A Postcolonial Feminist Reading Of Two Female Characters In Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys is an English writer born in Caribbean. Her classic work is Wide Sargasso Sea. The novel is a rewriting or questioning of the 19th century English writer Charlotte Bront?'s Jane Eyre. The mad and bestial woman Bertha in Jane Eyre is a Third World woman from the colonized world, her craziness and her setting fire to Thornfield Hall served as a foil to Jane Eyre—the reasonable heroine of the English feminists. One of the purposes of Jean Rhys writing Wide Sargasso Sea is to give back Bertha a history and the right of discourse. The novel is mainly about the awkward situation and the identity crisis of white Creole Antoinette (Bertha in Jane Eyre) in the British colony Jamaica after the slavery is abolished, which finally drive her crazy.This thesis intends to analyze two female characters in Wide Sargasso Sea from the postcolonial feminist perspective. One is the heroine Antoinette, the other is her nurse Christophine who is a black Creole. It aims at disclosing the social situations of the Third World women of different classes and exploring the right way toward decolonization through the analysis of their struggle against the double colonization.Firstly, after reviewing the existing studies home and abroad on the novel, the thesis elaborates the theoretical bases of the thesis—postcolonial feminism and two central concerns of it: the Third World women under double colonization and decolonization. Then it analyzes the sexual, racial , discursive and cultural oppression the two Third World women—the white Creole Antoinette and the black Creole Christophine are faced with under the double colonization. After that, the thesis probes respectively into Antoinette's and Christophine's performance on the way toward decolonization. Antoinette not only rectifies the distorted image of the Third World women imposed by the Westerners, but also strongly challenges the patriarchy and colonialism. But due to the complicated class and racial relations and the historical and social reasons, she shows both a challenge to and some complicity with the patriarchy and colonialism. Dying in setting fire to Thornfield Hall, her life ends in tragedy. While Christophine, the most oppressed woman, by holding on to"violent resistance", she successfully subverts the patriarchy, colonialism and the stereotyped image of the Third World women with her powerful words and action. Finally, she gets out of patriarchal and colonial control safe and sound. She is like a flaming torch that sheds light for the colonized Third World women on their road toward decolonization. At last, the thesis draws its conclusion: Antoinette is not a pure and innocent victim of patriarchal and colonial violence, because she herself also participates in her own ruining. Christophine's success shows that the double colonized Third World Women should hold on to the deconolizing strategy—violent resistance unswervingly. Only through active and determined resistance can they break through the sexual racial and cultural oppression and work toward decolonization.