of word “marooned” (WSS 6) to describe

the family’s situation. Is it that they are as the meaning of the

word suggests, ‘abandoned and isolated’ or is Annette jumping

only to drastic conclusions? Or, does the word “marooned” have a

stronger connotation beyond the novella and its characters? The

word “marooned” could hint at the fact that the text Wide Sargasso

Sea cannot be read in isolation from Jane Eyre, the novel it so

avidly reworks. Also “marooned” could refer to the fact that

Antoinette is too young to remember the opulence of Coulibri

Estate before the Emancipation Act of 1833 had been passed and so

the novella, Wide Sargasso Sea, is “marooned” from its counterpart

Jan Eyre and can therefore be viewed as a separate literary piece.

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Another aspect of these misunderstandings that occur in the

novella, lie with the lack of a name for Antoinette’s husband.

Names signify identity and the status of a name alludes to power

as well. Antoinette’s husband is given no name by the author

though he narrates what is the greater portion of the novella.

Namelessness would indicate unimportance and a lack of personal

identity and purpose, yet he is in full control of Antoinette and

her possessions which he acquired upon their marriage, “…Dear

Father. The thirty thousand pounds have been paid to me without

question or condition.” (WSS 42)

From his introduction into the novel, everything about him

is tied with his marriage to Antoinette, hence she held not only

his future in her decision to marry him but she also held his

entire being and identity with him having no purpose without her,

first being a second son and now being only Antoinette’s husband

to the reader. His forceful domination of Antoinette could

suggest his need to prove that his livelihood does not depend on

a Creole woman who is not at all like the reality he perceives in

England and his eventual removal of Antoinette from what she

perceives as the real world, to the illusion of England denotes

Stephens 29

his power in that even without a name, he has stripped Antoinette

of all that she had and possessed her and now locked her away and

alludes to the fact that race and status overshadows gender and

identity, the most basic notion of which is epitomized in a name.

Another instance of blatant misunderstanding lays with

Christophine the black slave. Christophine personifies

independence, “…but no husband. I thank my God. I keep my money.

I don’t give it to no worthless man.” (WSS 69) She avoids

marriage for financial reasons and hence is not dominated

economically as is Antoinette. Evident too, is that now, the

black nurse, Christophine, is now more free than the white girl,

Antoinette, and this shows the upturned “perceived” societal

structure of the Blacks in respect to the Whites.

Christophine is also given some crucial functions in the

novella. It is Christophine who judges the black ritual practices

and assigns them as culture-specific and not for the use by

Whites as cheap remedial services for social ills, such as to

counter the fact that Antoinette’s husband has lost his passion

for her. Pivotal too, is that it is Christophine, a black woman-

Stephens 30

seemingly inferior in nature to the white man; reveals the

opposition of white/black, who the author allows to give

criticism of the husband’s actions and to further challenge him

in a face-to-face encounter. (WSS 96-104) A critique so powerful

that the white man becomes fearful, “I no longer felt dazed,

tired, half-hypnotized, but alert and wary, ready to defend

myself.” (WSS 102) This reveals a misunderstanding that

originates from the voyage of the first slave ship to the coast

of Africa to enslave Blacks because they were deemed an inferior

and helplessly powerless race in comparison to the Whites.

Not only are the characters in the novel stable or rather

instable in their personalities, but the workings of the novella

are erratic in nature and thus allow for double entendres. The

Oxford English Dictionary describes a double entendre as a figure

of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in

either of two ways. Oftentimes, the first meaning is

straightforward whilst the second is oft indelicate in nature.

At a glance Wide Sargasso Sea is a prequel to Charlotte’s

Bronte’s Jane Eyre but further assessment and analysis of the

Stephens 31

novella show it as effectively speaking back to the empire, to

English literature and specifically Charlotte Bronte. Rhys causes

the reader to question the authenticity of the narrative and

perspective portrayed in Jane Eyre through Antoinette’s narration

of her own life. By revealing to the reader that Antoinette is

equally Caribbean as she is English, Rhys disassembles and thus

allows for deconstruction of the notion, that there is one true

canon, on culture and one country.

Pivotal too, is the fact that the nameless husband swoops in

like a knight in shining armor, and seemingly rescues Antoinette

her fate, when in fact, it is he who is rescued by the poor

Creole damsel, who he grows to despise. His namelessness alludes

to lack of identity but a deeper analysis asserts the fact that

his namelessness allows him to steal an identity. And so, he

steals Antoinette’s soul, her entire being, her love and her joy

and locks her away to be forgotten like his nameless self.

Two-faced like the nature of a double entendre s the English

language which Aunt Cora demonstrates. When Mr. Mason complains

that “the people here won’t work…look at this place — it’s enough

Stephens 32

to break you heart,” and Aunt Cora replies, “Hearts have been

broken.” (WSS 17) With Aunt Cora’s words, Mr. Mason immediately

assumes the broken hearts as being White, and the use of the word

“your” assimilates Aunt Cora into that group but she reverses his

authority with her non-accusatory response. In the same instant,

when Mr. Mason haughtily recourse chooses to succumb to the

stereotype of mental simplicity, “They are children — they

wouldn’t hurt a fly,” but Aunt Cora sees beyond the facade and

recognizes an essential capacity for violence which transcends

racism and distorts the difference between child and adult, with

her response, “Unhappily children do hurt flies.” (WSS 18) And

with this episode another instant of its numerous double

entendres is explicated in Wide Sargasso Sea.

Ascribing to Wide Sargasso Sea the method of deconstructionism

allows for hints and assumptions to be derived from the text and

delineated to demonstrate the inability of the novella to possess

a single truth.

One such assumption to be considered is the namelessness of

the husband. What if the author had bestowed upon him a name as

Stephens 33

common as even John, would he have tried so hard to prove his

masculinity and power? Would he have dominated Antoinette and

destroyed her so gravely? Would he have sought to steal

Antoinette’s identity for lack of his own? And would he have

completely dissipated from the novel when the scene shifts to

England, his home, the place that should have epitomized his

being?

The novella’s ending, leaves much to be assumed. Antoinette

dreams that she burns the English mansion to the ground and upon

her awakening she has an epiphany and suddenly is aware of her

purpose, “Now at last I know why I was brought here and what I

have to do. There must have been a draught for the flame

flickered and I thought it was out. But I shielded it with my

hand and it burned up again to light me along the dark passage.”

(WSS 124) The novella hence does end with Antoinette falling to

her death or being burned alive, or even burning the mansion

down, but the failure of a definitive conclusion leads to the

assumption that she might have considering the dream that woke

her. It can also be assumed, that she found her way outside and

watched from the sidelines as the house went up in flames or it

Stephens 34

can be argued that she was having a dream within a dream and was

simply still asleep. Either one of these options could prove

plausible and rightly true or fitting, with the reality that the

author fails to tell us what really occurred.

It is for reasons like these, the ability to discern varying

points of view, the allowance for assumptions, hints,

misunderstandings and double entendres that calls for Wide

Sargasso Sea to be critiqued using a deconstructive approach.

Affiliated with the French philosopher Jacques Derrida,

Deconstruction revolves around the close analyses of assumptions

misunderstandings, hints and the double entendres present in a

text, that undermine the veracity of a text and its claims to

possessing a single, stable meaning.

Characteristic of systems and structures that comprise a

center or origin and binary or conceptual oppositions which are

constructed of two things and one being more privileged than the

other, deconstructionism seeks to break that barrier and reverse

and restructure such oppositions disregarding such privileges.

Stephens 35

Deconstruction seeks not to limit the book, Wide Sargasso Sea,

but links its ideas with others that would seem contradictory and

congruent and far-fetched to allow for a critical analysis of the

text. An application of the philosophical deconstruction method

to Wide Sargasso Sea, an inspection of three pairs of binary

operations present within the novella and an analysis of the

theory that differences are what comprise the essence of any

literary piece of work is the task of readers to decipher.

The narrative techniques used to advance the plot versus its

narrators, cause the reader to feel distrust for the characters

and situations in the novella. The structuring of the narrative

techniques against the narrators show clear privileges towards

the narrative techniques, as it would be considered that the

techniques, letters, gossip, overheard conversations, would prove

more truthful than their counterparts, the narrators who at every

turn are trying to cover something. Evident though, is the fact

that both falter under some influence and thus both oppositions

are being deconstructed by the other.

The opposition found in the stability versus the instability

of the characters of the novella, clearly reveals that there is

Stephens 36

more to a person, even a fictitious person, than meets the eye.

Antoinette’s husband is seemingly concerned or afraid of his

wife’s “madness” and her being an instable character, when in

truth, when the oppositions have been deconstructed and reversed

it is evident that it is her instable nature that fuels him and

gives him the power he so greatly desires, which is control over

her and not her love and her instable character allows him to do

so.

Third of these binary oppositions is that of dreams or

illusionary visions versus reality. The notion that dreams are

inferior to the workings of the real world is what Wide Sargasso Sea

completely demolishes, as it is dreams and visions that guide the

characters and hence prove crucial to the revelation of the plot.

Misunderstandings on the part of the reader are pervasive in

Wide Sargasso Sea and acceptable with the use of a deconstructive

approach. The dissimilarity of the characters and the instability

of the plot allows for double entendres, hints and assumptions to

arise and cause for questionings of the truth said to be in the

text.

Stephens 37

Deconstruction heralds the pursuing of the meaning of a text

to the point of exposing the supposed contradictions and internal

oppositions upon which the text is based, revealing through the

process of deconstruction that those foundations are complex,

unstable and inertly impossible to be proven. In tandem, the aim

of deconstruction is to show that a text is not a complete whole,

but that it contains several incompatible and ambiguous meanings.

A text therefore has more than interpretation and hence no

single, axiomatic truth.

Deconstruction embodies the notion that meaning in a text is

always illusive, always dynamic and also transitory. This method

of literary criticism has been applied to the novella Wide Sargasso

Sea and through its application it has revealed that the novella

is worthy of such a philosophical method, it has identified and

deconstructed along with its privileges three of the binary

oppositions in the novella and the method applied, has revealed

that differences, misunderstandings, double meanings and

assumptions only aid in weaving together what can be deemed an

intricately intriguing plot structure ascribed to Rhys’ Wide

Sargasso Sea.

Stephens 38

Stephens 39

Works Cited

Borghino, Jose. “About Derrida.” Deconstructing Vision. Web.

http://www.abc.net.au/specials/derrida/josefull.htm,

Retrieved March 3, 2011.

Bressler, Charles. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory

and Practice. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle

River, New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc. 2003. Print.

Derrida, Jacques. Positions. Translated by A. Bass. 2nd ed.

introduction by C. Norris.

London & New York: Continuum, 2002. Print.

Klages, Mary. “Structuralism/Post-Structuralism.” University of

Colorado. Updated February 2,

2011. Web.

http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/1derr

ida.html, Retrieved March 3, 2011.

Lynn, Steven. Texts and Contexts: Writing About Literature with

Critical Theory. 5th ed. United

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States: Pearson Education Inc. 2008. Print.

Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997. Print.

Walsh, John. “What is Deconstructionism?” SOCYBERTY. October 8,

2009. Web.

http://socyberty.com/philosophy/what-is-deconstructionism/,

Retrieved March 7, 2011.