7(.

On|ere
rhur-re 5
MaComire
iN i52l-9968
rpyright C12002 by Jacqueline llrice-finch
I rights reserved. Table of Contents
Suhmission Criteria for MaComire Vol.5 2002
and cleative works by and
ecomdre is a refereed joumal that is devoted to scholarly studies
and the Caribbean diaspora' lt is the journal of
ouf Caritbean womerr in the America-s, Europc,
Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars, an inlcrnational organization Helen Pyne Timothy
: Association of
un."6 ;6 1995. AboutOurName "......ix
scholarly papers.
I wrilers and scholars who are members of ACWWS are invited to submit
views to the joumal in Dutch, English, French' and Ren6e H. Shea and Janet Jones Hampton
tative works, inlerviews. or book re
ranish. The webpage for Macomire is www-macomere.com, and the e-mail address is Forward x
itor@macomere. co111'

ll submissions shoujd include the foilowing: Tributes and Conversotions

s4'le Manual'
Manuscripts submitted in triplicate. All material,should follow the IUILA
in wordPerfect 6.1 (or higher) or word 6 0 (or Opal Palmer Adisa
An electronic file diskette of the manuscript
higher). She Be the Spit and the Flame:
address' olice
A?atasheet listing home address, home telephone. and fax numbers, ofice
telephone and far numbers, and e-mail address' A Tribute to June Jordan
of the contributor
The contributor.s narne only on the first page of the manuscript; the identity
will be removed before manuscripts are screened by the editors' Mynam J. A. Chancy
The use
All material typed and double-spaced throughout including quotations and endnotes' The Heart of Home: Loida MaritzaPerez
however, ifthey are used, type endnote numbers as
offootnotes and endnotes is distouraged;
,uf..r".iptand list endnote information in '"Notes." follorving the text and preceding
the inDialogue.... 6
works cited page. Do not auto-format endnotes'
A brief biographical statement of no more than fiffy words' Rende H. Shea
:nd all material to Meredith Gadsby, Assistant Professor, Oberlin College
Department of From Jamaica to Maryland's Eastem Shore:
frican American Studies, l0 North Professol Slreet, Rice Hall Room 214, Oberlin,
OH 44074' The "Enjoyed Work"
-i"pho.", 440-'/75-8594. Fax:440-775-6485. E-mail: meredith.gadsby@oberlin-edu'
of Thelma B. Thompson, President . . . i9
MaCom?re are available. All orders should be directed to the ACWWS
rbscriptions to
I..*ur"., Evelyn Hawthorne, Deparfment of English, Locke l-lall, Howard University' 2400-6th Creative Writing
.., N.W., Washington, DC 20059. Telephone: 202-364-1166'
prices are
-mail: eirawthome@howard.edu. Make checks payable to MaComdre. The current
and $20
)0 for one-year insiitution subscriptions, $100 for four-year institution subscriptions, Jacqueline Bishop
of ACWWS receive a single issue of MaComDre with
Eve and Lilith
,r individual subscriptions. Members
28
Leir yearly membershiP.
Speaks
Lilith 29
o ioin ACWWS for the current year, send $100, payable to ACWWS, to Evelyn Hat'thome, The Smell of Mango 30
."-^u."r, a1 the above address. Student memberships are also available. Snakes 31
over logo by Marcia L. SPidell
ZeeEdgell
fromOntheRiverBelize ......32
 Rosarnond King Brenda Chester DoHarris
Lajablesse in Oaktand . . . . . . . . . . . - ........... . 48 Reflections on Sexual Politics in the
Lydcs ofMale and Female Callpsonians . . . . , , , . . 122
Magaly Quiiones
Para grabar tu nombre 51 Stephanie Dupal-Demartin
To Engrave Your Name on My Mind 51 Exoticism and Exogamy in Maryse Cond6's
Windward Heights . 130
Jennifer Rahim
Papa . )J Odile Ferly
Diversity .Is Coheren ce : Mdtis s age and cr iol iti
Mireya Robles in Suzanne Dracius's L'autre qui danse 145
Podriamos llamarle Vuelo 202 . . 6I
Translated by Susan Griffin Jana Giles
We Could Call it Flight 202 . . 65 The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics,
Representation, arrd the Post-Coloniatr
Andrea Shaw Sublime in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea 156
PhilipConstantine... 71
Brinda Mehta
LwciaM. Suarez The Mother as Culinary Griotte:
La vida es un baile 86 Food and Cultural Mernory
inAustinClarke's Pigtails'n Breadfruit .... 184
Gina Ulysse
Ode to the Maitresse: Going Home: Colbert Nepaulsingh
On Leaming How to Glide 95 The Names of Elaine Potter Richardson 204
Water Spirits and Revolutionary Barbies:
A Bitter Love Poem 96 Jennifer Sparrow
Writing the "Paradoxes of Belonging":
Katia Ulysse Elizabeth Nunez and lVide Sqrsasso Sea . . 222
Mango 98
Australia Tarver
Memory and History in Edwidge Danticat's
Criticism thefarming of bones 232
Michelle Woodard Brown Donna Weir-Soley
Cond6's Razye: Reaching Heroic Heights 101
Myth, Spirituality and the Power of the
Erotic in It Begins with Tears 243
Sandra Campos
Community and Continuity: Reading Merle
Collins's The Colour of Forgetting . . . IL4
 MaComdre

.lrna Giles

T'he Lundscupe oJ'the 0ther:

n, und t he P rt s t- Cl o I o ni rtl Sub I ime
,4 e s t he t i r:,v, Re pr e,s e n t u t i o
in.leun R/ir.'.r'^i' lYide Sargasso Seu
For bear.rW is nothing
but the beginning o1 terror. which we still are just able to endure,
and we are so awed because ii serenely disdains
to amihilate us.
- Riike
1'he nightnrtil'e that constitutes Jean Rhys's Ia/ide Sargusso Sea reveals the
intcrsection o1'qenclcred identity, post-colonial order, and the sublime experience in the
nineteenlli-centur.v Caribbean. Published in 1966 but conceptualized as a "prequel" to
L-harlcrtte Bronte's ltineteenth-century British classic, .lune Eyre. Rhys's novel
essentially ofl'ers an account of how Antoinette Cosway, a marginalized Jamaican white
cleole girl. cornes to be llertha Mirson, tsdward Rochester's mad u,ife locked away in
the attic. Living as she does in a threshold space of creole existence, ostracized by the
rvhite comrnunitl'anc1 vilified by the black. Antoinette romantically seeks an "English
cure" lbr her post-colonial malaise based uponthe metropolital images of England that
the lbrrner colonial power exports in the guise of mythic representations and in the
person o1'Edrvarcl,' who seeks a post-colonial cure forhis economic maiaise as the
younger son ol'a great Hnglish estate bv means of his marriage to Antoinette. What
begins ibr each protagonist as a sublime aesthetic/erotic experience becornes a parallel
full liom innocence into the sin of betrayal. For Antoinette. this means a descent intc
the verv real heil of:i new kind ofslavery. that ofrnarriage and econornic bondage, as
he irtrprisons her as a means of controlling the excess she and the lropical post-colonial
nrilieu awaken in him.
1'his paper will engage theories of the sublime in the context of the post-
colonial ntilieu of ll'itle Sargusso Sea,as well as the colonial romance and
trutoethnography theorized by Mary Louise Pratt, in order to explore how the
ttruepresentability ctf the posl-colonial sublirne may be understood as the creative force
behind the novel. The plot lraces Antoinette's struggle and failure to overcome her
internal psychological exile and to receive the respect ofher own self-representation.
llorvever. Edward's conliontation with the excess of the sublime during his West Indian
joulnev causes him to inscribe his own colonial ethnographic text onto the blanll space
ol Antoinette as a nteans of re-placing his dis-placed sense of self, which this
confrontation engenders. lt is not rnerely "Rochester" r.vho emerges as victorious, over
both Antoinette and "Eclward," but tl.re rnetropolitan center itseif, and, perhaps to some
exlent the black creole culfure.:
l:rulhermore. the novel may be understood as Rhys's own "autoethnography"
which she wlites in response to and in dialogue with metropolitan representations of the
colonized (Praft 7). Jovce Carol Oates has observed that .,Where in Jane Elre,s

156
 The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics. Rcpresentation,
and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhys's Ilide Sargas.so Sea

imagination all things of significance ale related to one a.nother in a Lrniverse in which God
means well, in Antoinette's experience nothing is predictably related and ernotions like
tenor spring suddenly from the most innocent of sources" (55). suggesting that it is always
the fi.rnction of a corinter-discourse text like ll/ide Sargasso Seato destabilize the
hegemonic symbolic order by disrupting or displacing its metaphysical, ideological, and
aesthetic assumptions. Moreover, an unpredictable universe without apparent reason may
also be understood as a "sublime" universe, since tlie sublime irnplies wildness, danger.
irrationality, godlessness, and so on. If it is a text which a reader finds at once compelling
(giving pleasure) and fearsome (causing pain), then we may also sav that the author has
created a sublirne aesthetic experience for the reader, undoubtedly one ofthe causes 01'the
renaissance of lYide SargcLsso S'ea in recent years. Elaine Savory rwiles that

Like Caribbean culture, [Rhys'sl writing is both nretropolitan and arti-

metropolitan, both colonial and anticolonial, both racist and anti-racist, both
conventional and subversive. [n the best and most creative ways. her textualitv
demonstrates a refusal to be absolutely coirerent and therefore an acceptance of
unresolved ambiguity, ambiguity which permits creative innovation and which is
in effect politically anarchist. in the sense ofresisting ccntralized and authoritative
readings of experience. (x)

The ambiguous incoherence oi Rhys's novels causes them to remain alrvays-jus'r beyond the
linrits of the reader's imagination. as ar unconlrollable excess of textuality which we stdve
and fail to encompass in arr unceasing oscillation between urge and satis{action. Rhys's
consurnmate artistry is fi.rther demonstrated by her skill in having this fomr reflected in the
content of llride Sargasso Sea. lI is only by enduring such tensions that Rhys could
produce what Pratt has termed an autoethnographic text, one which does uot sirnply collude
with metropolikn ideologies, but which presents a successful counter-discourse which
deflates the "sublime" authoritative distance of metropolitan hegemonY in its clear
presentation that the unrepresentable exists, as comproiltise, incompletion. arrd arnbiguitl'.
What Barbara Clare Freeman has termed the politics of the feminine sublinte, that is "taking
up a position of respect in response to an incalculable othemess" anci fomring an enduring
commitment to sustain "a condition of radical urcertainty as the very condition of its
possibility" (i 1), I would like to recast as the creative sublime. in the Romantic sense of
being necessary for any artistic self-representation.
ln this paper I will tlrst outiine the major theories of the -subiime as they pertain to
mv discussion: I will then engage these theories with the post-colonial landscape and nrilieu
t,.f fllide S'orgasscr, ,Ses and the tragedy of the colonial romance of Antoinefie and Edward irl
view of Pratt's Imperial Eyes: Trcnel Writing and Trln.sculluration'' and finally I will
establish a connection between the post-colonial sublime, autoethnography. and
representation.
The subiime characterizes the encounter of Antoinetie Cosway and Edward
Rochester, as both find the "Other" infinitely impenetrable, compeliing and mysterious'
This tension first generates genuine erotic attraction. then temor which resLrlls fi'om the
failure of the irnagination to "contain" the sffarger before then, and finally precipitoris
i-57
 MaCtlmdre

action intencieil to ctinquer the bouncllessness of the Other, Antoinetre. whose initial
reluctance 10 marry Edward is overcoine by her romantic attraction in combination with her
"fbtisliizilg"r of a mythical England, aitempts to master his lejection with an obeah love
potion, u tttut"gy that backfires. Furthemlore, as has been widely noted, Antoilette wants
ihe obeah rnagiC not in order to valiriate her connection to black creoie culture. but to erase
her own creole identity by negating Christophine whiie at the same time using her.' This
lack ol reverence fbr her "matemal" heritage and, even more simply, for a person who had
genuinelv careci for her. is the fatal point in the plot which ieads to her ultimate self-
betrayal. In this mornent Antoinette colludes most in her owi "othering" rather than
hor.roring lier selfhood, and it is the moment necessary for Rhys to write all ending to tltide
Sargasso Secz contmensurate with that of Jane Eyre.
Rochester achieves his ultimately successful conquest via more caiculated means
ofideception, what the irnperial center would consider "rational": by gaining control of her
inheritance through British rnarriage law and by manipulating her sense of guiit regarding
her iamily liistory of madness, social ostracisrn. and rumored miscegenation, her doubled
idcntit; as a colonial subjcct.'and hcr genuine longing for him. Yet this conquest is
generated oLtt of the teror of the sublime engendered by his encounter with a strirnge place
and people. ln Wide Surgassr,, Sea. the tragedy of colonial romzlnce colludes with myhical
lepresenlations oflandscape to drive toward Jane Eyre's bitter end. Both protagonists
rnanipLrlate and are manipulated by sublirne aesthetics, which generate simultaneous fear
and desire. zurd an u'ge to conquer with inevitable violence-that which stimulates such
t'eelings. Such a sublinle dyraniic rnay be seen as paradigmatic of both colonial and post-
colonial experiences.
The sublime has been defined as an aesthetic experience, but it is a psychological
and political one as well. The first treatise on the sublirne is said to have been written by
L,origirrus (c. lst century A.D.) and translated by BoileaLr in 1614. On the Sttblime
distinguishes between language meant merely to serve a rhetorical function and that
whose efl'ect upon an audience is not "persuasion but h'ansport" (80a), language that
literally makes us other than yyhat we were. Although such an idea rnay seem far from
Rhys's treatment, u,hen commentators like Gayarri Chakravorti Spivak, Robert
Kendlick, Benita Perry, Judith Raiskin, or Carolytr Rody, for instance, debate the
postrnodern rneta-texuality of Rhys's novel and characters, their observations ofthe
post-colonial liminalify of the protagonists may be interpreted as a kind linguistic and
oniological "transport" produced by hegemonic language. In other words, the kind of
"bewitching" perlormed on the colonial subject by colonial discowse, as Raiskin has
argued, is one fbrnt of "othering," fbr although "the English cnltural domination of
colonial eclucation in many wavs makes England more 'real' to the native Caribbean
than his or her native lancl, there always remains the intriguing mystery ot the
nretropolis. tlie unsettling attraction of the unfamiliaf' (252).
This "unsettling atffaction of the unfamiliar" is precisely what characterizes
the sublime experience, although Raiskin does not engage in a discussion of aesthetics.
When lldmund Burke takes up the topic a few years after Boileau's translation in his
f'hilosc,phical Enc1uir1, into the Origin oJ'Our ldeas of the Sublirne und the Beautiful
( l7-57), his fbcus is less on how to create the effect of the sublime in a texfual context
theui on what stimulates the psychological fbeling of sublimity in the viewing subjecg

t58
 The Landscape of the Oth'er: Aesthetics, Representation.
and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhys's If irle Sarga.sso Seu

whether the stimulant is naturally occurring or thc product o1'art. For Burke.
"Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain. and danger. that is to sa\.
whatever is in any sort terrible. or is conversant about terrible ob.jects, or operates in a
manner analogous to teror, is a source of the sublime; that is. it is productive of the
sffongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling" (39). Moreover. and cruciallv.
"W}en danger or pain press too rrearly. they are incapabkr of giving ani,'delight. and are
simply tenible; but at certain distances, and with certain nrodifications. thcy ma1' be.
and they are delightful. as we e very day experience" (a0). T'he passion of sympathl'
allows us to feel the pain of another's misery; it is when we have enough safe clistance
fiom that misery that we can also experience it as pleasurable. as in tlre case of fiction
and the other arts (44). Tirings that provoke the f'eeling of the sublimc in us feature
ten'or, obscurity. porver. vastness. infinity. difficulty. nragnificencc, lighl/dark. and the
feeling of privation. Among the privations are liose ol-vacuitv. darkness. solitude. and
silence (71).
Critics have observed the conjunction ofBurke's conservative politics and his
_aendering of the "sublime" as masculile (powerlirl. stronq. gloonrl'. fearsome) aiid the
"beautiful" as feminine (bounded. gracelirl. harmonious. sa1'c)." I'his particular
gendering of the aesthetic is in ironic contradistinction to other evocations of the icrlalc:
sublime as the dangerous monster in her various incamations. including the marginal
colonial madwoman-in-the-attic rvho first threatens ancl tlien wounds the English
imperial patriarchy.T But this is exactly the kind of slippage that inakes any aesthetics
so enricing since it will fit any pre-defined cultural constmction of what conslitutes
aesthetic pleasure. seduction. or danger. In that sense. aesthctics ai'c essentially
predisposed to cultural relativity. which has made thent so useful as propagandizing
indicators of cultural truth.
Immanuel Kant's further developn.rent of the idca of the sublirne in his
Critique of .ludgment (1790) makes explicit what was only irnplicd in Bulke's tleatise.
For Kant, human experience is limited to our owx subj cctivity; it follor,vs that nothing in
nafure is essentially sublime : certain objects ntay be nrore inclined to excite the ficling
of the sublime in us, butthc sublirne only exists in our perception (83-84). Rcauty
necessitates frlrm and detinite boundaries. but the sublinre is to be forrnd in the violation
of form. bourrdlessness (82); it is"that in atntpnrison v'ilh which evcry,lhing ttl,se i.s
snoll'(88: emphasis in original). This sense ol'bouridlessncss evokcs in us a fbelirrg o{'
terror that the imagination nray try to conquer b) attentpting to cncollpass and tlterebl'
confrol. Yet our irnagination will always fail to cornprehend the whole ol'anything
whicir appears to be in{=rnitely large (the mathematical sublirnc) and irt so doing exposcs
its own inadequacy (88). But because we havc an innate irnpulse to irursue thc infinite .
we will therefbre experience, paradoxically, a pain that cotncs fl'om the
incommensurabiliq,of our longings and our capabilities and a pleasure that derives
flom krowing that rhe imagination is able to supersede thc world ol sense (that is. what
we directly observe around us) despite its shortcornings. Kant theretbre defines the
sublime as the supersensible. ot"'the nere abili\'ta Ihink whlclt shLt+r's a ldcultt'ct/ rhc
minci surpassing every slandard o.l'sense" (89; emphasis in original)
Like our.other judgment <tl'taste, thc sublime is pre-verbal -judgments of taste
l5e
 MaComere

involve our faculties of f'eeling but not those of the intellect and therefore exhibit what
Kant calls a "prrposiveness without purpose" (5-5). Thus we may obser-ve what we
interpret to be purposiveness in an object without really understanding the nature ofthis
purpose. if indeed it actually exists (-s5-561.
Judgrnents of taste theretbre particlpate in the serniolic rarher than the
symbolic,as Freematr iurplies when she writes that a sublinle alterity "ercecds the
s.vmbolic order of language and cultr"Lre" (l l). In the case oJ'the subiilnc- when an
apparently threatening "other" evokes the tirge to lirnit the excess of alterity with
boundaries of whatever sort: psychological, textual, ideological, physical. Because
beauty. by contrasl. evokes a sense of safety or enclosure without restriction-"home"
in tJre perceiver, it does not incite defensive measures, but instead feelings of
-familiarity ancl contentment. As we know ffom ferninist theory, women who do not
evoke the "Lrear.rtiiul" in thc rninds of the purveyors o1'the palriarchy are vilified as
"terrible," a binary opposition extencJed to any "undomesticated" Other that violates the
exnectat ions of ther ciornesl,icator. FLrthermore, the sublime is analogous to Laca-tl's
construction of desire, which L<-rri Lawson has discussed in her analysis of Wide
Sorgus.so Seu'"

l,acan perceived both language and the unconscious as being metaphorical

sign systerns that cenler on the absence ofthe desire object. Thus, these
systems are bcltli necessitated by the absence of the actual ob.iect, and
empowered by the desire for the object. Thus, these systems are both
necessitated by the absence ofthe actual object, and empowered by the desire
tblthe object. [. . .l For Lacan, Desire is always and irreducibly desire of the
other, and it is Lrltimately this desire which may be seen to motivate human
behaviur and lacilitate human development. (20)8

Thus not only does sublirnity as the terri[,ing-yet-compelling unfarniliar characterize

the post-colonial encounter of Antoinefte and Edward, but also the texhlalily of
ideoiogy anci self--representation. For Antoinette wishes to erase her "self' and become
"other" through various nleans. one ofthose being transport via the terts (read: poehy)
exported by the finglish rnetropolitan center.' Raiskin desoribes how the "imagined
comntunity" of En gland inscribes Antoinefte's self-construction :

Antoinette's complex political and cultural status makes it difficult for her to
separate the mythologized England frorn the harsh reality of the place.
Nowhere is f3enedict Anderson's definition of a nation as an "imagined
conmunity" nrore skiking than in the power such imagination holds over the
British Creole. Because their very identities are dependent on their comection
with an imagined English mother counfy, Rhys's creole characters suffer ,i
greatly when. upon their journey "home," they conlront an England that in its
'1
coldness and brutality proves the storybook Engiand to have been a lie.
.:
Antoinette c.innot reconcile her hatred of England and her final defiance ;1:
",k
against it (her dream) with the Creole's cultural love of England. (256) rll
;:g
'ra
160
:i
 Tlie Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics^ R.epresentation.
and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhys's '14/ide Sot.gas.ro Sea

However, Wide Sarga.sso Sea as Rirys's text rather than Antoinelte's ntay be understood
as a more successful aftenlpt at "reconciliation." In lmperial Etres, Pratt employs the
term "transculturation" borrowed from ethrographers r.vho have used it "to describe trcw
subordinated or marginal groups seiect and invent fi'om materials transmitted to then.r by a
dominant or metropolitan culture. While subjugated peoples cannot readilv control what
emanates from the dominant cultw'e. they do detemrine to varying extents what they absorb
into their own, and what they use it fbr" (6). According to Pfatt, some instances of
representation produced as a result ofh'ansculturation are forns of"autoetlutography,''

instances in which colonized subiects undertake to rept'esent thentselves in ways

that engage willt tlte colonizer's own temls. If ethnographic texts are a nteans by
which Europeans represeut to tltemselves their (usually subjugated) others,
autoethnographic texts are those the others constrLlct in response to or in dialogue
withthose metropolitan representations. [. . .] Autoethnographic texts are not,
then. what are usually thought of as "authentic" or autochthonous fomrs of self-
representation. f. . .j Rather autoethnognphy involves partial collabol'ation witlr
and appropriation of the idioms of the conqueror. [. . .l Autoethnographic texts
are fpically heterogeneous on the reception end as well. usually addressed both to
metropolitan readers and to literate sectors of thc speakers' owr social group, and
tround to be received very differently by each. (7)

Wide Sargasso Sea is both ethnography and autoethnoqraphy--ethnography as

Edward"s text in which he constitltes himself as "Rochester." the patr"iarch of the
imperial center, and with which he simultaneously reinscribes Antoinette as "Bertha."
forms of representation that assert his hegemony; ar,d autoethnograplry as a text writlcn
diaiogically by and for Antoinefte, Christophine, and Rhys herself that lieterogeneousl,v
engages with and challenges metropolitan idioms. t{ody }ras wtitten that "Rcading and
resisting a nineteenth-century novel, Rhys's texf nranifbsts early instances oithe
feminist, postcolonial, and postrnodern sensibilities that ltave come 1o characterize late
fwentieth-century experimental fiction, and fusing these revisionary aesthetics. offers iit
its fi-nal section a revisionary paradign for literary inheritance itself ' (2 18).
With regard to the subLime, rve may tun to Freeman's T'he Feminine Sublinre:
Genrler and Fscess in Women's Fictktn. Freeman rnay be understood as elaborating on
the implications of the heterogeneify of textual reception suggested b;v Fralt *ten she
defines the feminine sublime as

a domain of experierrce that resists categorization" in rvhich the subject enters

into relation with an otherness-social, aesthetic, political. ethical, erotic--that
is excessive and unrepresentable. The femininc sublime is not a discursive
strategy-. technique, or literary style the female writer invents, but rather a
crisis in relation to ianguage and representation that a certain sulrject
undergoes. (2)

Freeman goes on to defrne the politics of a feminine sublime as "taking up a position of

16i
 MaComere

respect in response to an incalcuiatlle otherness" (l l) n the context ofa general

consideration of the sublinte's political implications:

That the sublime has no inherent politics, however. does not mean that
its

eff-ects are not inevitabiy and necessarilv political. l. . .lThe dimension of the
unrepresenrapre would be a central f'eature oiany sublime politics' One of the
main cclntentions of [herl book is that the sublime involves an encounter with a
radical alterity that rernains ttnussimilable to represenfa/ion. Such an
encourlter marks the very limits of the representabie, for it entaiis the question
' of syrnbolizing an event that we caru]ot i'epresent not only because it wos never
fit{ly present, biit because ii presents the subject with an tmrecuperuble exccss
of excess. [n tlie lomrulation of Jean-Francois Lyotarci, for example, the
sublirne is not the presentation ofthe unrepresentabie, bvt the presenturion oJ
tlteJ'act tlnt /he unrepresent.tble e,rists. To invoke the nondemonstrable-not
as a f;uniliar f'eature of aesthetics but rather in the context of the
ineonunensurable-is to situate the sublime as a siie of resistallce to
aestheticism ancl also tc underscore its political and ethical dimensions. In this
sense. tlte norion of alterity eludes particular ethniciry, sexualify. class, race, 0r
geopolitical prtsitioning but implies both a general concept of the
unrepresenlable ers that which exceeds ihe symbolic order of language and
cukure, irnci particular otherness of actual others, who remain nameless insotar
as they are outside its borders. (l 1; my emphasis)

For Freeman. the sublime "impties the possibiliqv of losing one's way" (44), and that is

a gooci description of the periis visiteci upon Antoinette and Edward alike as they
encounter eacli olher anci theil landscapes as unrectlperable excess ofexcess.'o
Perhaps colonial. and certain post-colonial, experiences al'ovays contain within
thern an elelirer( of'sublime aesthetics. Forihe colonizer. who may be insulaied fiom
the depredations he or shr-: inllicts on the colonized by the possibility of escape b,ack to
Euro;re and honrc. the sublinte may generate arl wge to nastery or escape, possibiliiies
which are usually attainable. Rlthough the West Indies are technically post-colonial at
the tirne of his arrival, Edward's response to tlie Caribbean, a place he never intends to
stay', still as:iumes the privileges of the fbrrner colonizer. To return horne without
achieving a dou'r'iecl wif-e would have been a source of shame ("I did not relish going
back to Englancl in the role of re-iected suitor jilted by this creole girl" [40]), but the
possibillty rvas aiwarvs open to him. Not so for Antoinette, since the iindamental
purpose of their relationship is to deracinate her. I'-or the colonized, colonial
depretlations were usually too irnmediately tragic to have the distance needed lbr an
aesthetic experience --danger made itself known in the rnost real of ways, and theretbre
tire subiirne u,oulci be an unlikely seductive tbrce. Fol rhe liminal post-colonial creole,
however. sublime uesthetics becomc a neo-colonialism perfbrmed in the theater of
svntbolic ideology. As the case of Antoinette reveals, the seduction of the sublime may
lead the post-coionial subject towards seli:erasure rather than self-representation. For
iihls lierseif, tlie struggle towards self-representation was a lif'elong one, only coming
to liuition in this latest of novels.

t62
 Tlie Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation.
and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhvs's Wide Sarpctsso Sea

The creole life Antoinette learls is a tnrestrota ,po.. inrUu.l with the tension
betrveenbeingandnon-beingquathesynbolicorder. Hersenseofplaceinthenatufal
world represents selflrood, a kind of spiritual home for the child Antoinette, who is
otherwise entirely marginalized jn her human miiieu. The landscape as her commLrnity
simultaneousiy atfacts and repels Edward. who views this Garden of Eden fiom the
perspective of Pratt's "Seeing man," the European male subject whose inrperial eyes
passively look out and possess (7). Yet he finds her racination in hel place threatening
because ii seems a kind of magical knowledge which she rvill use to overpower him-
The excess of the lush tropical landscape, in which life and death cycle quickly and lhe
dimensions seem grotesquely monstrous, becomes a slmecdoche fbr Antoinettc
herself." His response to this experience is a therefore a sr-rblime one, which
subsequently generates the urge to limit this perceived boundlessness with the syrnbolic
language of patriarchal law.rt At the sarne time, Antoinette's erroner:rus perception of
England as her true mfhical and spiritual "home"'' nray bc reacl as sublime as well.
Christophine, ironically, emerges as the voice of reason----or "clarity" in the Burkean
sense-as she tries unsuccessfully to help the lovers "see" each other more rationally
and less romantically.
Antoilette's socio-politieal alienation is profound lr'onr the inception of the
novel: her father is dead and her moiher unable to care for herself'or her two children
after the Emancipation Act of I 834 leaves them destitute. Antoinette trie s to 1ll1 these
aporia in her life by several contradictory means: through a selrse of mystical/conrnrunal
identify r.vith the land: with English colonial images of Christian salvation; and through
a desire to become "other," whether that is through escapc into the natural world, by
wishing she were black, or into her romance with Edward. Replete with Chiistian
s)mbols and allusions. the novel can be read as Antoinette's descent flom hcr childhood
Eden into manied Hell.r4 Along the way, not only cloes the Christian God abandon
her a God she never really believes in-but she also loses her Arcadian conrtrctiort 1o
the land, since her experience of it is mediated by the surrounding human rnilieu.
As an innocent child, Antoinette sees her landscape as an Edenic galden. albeit
one which contains a foleboding sense of destruction:

Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible-the tree of life
grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were ovetgrown atrd a strlell of
dead flowcrs mixed with tlie ftesh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns. tall
' as forest free ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out ofreach or lor
some reason not to be touched. One was snaky looking, another iike an
ocropus with iong thin bro*'n tentacles bare of leaves hanging liom a twisted
rool- T'\ ,ice a year the octopus orchid flowered then not an i-nch of tentacle
showed. it was a bell-shaped rnass of white, mauve, deep purples. wonderful
to see. The scent was very sweet and strong. I never went near it. ( 1 0- I I )

Wildness rnay be one rrope of the sublime as that which is untamed by dontestication of
civilization, and nt IVide Sargasstt Sea Ileana Rodriguez sees a post-colonial future : "in
the image of the garden-gone-bush the seeds of the new nation [. . .]"' (1r -5)" Mona
163
 MaCorndre

the control of
Irayacl has suggesteii that in addition to symbolizing a state beyond
paliarchy, the wildness of the garden in the novel i"p."t.ntt woman's fallen" worurded
stateliombirlhwithinit(439). ShearguesthatAntoinette'sreallossofinnocence
inierpretatlon,
conles at the moment of lier insertion into language (440).'5 In Fayad's
already insinuated
the serpent in the garden is the phallic language of patriarchy that has
itself into Antoinette's consciousness. Yet this seems appropriate oniy within the

construct of the Christiaur metaphysical world, ruleci by Go<i the Father' in a difi-erent
world, perhaps the "natural," n'on-metaphysical world, wildness may not be exclusively
consfruotecl is the clangerous other.ro Much as Antoinefte tries to evade her sense of
self being me<liated by the post-colonial pahiarchy. every singie person around her
collaborates in her domestiiation, since such absolute liminality would be a threat to a//
social orders. When her lamily is disenfranchised as slave owners, the land no longer
"belongs" to her, and as a f'emale white creole, she is not ailowed to "belong" to the
land inlhe way she perceives the black communify able to do, as Savory has observed:

Even in these relativeiy good times, when her mother is still sane, Christophine
is igitated that Antoinette is running wild, a significant comment in the light of
the importance of the idea of wild or tame d landscape in the novel' t ' I A
white girl is supposed to be trained into submission to social mores which will
give her status and privilege in exchange fbr her spontaneity. (140)

Yet. as Sue Thomas has noted. like Jean Rhys herself Antoinette wants her boundaries
to be dissolved and to lose herself (that is, her socially consfructed self) in the visceral
experience of natural phenomena, as she wiil later be "lost" in the erotic:

Rhvs writes in her autobiogaphical narratives of growing up in Dominica of a

sublime desire to sustain an oceanic identification with "a very beautiful" land.
[. " .] In the autobiographical narative tnthe Black Exercise Book (1938), she
tigures the desire as a liustrated sublime heterosexuai romance: "To me it
behind the bright coiours the softness grace was something very wild sustere
sad entirely male I wanted to identifo with it to lose myself in it. [B]ut it
turneil its heacl awa;' irdifferent & It broke my heart." (24)

]'he chiid Antoinette, however, still believes that the natural world will save her fiom
her social self. After the quarel with Tia, Antoinette returns home to be humiliated
belbre her nrother's guests. Her mother's emotional abandonment causes her to dream
her 1-rrst drearn in the rrovel, a nightnare fiom which she wakes up screaming. Her
motiier comes. but rather than consoling her says, "You were making such a noise. I
must go to Pierre, you've frightened hirn" (16). Antoinefte. alone, tries to persuade
herself that slie is "saf'e." but iier mother remains with Pierre. Antoinette says, "I woke
next morning knowing that nothing would be the same. It would change and go on
changing" ( I6), .ind Rhys underscores this moment as the cruciai one when "everything
changed" later in the novel (79). Abandoned further by her mother, who begins to leave
the house tbr long periods of tirne, A-ntoinette seeks an alternative to the sy.rnbolic
order:

164
 The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation,
and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Seu

I took another road, past the old sugar works and lhe water whcel thal
had not turned for years. I went to parts of Coulibri that I had not seen, where
there was no road, no path, no track. And if thc razor grass cut my le-us and
arms I would think, "lt's better than people." Black ants r:r red ones. tall nests
swarming with white ants. rain that soaked me to the skin---once i sair a
snake.
All betler than PeoPle.
Bener. Befter, better than PeoPle.
Watching the red and yeilow flowers in the sun thinking of nothing. it
was as if adoor opened and I was sonrewhere else, sorncthing elsc, not myself
any longer.
I knewthe time of da.v when though it is hot ancl bluc and there are Ircr

clouds, the sky can have a very black look. (16)

this sublime aesthetic experience o1-self-alienation, pain and danger press near" but
I_n

ngt so near as to be significant threats. and come as a relicf fronr the tensions ofher
contact zone where the black children call her a "white cockroach." I-{ele the plrallic
Serpent is neutralized and seen more as the thing-in-itself, in the trackless realnr
undetermined by huntan boundaries, rather than the thing meditated by the synrbolic
orderof Godthe Father. Her imagination is able to supercede thc worlcl of sense: by'
focusing on the physical rather than metaphysical aspects ofthe ob.iects before her. she
passes through the doors of perception into a peace{irl if tentpolary kind o{'meclitation
free of the ego and its culture u'ars.
However, as the last line in the passage indicates. this experiencc lerirains r
sublirne paradox beyond total comprehension" as the Manichean intagery of
simultaneous light and dark suggests. As the novel progresses attd the pressures
increase on Antoinette to move fi'om chitdhood to adolescence. so too does her'
relationship to the place change. The sublime gap betwecn the dream of
belonging/dissolvement she yearns for and her reality of intcntal. psychologioal exile
leads her paradoxically to search for closure in the fonn of recognitiott fttrll the
metropolitan center, in spite of her self-identification with the islands. Iror itrstancc.
hours before the fonner slaves set Coulibri alight, Antoinette experiettccs contrastitrg
images of damnation and salvation:

' Myra [a black servant girll came in again looking moiunful as she always did
though she smiled when she talked about hell. Everyone u'cnt to hell, she told
me. Vou just had to belong to her sect to be saved and even then- just as rvell
not to be too sure. [. . .]
So I looked away trom her at my favoritc picturc. "The Miller's
Daughter.,' a lovely English girl with brown curls and blue eYes and a dress
slipping offher shoulders. Then I looked across the white tablecloth and thc
vase of yellow roses at Mr. iVIaSOn, SO Sure of hinrself. so rvithout a doubt
English. Anti at mv mother. so without a doubt not English, trut not white
nigger either. Not rnV mother. Never had been. Never colrld be. Yes^ she
165
 MaComdre

would htive died. I thought" if she had not met him. And ibr the first time i
was grateful and liked hirn. 'l'here are rnore wa;rs than one of being ltappy-
better perhaps to be peaceflrl and contented and protected. as I t-eel now, fbr
long years, arrd aflerwards I may be saved wbatever Ntyra says. (When I ariked
Christophine what happened when you died. she said. "You want to know too
much.") I remembered to kiss my steplbther goodniglrt. Once Aunt Cora had
told rne, "l'le's very hurt because you never kiss him."
"LIe does not look hurt," I argued. "Great mistake to go by looks,"
she said, "one way or the other." (21-22)

llere the black cLrlture is associated with damnation and danger, although in Rhys these
itssociations are never stable or absolute. Christophine hints at an existential death
r,vithout transcendence or redemption, but, desperate for some cure for the wounded
ntatriirrchy, Antoinette rnistakenly puts her faith in God the Father. However, this is not
without an initial instinctive suspicion, which she believes is demonstrated through her
empirical obscrvation of what appearc to be his indifference. Aunt Cora offers a lesson
in the Kantiart tnere form of purposiveness: the signifier cannot be trusted to relay the
signified, "one way or the other." Thus the object lesson of the novel is conveyed in
this one sentence. Good "sight" will consist in resisting the fantasies and fears
engendered by a sublinte aesthetic and seeing beyond appearances. Indeed,
Antoinette's lirst "sighting" olMason was the more self-preserving and accurate one,
but she allows the mvthic representation of the English Miller's daughter to
superirnpose itsell'on her vision, which cornes to determine her response to everylhlng
around her, particularly when Edwzird Rochester appears on the scene. As patliarch of
plenty" what Mason provicies is Antoinette's economic ruin disguised as economic
security: as Go<i eiveth, so God talteth away. After all, Antoinette's dowry money for
ildward is really Mason's money lrom her mother's narriage. Because England and
Europe are desirable while everything il their post-colonial world is not, only a
European can be desirable, no matter how desperate he is.
t-ike the lacunac betwcen the rmagnurg of cieath and its reality, the gap between
what Antoineite yearns fbr and the realization of that romantic vision will always be an
incontmensurable one-until "Rochester" will make England only too real: ,.when we
know ihe lirll extent o1'anv danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of
the apprehension vanishes" (tsurke 58-59). Edward himself says that Antoinette's
views on England nnd Europe rvere flxed anci that nolhing he said could rnake her see it
other*'ise:

I ler rnintl was made up. Some romantic novel, a stray remark never forgotten,
a sketch, a song, a waltz, some note of music, and her ideas were fixed. About
England and about Europe. I could not change them and probably nothing
would. Reality might disconceft her, bewilder her, hurt her, but it would not
be reality. lt would only be a mistake, a misfbrtune, a wrong path taken, her
fixed ideas would never change. (56)

IJis intuition about some ephemeral but indelible trace inscribed on her mind recalls the

166
 The Landscape of the Other; Aesthetics. Representation,
and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea

European m1'thological indocnination she received in the convetrt:

Then there rvas anotirer saint, said Mother St" Justin, she lived later on but still
n Ital;,, or was it in Spain. Italy is white piilars and green water. Spain is hot
sun on stones, France is a lady with black hair wearing a white dress because
Louise [a fellow student and ffiend] was bom in France filleen years ago, and
my mother, rvhom i rnust forget and pray for as though she were dead. though
she is living, liked to dress in white (33)

Europe is not real, only slnechdochal. In a world where Antoinetle is not permitted to
distinguish befween the trul-v dead and the zombie dead-in-iiie.'' it is unsurprising ihai
she has trouble differentiating realify from iiiusion. Her convent school education only
reinforces her colonization as powerless female subject.lE The story of St. Innocenz.ia
foreshadows Antoinette's own marfyrdom to the false god of romautic love; "We ha're
ou own saint, the skeleton ofa girl offourteen under the altar ofthe convcnt chapt.l.
her story, she is not in the book.
t. . .] St. Innocenzia is her name. We do not know
TTte

saints we hear about were all very beautiful and wealtlt.v. All were loved by rich and
handsome young nen" (489). St. Innocenzia dies unassirnilated to reptesentation and
virginal. her story marginalized by history. The convcnt is the most pemicious kind o{
.,finishing school." in rvhich saints are not poftrayed as noble women willing to suffer
for their convictions, but packaged as marrying maidens of the upper classes who are.
, presumabiy. not marryrs at all. Implied is the hypocrisy of a church which seduces
women irto relinquishing their economic power in the nante of mendicanc,v and purity
in order to priviiege the voice of Western capitalism as the only legitinrate one'
Although Antoiaette doubts this indoctrination, just as she doubted Richard Mason a.s
God the Father. eventually she succumbs, only to lose all faith:

The long brown room was full of gold sr:nlight and shadows of trees rnoving
quietly. I learnt to say very quickly as the others did, "off-er up all the prayers,
works and sufferings of this day." But what about happiness, I thought at first.
is there no happiness? There lnust b0. oh happiness ofcoulse, happiness,
well.
But I soon forgot about happiness. [. . .] But after the nteal, nor+" and
at the hour of our death, and at midday and at six in the evening, now and at
the hour of our death. Let perpetual light shine on them. This is fbr my
mother. I would think, wherever her soul is wandering, but it has left her body.
Then I remembered how she hated strong light and loved the cool and the
shatle. It is a different iight they told me. still, I wouid 11ot say it. soon we
were back in the shifting shadows outside. more beautiful than any
pcrpetual
light could be. and soon i learnt to gabble without thinking as the others diti.
our death for that is all we havc. (33-34)
About changing now and the hour of

Rhys parses the futility of-christianjty as a guicie for living in the prcsent' until

tf}1
 MaCornire

Anroinette f rnaiil, teflects ''[. . . j i tiici lot pi'a] s0 often after that and scon. hardly at aii,
I l'elt botder'. happier. rnore fiee. But not so safe" (34). By the end of the novel it is
indeecl only thc houl o1' her dearh thai rcrnains to her. ln the interim, her eciucation only
prevenls hcr tionr linding an earthl)-' happiness.
During their honeyrloon at Granbois. however. she atlempts to reclaim her
scrrse of place and a soultirl connection to Edward wlien she tells him that she loves the
place rnorc thur anywitele in the world, rnore than a person. Such a slatclnenl reveals
manv things to hirn: rliat he has conrpetition tbr her heart with which he carl't really
compete .(cver-r a happier and rrrore sincere lover might stitl llnd this a threat); that she is
a lirndarnentally lonely and thereibre vulnerable person with regard to human
contpanionship; and that her place is the nlost nreiuringt'ul thing to her. Thcrefore he
knows that to lake her fiorn her horne would be the cruelest fbrm of revenge. When she
laler consults Christophine over how Edward does not reallv love her, her response to
thc woman and the place is to clainr both as "home": "She smelled, too. of their [black
pcople'sl snrell. so rvarnr and cornibrting io me (but [Edward] does not like it). 'fhe skv
was dark blue through the green mango letrves, ancl I thought. 'l'his is my place and this
is where I belong anci this is rvhere I wish to stav"' (65). Unfortunately. as much as she
itcls connectecl to the black culture and island landscape. she doesn't belong to that
culture and isn't able to sustain her relationship to the land into adLrlthooci, or to prevent
posr-colonial value systems frorn determining her sense of self. Her conflicting
ioy'alties lead her to contradict herself: only a I'cw pages eariier she explains to Edward
her sense ol'irony and fesenfmenr that the black cornmunity, which post-dates the
allival of the rvhire slave traders in Jamaicir, clairns a stronger bond with the land: "lt
\,\asasone,abouf arviritecockroach. That'srne. That'swhattheycall all ofuswho
*'ere here befirre thc'ir own people in Afiica sold them to the slave traders. And I've
hi:arcl lrnglish wonlen call us white niggers. So between vou I often wonder who I trnr
iur('r wtrere is my r:rluntrv and where do I belong anci whv rvtrs I ever born at all" (6 l).1'
if the sublime'inrplies the possibili!- of losing one's way (Freeman 44), then
Antoinette is seduced into losing her authentic sense of place in the cardboard Caligali
u'orld of England reprcsented riither than England experienced or understood. In
t hornfield. caught between hallucinatory momenrs of past und present, she srruggles to
reconcilelhereaiitvot'Englandwithhervisions. Slierecallsaman.presun.rablya
ijoctor. anr.l tlre male countcrpart to Christophine and Aunt Cora, giving her a sedative
dtrring the ocean passage through the Sargasso Sea: "The third man said drinli this and
you will sleep. I drank it and I saicl. 'lt isn't like it seems to be.'-'l know. It never is.'
he said. Ancl then I slcpt. whcn I woke it was a difrerent sea. colder. It was that
rright, I think, that rve changcd cour:;e and lost our way to England" This cardboard
houservherelwalkatnightisnort:ngland"(107'). l-he"thirdnriLn''tellsherthatour
dreams ilre never contnrensurable with reality, but Antoinette is unwilling to relinquisil
the aesthetic of'the sublime rvith its creative tension that keeps the prornise of
iuli'illnrent alrvavs just out of reach, stimulating the imaginaiion. She cannot reconcile
the:;erniotic otdet'o1'her urtmecliated lelationstrip to the landscape with the slmbolic
on* of' hurtran socitri rclaiions.-r''
'l'hroughoLrt
the novel tlte trope oi'the sublinte is repeated in different forms.
At first Arttoitteffe does not want to nrarry Edwzud because she is afiairl of what will
168
 The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics. Reprt.sc.rrraii,'n.
and tlre Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhvs's Il'idc Sorrutso St'tt

happen: she tells him she is cclncerned because he docs not kno\\ any,thing aboul hcr
1.16). Implied is her intuition that it rvillbe easr fbr him to project u'hat he likes onrrr
her rather than see her fbr rvho she reallf is. Thus her instincf is to privilcge clality,ol
thought over the illusion o1'romarnce. ['lis resporrsc to her skepticisrn is. -'l'll 'riujit \orr
il'i'or',' trust me. ls that a barcain'1" (-16). but the surlounding 1c\it indicates that rlris
is devious scherning on his par-t. I-ater. when Chlistophine telis her tirat the bcst
response to [:drvard's lack of ]ove is to leave hinr. Antoinettc relirses sce that realitr'.
blrnded as she is b1'her illusions atid hcr desperartioit: "l havc becn 1oo unhappy. I
thoLrght. it cannot last. berng so unhappy'. it u,ould kill y'ou. I rvillbc a diffcrcnt pcniol
in England and diff-erent things wiil happen to nre" (6(r). She hopcs tlrc sublime
unrealitr of England will transport her rnto othenress.
Thc tri'o powerfui surrogate rnother figttt'cs irr thc novcl. Arrrrt Cora anil
(-hristophine. n1 repeatediy to guide lter auar. tionr [:il..r'arcl and torrirrds r'l r)lr.rre
authentic sense ot'seif. Aurtt Cora. lutor'vledgeablc in the details of nrarriagc lau'. tri,,'r.
tc negotiate fbr a seftlcrnent. but Mast'rrr says thel'arc <iealing $'itir "'an honc>rablc
qcntlen.)an not a rascal"'(69). Cltristophine atternpts lo deflate the sriblinre propau,anrla
o;'England with the clariry'of reason. insisling that even thouglr slre irei'scll rrrar. l,r'rl.rr',,
tlrat Errglarrd cxists" she cjoes not knott il as cnrpirical tnct. ancl it docsn't soLind like'a
grcat place i() \'isir'. eitlicr: "Besidcs. i ask nr,,'se lf is iiris iilace Iir'c tlter tr'll ur'? Som,:
sa\; one thing. some sa1'diflerent. lheal it cr,!d to fi'ccrze voul boncs and the;'thicf rrrur
rTrone\'. ciever like the tlevil. Whv yor.l want to go to this coicl thief'piaec?" (67)-
Panr, ltas uriffen that Christophine's "ailiculaiion of eurpiricisrn's fartlrest reaches
spoken b1' n O,n.* wc)lni1n who,{rr.,r'.r tiorn cxperiencc that lrer polvclci's. polions an.l
nraiedictions are eli'ective in the \4'est Indies. undoes through i[s i:rr'c,r,s Irly cmlrhasis]
tlre rationalisi version vaiorized bv thc English, rvhile at tiic silllrc iirrte acknowledsjrtrt
rire boundaries to the po,"rer of'hcr kno*ledge" (l-19) Christophine is actuallr rrLrclt
nt()re "rational" than either Antoinette or Edwal'd" hcl rcasoninrl beint llreclicatcd cil
entpiricisnr raiher than nr)1ho1og). \!'hat br:conre ilratic'nal jn the nrinds t'rl ,\nttrirtenc
and Ed*ard are the posl-colonial reprcsentations of l:ng)and and L)onrirtica u'herr ther
tir to use thein to rrranipulatc their idcntitie:. {'hristopiiine is also i'ational irr knorlriri-l
tlre limits ol'her own po\\'cr. rlhereas Antoinetlt- and I:du'ard ltavc iitcttittltlcte ot'
inappropriate understandings ot their orril power. a iirnctrort ol'aqc. icrrpcrantcttt. ati(l
crperience as much as ideologY.
irt'rnicalll-. Christophine's astute honestv in tltis sccncr pt'ovttkes tltc onc (]vLrrti\
t:ondescending and racist noment in the ttovel on ti')e patl ol'Ant(riilettc tt-nrarcls iret :''l
starcd 3t her. thinking. "but how can slre know the best lhing lbt ntc to cio. this illnonirrt.
obstinate old negro \\,()ntan" wiro is nt'lt cefiain if'there is such a ltlace:is [--nqlatlcl'.'"'
r67). In 1act. r\ntoinetr€ irppears io hu'"'e had linle inlcttiiott of l).rllrirvilltt ( hristonititre's
counsel ar ail. tieternineii instead to look tirr salvatirttt tiorn outside hr'rself. this tlntr:
tionr the biack cuirure. ratiter lhan take responsibiiin'{irr her own lilc iittd acliotts lt rs
ixrssiltle" thcn. ihat the obeah iove potion lailed rt ritlrL tll.l Edriaiil IlLrt tlill\ becl'.tt:,;tl
.,\nlOinenc wOS /rt;,l.1 at)d lacked metrtbership irr the hlack conrtnltnil,r'. but lrecattse tii bt''
hg,tej oi.to be biack is nut silnply a quesiion ol face L.rtrt of
rcspct't. lt rs also possible
that rt faiieri because.;:s t'hristopliinc savs. if he doeslt't iove her. sllc can't tnakcr
169
 MaCorndre

liiin-his fesistance is a boundlessness she will never enclose.

Ultimately, the degree to which Antoineite is willing to betray her sense of sell
iilCicales tl're degree to whicli she has been lost iri the sublirne of colonial romance,
rvhich always holds out the unaftainable illusion of reciprocity. As Rhys wrote in a
lefier to Selma Vas Dias, "l insist that she must be lovel-v. and oertainly she rvas lost.
'All in the rontantic ti'adition"' (.Letters 269). The fiagetlv ot'the erotic reiationship
betrveen Antoinette and Edrvard Rclchester is paradigmatic of what Pratt terms the
"lailure of reciprocity":

If the fansracial love piots articulate "the ideal of cultural harmony through
romance." l. . .] what makcs the ideal ar, ideal is the rnystique 'rf reciprocity.
As an ideology, r-ornantic love. like caplralist comrnerce, understands itself as
. reciprocal. Reciprocity. love requited befween individuals worthy of each
-l-he
other. is its ideal state. iaiiule of reciprociry. or oi'equivalence between
parties, is its central tragedy and scandal. [. . .]
l{ec iproeity is irrelevant.
SLich is iire lesson to be learne,i ftorn the coioriial love stories, in
whose ddnouements the "cultural harmonv thror"rgh romance" always breaks
ciown. Whether love trirns out to be reelLrited or not, whether the colonized
lover is f'enrale or rnale. outcomes seeil to be roughll'the same: the lovers are
separated, the European is reabsorLred by Europe, and the non-European dies
an early dearth. (97)

lteciprocitl' ttttst aAi,a,].rs be irrclevant since a reiationship of reciprocity would ptutctue

the sLrblime of coionial romance" ernaseulating iis purposiveness as colonial .'!

melhodologv. To have reciprocity or equivalence between parties is impossible in any

absolLtte sense, colonial, post-colonial. or otherr',.ise. But any serious eftbrt to nlaximize
equivalence woulcl threaten the coloirial order, as it would a capitalist one. The profit of
colonial ronlauce ibr the colonizer is necessarilv predicated on this disjuncrive gap
bet"r'ecn the ideologicai masquerade olreciprocity and its rnaterial unrealify. Moreover,
this tnasquelade is desisned to produce a sublinre aesthetic in the perception ofthe
pafticipiults, particularl;- the subirltern. who is encou'aged to relinquish self-mastery to a
lteti, ntaster.t'
If Antoinetle has no real "horne" to which to escape, "Rochester" does. One
rvay in rvlrich Il ide Sur5lasso Serr succeeris as an autoethnographic text thar engages
ntelropolitari selirepreseniafion is in Rhys's derriction of how Edward loses himself
durirre his west Indian,iourney both literally an.i rnetaphorically: reciprocif,v in the
irovel comes in tire ii:rm of irarallel pere'lition. T'he fixity of mlthological perception
about Engiand which cletermined Antoinelle's srlGrepresentation and actions alscr
characterizes Ilochester''s resporrse to her lands;ape: each perceives the other's
lanclscape as a nightrriiile fiom which they want to awaken (a8). As the novel
I':)rogresses, we see Edwar'd move towex'ds increasingly abstract and psychological
Perdition liom bodily to spatial to cultirral to ethical to icieological. His growi,ng
displacenrent as a result of encorurtering the unassimilable causes him to seek means of
rewriting hinrself into representation, and that nreans is Antoinette, an easy palimpsest:
i70
 The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation.
and rhe Post-Colonial Sublime irr Jean Rhys's Ll/idc Sarg1,ts.s,, Sca

"In what is for hirn a wild and isolated site, bushland" he bccomes deranged^ ancl finds
iris way out through reading and writing" (Rodriguez 112).
l,iterally, Edward's body becomes lost to him during his disorienting ilhess
upon arrival, making him vulnerable and suspicious. Later, durine the hone\.moon
period. he rwice goes walking in the forest cnll to lose his *uy und confronitlc radical
alterity of the black culture. In the first of these instances he comes upon an obeah
rifual space; in the second, he meers that otherness by sleeping with Am6lie, the black
servant giri, after a refurn from the tbrest. This second walk occurs after fuitoinette and
he argue over the rumors of miscegenation and after he awakens to think that he has
been poisoned by her after dreaming that he has been buried alivc.:: I le returns to ilre
house, where Amdlie feeds him and tells hirri she f'eels sorry fbr him; he regards her
face as "loveiymeaningless," and their sexual encounter seenrs,,natural.'(tt4). of
course. after he sleeps with her he no longer desires her, also findine lier raciallv ancl
aesthetically excessive: "ln the moming, of course, I felt diffcrentlvl/ Another
complication. Impossible. Ald her skin was darker, her lips thicker than I had
thought" (84). The social order reasserts itsr:lf in the morning. ancl reciprocity betweel
them is "impossible." However, this means he does not hoid the psychological porver
of romance over her, and her comic laughter and pity are grcat rlispellers of the sublinre.
Kendrick implies as much when he observes that

Though he recognizes that he is being laughed at, he cannot tell rvhy, and as a
resuit Amdlie's laughter cannot be e;ontained within a frame that will ailow
him to see himself reflected in her response as he would wish to. I-ier
supplementary laughter is not an affrnrration of his position and the power
attached to it, but rather a demonstration of his own dependence upon her
recognition of this power and position if it is to nraintain its status as the "real"
| 239 l.

Tiieirs is hardly a ronlance! so he rewards her services with a ,.present." which will
allow her to leave for Rio as she has dreamed, and presunrablf it is the size olhis
"purse" which causes him to gloat: "As she r,vas going I could nclt resist sayin.g, half
ionging, half triumphant, 'well, Amelie, are you still sorry for me?' i'yes,' she said. "l
am sorry for you. But I find it in my heart to be sorry for her too"' (84).
Aesthetically and pliysically, Edward loses hirnself in the feai'sornely beautifirl
hopical landscape and his fear of being overwhelmed b-v ir and all that he niakes ir
represent. Such was Rhys's origirral design, as she coinments in her letrter fo Selma Vas
Diaz:

Mr. Rochester is nor a heel. He is a fierce and violent (HeathclilT') man who
marries an alien creanlre, partly because his f-ather arraltges it. partly because
he has had a bad attack of fbver, partly no doubt lor lovcly ttlun. but nrost of ali
because he is ctu'ious about this giri-already half in love . . " . i have trred to
show this rnan being magicked by tiie place rvhich is (or was) a lovelv, lost
and magic place but, ifyou understand. a violent place. (Perhaps there is

t7i
 MaComdre

violence in all magic and o// beauty-birt there-very snong) magicked by the
girl-. (l,erters 269)

l-lis initial response to the seemingly wild and encroaching landscape is easily seen as a
sublime one: "What an extreme green. [. . .] Evervthing is too much" I t'elt as i rode
rvearilv after her. Too much blue. too mul:h purple" too much green. The flowers too
led. the mountains too hlgh, the hills too nea-r. .And the woman is a stranger. l-ier
pleading expression annoys rne" (41)." Tr"ie place is wild and alien, lovely,
distnrbing-ancl he waurts its secrets (52). but withoui irs excess" and without having to
i-eel syrnpatiry tbr Antoinefte's "excessive" emotions. Savory notes that "He can see
love liness b'a1 ri,hen it is disturbing he retreats irom it, and it is clear that what he cannot
rnake lris orvu is disturbing. He sees the tirrest as 'hostile,' and populated by 'enemy ,

trees.' which onlv lieightens his paranoia rhat no one will tell him the truth" (62). More
sirtister is his colonizing declaration that \vhen he realizes that ihe iandscape, in this
instance the bathing pool, hides somethinil, 'l want what it hides"'(145). He tells
Antoinette that he i'eels very much a stranger on the island and that the place is an
enemy and on her side (LYide Sargas.so Seu 78). thus constructilg her as the
repre'sentutioii oithe unrepresentable.to Ironically. he believes she possesses what she
only moums. Autoinette. holvever, insists the place is indifferent to them both: "'You
irre quite rnistaken,' slie said. 'lt is not fbr you and not fbr me. It has nothing to do with
-f
either o1'us. hat is why you arre afiaid of it, because it is sontething else. I found that
out long ago wten I was a child. I loved ii because I had nothing else to love, but it is
as indifl'erent as this God you call on so olien"'(78).:5 The inverse of Antoinette's
pro*ressive loss o1'Christian faith is an increasing ecocentric existentialism, but for
Edrvard the nteaningless. godless indifTerence of the landscape is impossible to accept.
I-le believes the signifier must be hiding thc signifier iiom him, since the notion of
something ihat foreign to his experience is irnpossible lbr him to accept. In the
fbl'mttlaiion of- Lyotard, Edward is unable to understand the sublime as the presentation
of the fiict that the unrepreserrtable exists. In the formulation of Kant, Edward bslieves
that the nere.fbrm of purposiveness is instcad an absolute value. ln the colonial rvorld^
tile mrepresentarble was made representable through acts of colonization" However,
siitce in the posl-colonial rvorld Edrvard is no longer entitled to exploit the native
people, the black slaves, or the flora, fauna, and other nalural resources, Antoinette
treconies a convenient, and legal, sutrstitute .26 In efl'ect, he must dis-place her in order
to re-piace his orln sense of self transported into othemess by his encounrer with the
sublirne.
Such a ciisplacement allows hirn to persuacie himself that her newly discovered
sexual desires are indiscritninate and excessive, when he himself has awakened them.
presumably the very responses he sought to evoke: "she'll moan and cry and give
herself'asnosanewomanwould-,-orcould. or coulc!' (99). Thisisessentiallya
reductio utl ubsttrdttm prool'of her "madress." 'fhe rssue is not only a t'ear oiher
excess but an unwiilingncss to recognize the human side of his marriage, and to be
accountable fbr the efT'ects of his orm actions on others. In this way he participates in
what Priitt defines as "strategies of representation whereby European bourgeois subjects
seek to secure lheir innocence in the same moment as they assert European hegemony"

112
 The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation.
and the Post-colonial sublime in Jean Rhys's wiclc sargtLsso Sea

(7). Such inrocence-via-hegemony is Edward,s real .,sin,'which precipitates his fall

from grace into his olrn madness of adult male subjectivity in the post-colonial order as
('ft6ghs51s1"-for
who but a madman would rob a woman of all economic ilealrs. rear
her liom her home, and lock her away for decades out ofrevenge for no crinre at all?
Such is the power of the sublime, the novel suggests. we witness Edward's .,macl"
state in the last pages of Part Two, a rambling, raging conflation of person and
landscape:

Under the oieander-s" . . " I watched the hidden mountains and the rnists drawn
over their faces. It's cool today; cool, calm and cloudy as an Englisl-r sunmef.
But a lovely place in any weather. however far I travel I'11 never se e another--
The hurricane months are ltot so far awav. I thought, and saw that tree
strike its roots deeper, making ready to fight the wind. useless. if and when it
comes they'il all go. Some of the royal palms stand (she told me). Strippeci of
their brancires, like tall brown pillars, still they stood dellant. Nol for
nothing are they called royal. The bamboos take an easicr wav, they bcn<i to
the earth and lie there. creaking, groaning, crying for mercv_ The
contemptuous wind passes, not caring for these ab-ject things. (Let them liva.)
Howling, shrieking, laughing the wild blast passes. (98)

Edward pro.jects his fury and desire fbr dominance onio the landscape itself, casting
himself the raging, raping wind and absoiute monarch-of-all-l-survcy who holds the
power of clemency, and Antoinette (and/or Christophine) as the batter.ed trees
altemately resistant and cowering (worthy but u'eak opponents). fearsome but stripped
of the beauty which is the source of that sublime power and fear'-as "Bertha" rvill bc.
Freeman reiterates the sublime as the "force that undercuts the stabiiity of boundaries.
including those that divide masculine flom feminine, politics frorn aeslhetics" (4-5). She
firther notes that

it is important to emphasize that thc very hallmark of the sublirne its ability
to blur distinctions between observer and observed. reader and text. or
spectator and event-undercuts the claim upon which its theorists rcly to
explain and dcfuse its padicular force. The internal conh'adiction so central to
the history of the sublime that its theorists regularly claini for the speetator a
state of detachment that, were it to exist, would nullifu the very features of
rapture, merger, and identification that characterize and define the sublime, frlr
the sublime event is precisely one in which what happens to the '"other" also
happens to the sub,ject who perceives it. (4-5)

As distinctions are blurred lrenveen obserer (Edward) and observed (Antoinctte, the
landscape), Edward feels ravaged by his om emotions (which he sees as ravaged by
that which he observes) as he imagines a iiteral ravaging of the landscape by a
hunicane and a synbolicipsychological ravaging of Antoinette b1, hirnself. But it is. of

173
 MaComere

cirurse, the excess in himseff awakened in him by both the woman and the piace which
he violently rejects:

I hated the mountains and the hills. the rivers and the rain^ I hated the sunsets
of whatever colour. I hated its beaury and its magic and the secret ] wouid
never klow. I hated its indifference and tire cruelty' which was part of its
loveliness. She had left me thirsty and ail my liit would be thirst and longilg
ibr wirat i had lost befbre I found it. (103)

Unable to assimilate the place to representation-his experience of it will remain one in

which tris longings and his ability to fulfill them will remain an uffecuperabie excess of
excess-Edrvard somehow realizes that this experience sets up an eternal and
unsatisfiable ciesire in him, Lhe hallrnark of the romantic sublime, one which, if he does
not transmute it into hatred. will make him its supplicant and prisoner.
But what "Eciward" has lost before he has fbund it is not only belief in the
ccnlrality of phallic po\ver. as Robert Kendrick would have it (236), forhe loses this
only to reeslablisit it. What "Rochester" ioses just as he begins to gain consciousness of
its exislence is that sense o1'oneness and presence lvith the natural that Antoinette is
conversely in the process of losing. As a privileged mernber oithe post-colonial
hiertrrchy, his cLrltural education has always preempted his "natural" state. ln that
sense, Mona F-ayad's argument that Antoinetle is born into a faller.r state in pafriarchy
also applies to hirn, and Michael Thorpe similarly argues that "ln [Rhys's] porrrayal
Edwrud (a milder rrame ibr the lbrmidable 'Rochester') is an uncertain. perhaps
ernotiollally crippled young ntan" who has been trained in rhe English way to hide rvhat
he f'eels (179). The critical diflerence is that, as a liminal person. the child Antoinette
liveci a serni-lbral existence without too heavy demancls fiom social expectations. This
allowed her to establish her identiflcation r.vith the semiotics of place and therefore to be
open to experiencing sublime nature without overwhelming f'ear, but it also f-ailed to
prcpiu'e hcr a pubiic persona.rt
Edrvard, bv contrast, is all perfbrmance without authenticify (45). Because he
ls never operating at iirll consciotlsness, he is driven by paradoxical emotions-pain on
the one hand ancl pleasule on the other twist into
"iealousy and competitive
possessiveness. Ile wants what Antoinette has and ls, but instead of taking Freeman's
position olrespect towards her in order to learn to "unwrite" himself and cease to be
rttiecl by the voices of social delerminism in his head, he must rewrite her instead. What
beconres evident upon a careful reading ofthe last pages ofpart ll is how close he
comes to rtnwriting himself in order to remain "Edward" rather than rewriting himself
as "Rochester." ln these last pages we see he has not made up his mind entirely to take
Antoinette prisoner. but hesitaies, vacillating between forgiveness and vengeance, self-
revision or se lf-reiteration within the patriarchy. He asks Baptiste about saying good-
by'e to Hilcla, "the litrle girl who laughed" (100), only to be told that she is itreidy gone;
Hilda here may be read as a sign for Antoinette's child-self whom he simultun"ourly..-
tltenlbers and dis-ilentbers. Edward perceives what he thinks is Baptiste's contempr,
which reminds him of christophine's, but in the moment of recollecting her, whom he
has claiined to have forgotten, thinks:

114
 The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation.
and the Post-coloniar Sublime in Jean Rhys's r4tide sar.quss, sea

So I shall never understand why, suddenly, bewilderingly. i was certain rhar

' everything I had imagined to be trLrth was talse. False. only tlie masic and
the dreams are tme-all the rest's a lie. Let it go. Here is the secrel- E,lere.
(But it is ks't, that secrel, andthosev,ho knot+.it <:ann.l tell.)
Not lost. i had found it in a hidden place anrl i'd keep it. hoid it last.
As I'd hold her'
I looked at her. She was staring out to the distant sea. She was
silence itself.
Sing, Antoinetta. I cqn hear vott nou,,
Here the wind sqv.s it ha,s been, it hu,s bcen
And the sea.s{nrs il nttrsl be, it ntust be
And the sun says it can be, it will be
And the rain . . .?
" You mu.st listert to that. Our ruin knows
all the .soncs. "
"AttJ ul/ !Jte IL'ur.\'."'
"All. all, all."
Yes. I will listen to the rain. I will listen to ihe rnountain ttircl. Oh- a
heartstopper is the solitaire's one note-high. su,eet, loncly, magic. \,ou lrolci
your breath to listen. . . . No. , . . Gone. what was I to say to hei'? ( 100- I 0l )

ln this passage Edward comes as close as he vct has to a crisis of faith in his
Enlightenment world-view and moves towards the "here." the rcalization tliat he might
be able to belong to the place. to exist in the present, and that he can unclerstanci its
"s€cret" onlf if he accepts it on its terms. Horvever, a competing voice invades,
implying that the secret cannot be articulated in words, ancl he feverts to his desile io
contain and possess its sublimity via Antoinette. Antoinette's "silence itself is a
.sublime privation of speech. In that absolute silence he clairns to be able to |ear |cr.
finaily, anci apparently cails rip a memory of her previous spcech, a song alrout the
being-for-itself of the natural world. past. present. and future. and the ways in which tlre
"languages" ofnature. rain or birdsong are not silence, but as meaningfui as the
symbolic order of ideology. But the nremory, or the actual song if it is one. of the
solitaire bird dissoives and Edward. too, becomes absolute silence. the represeutation oi-
the unrepresentable: "What was I to say to her?" ( 10.l)
in an efrort to answer this question, he initially recalls empathetic and
sentirnental memories of their tirne together. But. like "that famous picnic that turned
into a fight" (t0l), his memories of happy laughter and storl'telling distorl into thouglrts
on "the law of ffeasure" ( 101 ) and the importance of keeping it secret. I Ie irnagines
that he tells her in his mind that he scarcely listened to her stories because he "rvas
longing for niglrt and darkness and the time when nroonflowers open" ( 102F- that is.
longing for the island sublime that is the antithesis cf his Enlighrerlment heritage . 1-tris
memory of his desire to en'rbrace tire undifferentiated darkness lead-q to his onl-v lnom.srli
in the novei of "clarity." remorse^ self:reaiization and a lcal apology. which rapidlv
dissolves into defensive vengeance:

t 1-)
 MaComdre

No, I would say-l knew what I would say. "l have made a ten'itrle
mistake" Forgive me."
I said it, looking at her. seeing the hatred in her eyes--and feeling my
own hate spring up to nleet it. Again the gidd.v change, the remernbering, the
sickening swing back to hate. (102)

Edward rcsponds by forcing the hate out of her, "And with the hate the beauty" (102),
thereby def-eating her sublirne power over him. Yet still he hesitates: "She lifted up her
eyeS. I3lank lovely eyes. Mad eyes. A mad girl. I don't know what I would have said
or done. In the moment the nameless boy leaned his head against the clove free rnd
sobbed. Loud heartbreaking sobs. I could have strangled him with pleasure. But I
rnanaged to control myself" ( I02). The real boy cries for the meh'opolitan dream, but as
a symbol he is also the prelapsarian correlative fbr the also-nameless "Edward," as
Hilda is Antoinette's, expressing Edi.vard's own suppressed desires to merge with the
landscape olthe other. However, this conffontation with his own excessive pain leads
Edward to cornplete his selt--inscription as "Rochester," rather than to forgiveness or
cot-npassion fbr his own lost innocence. He tells Antoinette that the boy has not learned
nny English that he can understand and chastises her for daring to "speak ior me" by
having told the boy he can come with them (i03).
Such irrtense conl'lict exhausts hirn: "All the mad contlicting emotions had
gone and left me weiiried and empty. Sane" ( 103). But he is rnistaken: it is hardly
"sane" to "hate" as he now hates Lhe place and hates she "who had ieft me thirsty and
all my li1'e rvoLrld be thirst arrd longing for what I had lost before I tbund it" (103). He
lemembers that they turned tho corner (fiom paradise to hell), that he wondered ii
Bapliste had another, non-European name, but had never thought to ask. "Ald then that
I'd sell the place for rvhat it wouid f'etch. I had meant to give it back to her.
Now"-what's the use'i" (104). .lust at the moment when "Edrvard" realizes there are
nrea"ningful orders of realiry other thar his own, he abandons the prospect of
encoLrntering ihem with respect, humility and toleranse for alnbiguify. The boy follows
thern, crying lor "Nothing" (104), rhat is, for the nothingness rhat is the "secret" behind
sublinie representations of the metropolitan center, just as Antoinette herself hacl"
"Rochester" utarvels at tire gap between representation and reality, one which he rvants
to believe he has closei'l for hirnself, but clearly has not.
Antoinette's wealth enables Edward to acquire the legitimation he lackecl as
the youngest son in the primogeniture system (4r,91)" As an ineffectual younger son,
Edward mav be an example of Praft's "self-effacing protagonist of the anti-conquest,,'a
kind ol'pzrar ueternus.

srLrrounded by arr aura not of authority but of innocence and wlnerability.

[. " .l the person who really mafrers is the father back in [Europe] awaiting the
son's return. t"lnlike such antecedents as the conquisiador and ihe hunter, tire
ligure of the nattu'alist-hero often has a certain inrpotence about him; oiten he
porh'ays hinrself in infantile or adolescent tenns. [. . .l The nattralist-heroes

176
 The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation,
and tlre Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhys's H/ide Sargasso Sea

are not, however, wonlen. [. " . ] The image of Adam in the primordial garden
is an image of Adarn before the creation of Eve. [. . .] Eve's absence is
undoubtedly a precondition for Adam's infantility and innocence. (55-57)

Edward is no naturalist, and tire novel urges our awareness of the tremendous camal
relationship between irim and Antoinette. at ieast at the outset of their honeyinoon. Nor
is Antoinette "absent" fi'om her wild Eden in any literal sense. However, slte is absenl
inthesensethatsheis,toevokeFreeman, never.fulfi,present. First.whateverseutiolic
self-presence she has when alone with nature is lost in imaginary England, and on the
day"everything changed" (16.79). Of course, this is abetled by Antoinette's desire for
self-eraswe as a form of belonging; caught in the mechanisnrs of sublirne ideology, she
must be written.tt Even though she strenuously objects to Rochester's reinscription oI
her name as Beftha. she catr't see his doing so as poftentcus. For ali intents and
purposes, her refusai to leave tire relationship constitutes a kind of death-wish cxample
of the sublime as Lyotard describes it: "another kind of pleasure that is bound to a
passion sffonger than satisfaction, and that is pain and impending death" (99). Second,
Axtoinette is absent for Edward (and probably all the other characters except Sandi) as
an ildependent subject consciousness, just as he is absent for her. I:lence his
namelessness thrcughout tlte novel: he remains "sublime" and unnamabie, whereas she
is named and contained.
Further, Edward shares witir Pratl's protagcnist the traits of innocence and
vulnerability during his illness upon arrival, and as a stranger to the New Post-Colonial
World. as well as in his sense of shame and obligation to his father. l-lis self-image is
constantly being reiterated as one ofpowerlessness in alien surroundings, and his
resulting panic drives all his actions. rnaking him all the tnore susceptible to the inind
games of Arndiie and Daniel Cosway. Kendrick suggests that the relationship betrveen
Antoinette and Edward is one between adolescents, if not in age thert in social
development, fwo people resisting yet longing for integration in the powerful world of
adults: "Alongside Antoinette's nalrative. Rltys presents the anti-Blltlungsromnn of lhe
young Edward R.ochester l. . .l without money and holdings of his own he does r.rot flt
his class's narrative of a'mattre male subject"' (236). Elaiue Savcry aqrees:

What gives productive tension to the ttarrative is that Antoinetle's husband

does i.n the romantic beginning of his marriage appreciate certain aspecfs of his
wife's..place." since he is alienated to an extent fl'om his own family and
location. f. . .l This tension in him makes the attempted relationship the more
interesting and dramaric, fbr he is not a simple conqueror. but a damaged child
of the English upper-class sociery trying to tnarry an injured and highly
sensitive itritO of CarlUbean upper-class societ-v. Both Antoinettte and her
husband seek to identi!' to an extent with the injured or the wild, but draw
back in their inabiliry to extend their empatiry beyond themselves- Not once
does Antoinette's husband thinlE of Antoinette as if he rvete her. nor does she
do ihis for him. (146)

l!t
 MaComdre

As rrle have scel, it is something of an overstatement to say that he lacks

all enpathy,
but ltliys does unclerscore how polluted Rochester has become by vengeance. Al one
point ihristophine proposes to ltim that he return half the dowry and leave Antoinene
arrd the islands behind. a proposal he seems to consider until she makes the rnistake
of
provoking his jealous.v (9-5). Furthermore. at the end of the novel Grace Poole says that
:'l'hey kneru that he was in Jamaica u'hen his f-ather and brother died. [. . .l He inherited
everlthing. bur he was a wealthy man belbre that'- (105). Haci Rochesrer been
motivated n,erely by pgeeti, once the news came that he had achieved his inheritance he
couid |ave easily fbund a way to leave Antoinette behind. It is one of the many ironies
ofthe novel that rve the readers know he is in no real danger from anyone or anything
alter his illness. iurcl thar mortal danger comes only upon his return to England wiih his
conquered bride. He relts Christophine, "l rr,ould give my eyes never to have seen this
abonrinable place" (96). but of course he tloes give his eyes in the frre Antoinette sets in
l-horntielcll-lall as are.sult ofhavingseen"paradise"andeatenofthetreeof
krrorvledge -knowiedge of ltis own hean of darkness.
Out of the contact cxperience, writes Pratl, will be produced representations of
1he -"anti-cottquest." Sr-rch autoethnographic texts pursue what Parry describes as
"represeniations o1-a Creole culture that is dependent on both [the English imperialist
arrd the black Jamaican]yet singular, or [an] enunciation of a specific settler discourse,
disrinci tiont the texts of irnperialisrn"' (247). as well as ethnographies that self-proclaim
the colonizer at once victor and innocent. As subaltern, Antoinette speaks, but our
witnessing o1'the process o1'her silencing is perhaps the most "sublin-re" experience fbr
rus as rerlrle r,s o1'the novel. as we watch the horrcr of the inexorable end approirch. If
Anloinette "speaks" thror"rgh her blinding of Rochester, it is only to tbll back ittto
silence until Rlrys gives her a voice.
Rhvs herself-, of course, succeeds in making ll/ide Sargas.so Serz her own
aLrthentic autoetluiography because, l propose, she "refuses to transform alienation into
liuniliality" (Kegan Gardiner 147). That is, she refuses to write a "beautiftrl" piece of
cultural crafi that would please one social order or arnother (white, black, masculinist,
leminist, center, margin) rathel than a work of art rhat catches our attention in its
sublirne gaze and dernands our participation. Savory writes that Rhys's

unwillingness to take a single. linear position on major political issues marks a

sensibility' able to understiind political and social curents of history with
rernarkable and uncornfortable honesty; she was entirely unable to be
ideological, and lully delermined to observe unpredictable contradictions of
hutnan behavior, interesting details olconsistent failure to live up to heroic
ideals. She was herself sustainedly conhadiciory: she loved and hated both
England and the West Indies: she both loved and hated money and privilege;
'
she both loved and hated rvhat black and white sienified to her as racial
identities. (35)

I suggest that it is only by enduring, cultivating, :rnd exploiting such tensions that Rirys
could produce a piece of autoethnography that does not simply collude with the
dorninant syrnbolic order but presents an authentic anci successful counter-discourse

178
 The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation.
and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhys's lVide Sargasso Sea

which deflates the sublime of ideological hegemony in its clality and revelation of
compromise, incompletion, and unrepresentability. Such a creative process is
inevitably a paradoxical one in which the artist represents the unrepresentable. that
which will always remain dark and obscure. This tension is characteristic of the artist's
way in generai, which requires a refusai to assimilate to whatever social nonns
prevail-the artist as a kind ofpuer or puello aeternus whose rebelliolt asserts its own
voice and fresh symbolic order. I therefore respectfully suggest that rvhat Freeman has
called"apolitics of the feminine sublime" may also be understood as the "creatil'e
sublime:"

unlike the masculinist sublime, that seeks to master, appropriate, or colonize

the other, I propose that the politics of the ferninine sublime involves taking up
a position ofrespect in response to an incalculable otherness. A politics ofthe
feminine sublime would ally receptivity and constant attention 1o that which
makes meaning inlLnitely open and rtugovernable. f . . .l Such a practice would
authorize concrete strategies and tactics ofresistance without the need either to
identify itself pemranently with any one particular political position or to
depend upon a fantasy of collective identity as the basis for consensus. Its
most enduring commifment would be instead to sustain a condition of radical
uncertainty as the very condition of its possibility. (11)

ln the sense of daily living as we see it in the novel, the outcorne of suclt radical
receptiviry and uncertainty. in Antoinette's case at leasl, can iead to an unrectrperable
lossofself. Fromthevantagepointoftheartist,however.thispossibilityltoldsouta
more positive outcone.
Moreover, it may be that we can endure the painful pleasure of the sublime if
we have the self-knowledge that brings wisdom rvithout violence. Perhaps the blinding
of Rochester will force his reacquaintance with "Edward." Like Oedipus, Teiresias. and
other blind seers, Rochester must learn that fiue wisdom comes from looking
inward-ftom self-mastery rather than mastely over others. Upon first arriving at
Granbois after his illness. he remarks that "There are blanks in my rnhd that cannot be
filled up" (45), and Grace Poole comments that his stay in the West Indies "has changed
him oui of all knowiedge" (105). He must face his own heart of darkness, his own
semiotic subiimity and unknowability. in order to recuperate his femlnine side with Jane
Ewe. However. this has oniy come with the sacrifice of the post-colonial subiect' The
just as the|e
Eru-opean returns horne, but not to sat'ety. and the non-Europearl finds that
u.. oiuoy kinds of happiness. so there are mally ways of dying'

Notes
by Rhys. but there is
I . The male protagontsl oi'the novel whO marles Antoinetle is not named
than Edward Rochester. His "narncicssness'' has
no r.*onio beiieve he is anvone olher
been widely and variously interpreted by rnany critics.
including Robert Kendrick' Benita

179
 MaComere

l'at'r1'. and irlaine Savorl', CiLrolinc Rodl'rernzuks that "Sirikingir', Itochcster remalrls
compietcly nanrclcss thloughout. Clalled only'lhe miur."hc,' 'husbanci.'and'rhc man rthir
-ihus
hzrtcd nre,' this speakcr rs given to no body-no physical dcscrlption rvhatsoerci.
'ca-strating'the lbrmidable iord ol'Bronle's l;nglish martor. Rirys reurites htln as ar.r
arlonvrnous. lost voice in a placc wherc tlrc ven existence o1'his tatherland ts cluestioned.
[. . .l Discrcditrng the fiither, Rhys rccr.rpcrates the mothe. l. . ]" (.103-0,1). ln th]s essa]. I
will call hirn "l;drvard" al sonle points 01'm), discussion and "Rochester" at ollters as a wav
ofinterrogating. the parri.uchal discourse sustained b1,the general practice o1'rc-l'erring to
1'crnale charirctcrs br'1heir private, gilen names. and male characters b1'their public
plitronl,rnic- Ltrt rcl'e rring to the unnamed male protagonist as "lldrvard," I attempt to deflate
the sublinritl o1'putrizu'chal hegenit'rnv and rencler hinr nrore "clear'' to the reader. The
(lucsti()n ol'nir.nring is also re'lated to the trope of thc Fall as ihe transition from childhood to
aciulthoori. as uill becornc clctu- Finally. it is interesting to note that of lhe critics rvho have
writlcn orr h'itle 5iorgusso.\'eu. rt is thc men (sLrch as Michael 'l-horpe iurd Kendrick) rvho
htrrc tended io rcler to thc unnilled protagorrisl as "I:drvarJ" rvhilc rvomen tend to ret-er ttr
Itiirr rttorc clilt'rt as "Roohestcr.-'
.A.ccording to Sarun. " lhcre is rur ironic parailclism in Antoincrte's illtirrlate fate: rvhereas
Christophine linallr rctires to a linle propert),shc \vas givcn by Antoinette's nother ancl has
hcl ircedoin. .\ntoineftc x'il1 be carried arl,al and confined. Iror Artoinette's husband. t.he
srnLrp, cpitaphs ol slave-holders on thc'rvalls of thc church rvhere he meLrries strike hint more
than thc ccrenron\ or his bride. l'hough he inrplicitly'criticizes them. he casts himseii'as
Anttiinetle'so\\lerbvtheerrdoflhenovei: 'She'snrad,butmine.mine"'(l4l). Seealso
l'arn *ho argues thal Christophinc successfullv countcrs the hegernonic discourse rvith her
ou'n (247).
Iri the riords ol-JLrdith ltaiskin. "Antoinette's ultirlate disemporverment and impoverishment
in lttide.\il,qa.sso -lao is lacilitatcd b1'a tctishized lcprcsentatiorr of thc British Ernpire
grounded lcllipsis in originall in mvths o1'lzunily'loyalty and sa1-e11," (252).
"1. C-l. Sandra l)ralic: "Wonit, Antoinctre wirnts to use tl-ie spcll to completc her assimilation to
Flncliud iLnd lo ri'hitencss. She is aliaid of Alio-Caribbean obeah. but she agrees to what she
helsuli'identillcs as 'obetilr too'--tr{ochester stealing frcr name" (193).
Scc Ilaiskin ort the "licling of inauthcnticily and cultural doublcncss experiencecl by rhosc
irrculcalctl rvilh lhc irnpcriiti dream'' in Ll'ide Jur.qasso Sea (253),
(r C1. l)circlre l-r'rtclt. " Donrestrcirting Fictions iurd Nationalizing Women" in Rornunticism,
lloce, urul lmperiul ('ulture. 178A-1831. eds. Alan Richiu'dson aurd Sonialtofkosh
(Bloonrineton: lndiiura ill). | 99{r).
I{hvs rvrote in a leltcr to Selnra Vas I)iaz. .'Hel end--l wanr it in a wa\'triumphiu\tl" (Letters
156).
IJ Sc:c also Mona Favatl. pp. 439-40.
()
Cl1. Cavatri ('hi&ravorti Spivati: "lt shoLrld not be possible to rcad ninetcenth-centur-1'tlritish
litcratLtrc w'ithoul rcntenrbcring that inperialism, undcrstood at.s England's social misslon, wa5 a
crLtcial piutot'thccuitural reprcscntiitionol'l:inglaldtothelinulish. Therole ofliteratureinthe
production o1'cLiitural reprcsentation should not be ignoled. 'l'hcse trvo obvious 'i-acts' continue
to be dislceiurled in thc lcading ofninctecnth-ccntury British literalure. 'fhis itselfattests ro the
corrtinuirrg stlcccss ol'thc irnperial project. displirced iuid dispcrsecl into rnore modem ibrnls"
(210)
Itttercstirrgh'. l)recrnan discusscs Rhvs's Gor.,i/ Llttrnirtg illidiight in her book but not Ilirle
.\7r grr.r.ro ,\ira-
il i'or plcvious cornrncnt?ltors on LdrviLrd's projectiern ofhis response Io the place on{o
Antolnelte. sed. i[]]ong orhr:rs. lrrlcry il:l); l:avad (443); Kcntirick (236); I{arnchand (lg3-g1);
and Iiaiskin t25.1).

t80
 The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation,
and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhys's ll/ide Sarga.sso Sea

12. For a discussion of Julia Kristeva's concepts of the semiotic ard the svmbolic in thc conlext of
Wide Sargasso &4, see Fayad, pas,sint.
13. For a discussion of Antoinette 's doubled identity with respect to Englzurd, see Raiskin.
"England: Dream and Nightmare," pa.ssirn.
14. .See Fayad 439.
15. Fayad's argument here resls on ar early scene between Antoinette and her black gili lriend l-ia-
Fayad lays thc responsibility ofresorting to racial stercotypes to asscrt her porver on Antoirrctte
but does not interrogate Tia's "deviousncss." to which Antoinclle is reacling. It sc-enrs unfziir to
hold Antoinette solely responsiblc for inciting racial hatred rvhcn Tia's ourr indoch'ination b1
colonial ideology suggests itseif here.
16. The sublime cuts across all life experiences in the sense that it is also a response ro situations oi
a iess overtly ideological nature. and one which sen'es a survival function: rvc should fear the
edge of the Grand Canyon and the mysterious shangcr. yel rvithout a simultaneous clcsirc to gei
closer, we will learn little about them.
I7. By pointing out this lack of distinction betwecn the living and the dcird. I do not me tui lo
contradict al A&o-Caribbean belief s,vstenr in which. according to llrake. "dcath is not iur end
or even a disengagement fiorn lifc: it is rnore a change of statc" (20 I ). Such a change o1'statc is
still recogrrized for rvhat it is. What happens in the cr'rnvenl. is diffcrcnt: Antoinetle is a-sked to
.pretendthathermotherisdeadwhenshereallyisill.'I'hisinlerfercsrvil.hralhcrt.hanfircilitatcs
her abilif to trust her observatiotts and.judgment.
18. Dearrna ivladden notes ihat Antoinette perceives the convent a-s a "reluge'' firrrn 1hc dan-eerous
outside world. but the convent nray pose an even greater threat to hcr rvell-bcirrg hr regartling
her. like her islands. as tenain to be colonized ( I 64).
19. As Judith Kegan Gardiner notes. "Unlike Eve. [neithcr Rhys. Stcad. nor Lessing] ciur look back
on a paradisiacal home because the whitc colonial wonran ha-s no secure poinl ol'origin.
'lihcir
birth nation is not the home of their culture; England is not thc honre of their birth: iLnd the home-
which they gtrew up in demeans wornen ard makes it impossiblc for Lhenr to idcntily rvith the
mothers thel'yeam for" (141).
20. Raiskin interprets this fixitv somervhat differently: "'fhc one thing Antoinettc does not losc in
ihe course of her.foumey of disintegration is ihis Cream that progtessii'ell,rcvcals lingla.nd 1o hc
a strange. fbreigrr place. rloI a horne or refugc for thc Janraican Clreolc.
'Ihis shifliirg drcalt tri
England and ofher place in it is Antoinette's coherent psychological (ard latcr her politicul)
.answcr to her loss of agencv a-s she is excha.nged bcnveen English mcn" (255).
21. Kendrickismistakenr','henhesuggesfsthatthemarriage mightbeaviable escapctbr
Antoinetle from her post-colonial liminalit-v: "lt is not possiblc ibr Antoinetlc 1o escapc outsidc
the bonds of these narratives a-s long as she lives in iamaica. It is possible. lrorvever. lbr hcr ti-.
atlempt to renegotiate her relation to ths discourses through which shc livcs her rclalion 1tr
material culturc. Though it is not of her design. the arra-ngcd rnarriage to Rochestcr allou's for
this possibiliy' (240). Antoinelle is not socially eqLripped to {irnction skilllLll_v- on her oun in a
mefi.opolitan milieu. The only viable altemative she does not take is a rnesli;aie union lvith
Sa:tdi. but she is also not prepzired fbr this step. I lorvcver. Kcndrick agree s thal "Though
Etlrvarci promiscs lter'peace. happiness. and vrf'cty.' he rvill not accept her a-s all
uncgnditionally loved equal. To the contra4'. Rochcstcr accepls hcr only bccausc of the
qmbolic value she carries within the dorninant order-her fortunc and her bcauty ntakc hcr a
prized possession fbr him, ar casy way to acquire his stalus iu an 'indepcndcnt' gcntleman"
{240). But this is of course u'hy this marriage cannot bc a viable option 1br her.
22,. Rh-vs at some point apparently rnea].It tbr Rochester to pretcllcl to have becn poisoncd in ordcr to
gain the uppff hand: "Oh yes I've cut out the vomitir'lg and so on and madc it that the 'lovc'

r81
 MaConrdre

drink ()n Obelh Nighi rnereiv releases all the misen,. jealousv a:rcl l'erocity that has been piling
rup rnMr il ibr so long. Lle pretends tr think he's poisoned-that's only to pile up (again)
evcry.thinghccanagainsthcrandsoexcuschiscmeltl'. lle.iustdiesitthalwtry. (lt'soilen
done). / "l do rrot think that it iustiJies hirn at all. I do think it explains hiln a bit." (Letters 269)
l-l llcana l{odliguez noles that "[n the tlopical landscapc], losing pararneters is onll"true here lbr
thc lrnelislr rnalc protagonist. All others knori, the area well and are tamiliar rvith each zutd
cverJ,()rlcol'itsroadsurclpaths- Naturetalkslothenrint-hciirmrolsrgns,smells.iuldcolors.
l. . .l l'har is ',vhl s;'nesthesiir corporeal sensibilitl'. scnsuaiiry--=r:iraracteristics of nlugicai
rcalisnt ars opposcd 10 Victoriiut Gothicisnr-sciue thc lrngirsh murci accustcxtted to thtnklng. Ltr
rcasoning. to Lrsing onc's head rc fie detrinlent o1'all c,thcr hodv orgurs'' i11r).
ft "Antoinetlc is so closclv identilled rvith her tropical island that they seen to bc extcllsrr)lls i)l
-l-lie
cach other. liuiilsci.ipc bccorncs e nge ndercd through this closc idcnrificatiLrn. and
Antoirrette beconres a manilesttrtion of place" (Madden 166).
25 C'{. Anne Koenen: "Follorving the nrythical conrmunion rvith nature during her childhood. ,

Antoinctte recognizes natlrc as a lbrce jn its orvn right. beyond the humzur mind or control,
rvhile l(ochester is aliaid ol'nature and ciriven by,thc need to dominate it and demystilj,'it in an
Lnl ightenrnent-irrspircci approach" (20).
26 Scc Ill5l!. p. 66. in. 9. lbr I{aiskin's explalation of English rnarriapie:und propcrry* larv of the
t irnc.
21 lid*'alrl obscrvcs ;\ntoincttc's poor skills at clissenibling when hc tells her that she hasn't
lcarncd to hidc hcr hatred tnd lciu of thosc *,ho came to rnock her family as rvhite niggers 1791,
t8 Iravad *'ritcs that "Thc linal product of this lnzuter-ntirrirlive then becomes the sum total of all
tlrc diflbrcrrt rcpfesentations in onc-ir crized ligure dcprivcd o1'natemal porver becausc of her
'tiebaLrchetr' rvhiic tienied serual
_qratriication because o1'her liriled rvitchcrafl. As thesc
ctxllicting clements hattlc iurd thus negatc one inothsr^ extemal control becoJn€s easy. She is
oLrtside artil b*'ond liurguagc. irrd thus she has no place u'ithin it. She can only be represented
trv iutothcr. utd that other is Rochestcr, rvho. iiom *'ithirr the order. becomes ma-ster of hcr
clesircs" (4'17).

Works Cited

llurkc. l:rttrtrrtcl . ,1 Pltilostrythicul Entlutn'into tlp Origirr oJ our ltletts on the Suhlinrc antl ihc
lleauri/itl. i:d. J. I'. Iloulton. Ncrv York: Clolurnbia I lP. 1958.
Drt*c. Sturdra. "llacc tud Caribbean Culture as lhcmatics of Liberation in Jean Rh1,s' ll'ide
,\hrgasso .\tu." .Jearr lllrys. Ll/ide S'ar.qasso Sea. Ed. iudith L. Raiskin. Ne*,York:
Norton. 1999.
llnrerr. \'lirr' |.on. Jaun l?ln's ut "Il'or/d's f,nt! '; .t"ove/s of'Coloniu! antl SextalErile. Austin: Ll
tll'l L'\ir\ I'. | 99(r
l:arad. lVlona. .'[,nquiet Chosts: l'hc Strugglc fbr l{eprescntarion in Jeeur Rhys's }l,irle Sargasso
,\eo." I.lotlern I-iction Stutlies 4.3 (1988): 43'7-452.
iiteettta.n, llarbarir Claire. 77re J:t'ninine Sublinte; Gender untl Lrcess in Ll/onen's Fictiort
('arrhridgc: lltu'vard llP. 1995.
(jnrdiner. Judith Kegan. .' l'he l:.xhiluralion of [,xile: l{hys. Stead, ilrd Lessing." lJ/ornen's
Il'ritute itr Eri/t'. Ed. l\{eu1 Lrlrr Rroe ald Ansela Ingran. Chapel l{ill: Li of Nonh
('iuolila l). 1989. 1l-l-50.
Kiutt. lmnrturuel. ()rrtique oJ.Judgntent. 'l'rnns. J.il. Bernard. N*v york: Hafner^ 1951.
KcnLllicli Robert. "[idivard Rochestcr iind the Margins o1'lr4asculinity" tn Jane ]1.,re and Wide
.\'rrrgasso Sca. Puper"- on Langttuge and Literuture 30 (1994): 235-56.
Koenclr. Arrne. "l-hc Farta.stic a-s Ferninine Motle: Wide Sttreasso Sea." Jectn Nws Review 4.1

182
 The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation,
and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhvs's ll/ide Sareosso Sca

(1990): 15-27.
l,arvson, Lori. "Minor and Madness: A I-acanian Analysis of thc Fenrininc Sub.ject in llide
Sargasso Sea." Jean Rl1ls ps,-i.t, 4.2 (1991): 19-27.
Lcrnginus. "On the Sublimc." The Critical Tradition: Classic T'exts ttntl Conlenq;ororv T}'ends.
Ed. David IJ. Richter. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1989.
'l
l-1,otard. Jean-Frangois. The Inlruntan: Re.flections on inrc. Stanfbrd: Stanlbrd UP. 1991.
Madden, Dcanna. "Wild Child, Tropical Flower, Mad Wife: Fenralc Identity in Jcan Rh1'5'5
Ll/ide Sargasso Sea." Intentalional l4/onten's Hrriting: Nev, Lartdscultes ol'Identitt,. t:.ds.
Anne E. Brown and Mariame E. Gooze. Wcstporl Cl-: Grccnnood. 1995.
Qatcs. Joyce Carol. "Romance and Anti-Romiilce." I'irginia Quorterl.t, Reviev'6l,.1 (1985): 44.
Pary'. Benita. "[Trvo Native Voices in llride Sargasso Sea]." Il'ide S-arqasso Sca. Fld. ,ludith I-.
Raiskin. Ne\v York: Norton, 1999. 247-50.
Pratl. Mar-v Louise, Imperial E1,ss' Travel Writing and Transculltzlclion. Ncu, York: Roulledgc.
1992.
Raiskin. Judith I-. "England: l)ream and Nighhnare." .Iean Rhys: Ll'ide Sargasso Saa. Ed. Jrrdith 1,..

Raiskin. Nerv York: Norton. 1999. 2-50-58.

Ramchand, Kcnneth. ''[Thc l']lace of Jcan Rhys and L|:ide Sargosso ,\iaa]." ,lcan Nr.t',s. ll''itle
Sarlgasso Sea. Ed. Judith L. Raiskin. New York: Norton. I 999. I 8 l - I 87
Rhvs. Jean. The Le.tters of Jean Rlrys. Ed. Francis W1'ndharn iurd Diana Mcl11. Ncrv York:
Viking, 1984.
ll'ide Sargasso Sea, Ild. Judith L. Raiskin. Nerv York: Nonon. 1999.
-.
Rodriguea Ileana. "Jean Rh1,s: Island,t'.lalion - Hortus Conclusus in llouset(larden,'Nation;
Space Gender. and Ethnicitl, in Post-Colonial Latin Antericon Lilerotures bt, I4'omen.
Trans. Robert Can and Ileana Rodriguez. Durham. NC: Dirke tJl'. 1994.
Rody. Caroline. "Buming Dorvn the House: The Revisionary Parirdignr of Ll'ide.Sargas.so .\-co."'
Famo*s Last W'ords: Clnnges in Gender and Narrative Closu"e. Ed. Alison Booth.
Charlottesville: U olVirginia P. 1993. 300-25.
Savory. Elaine. Jean Rlrys. Cambridgc: Cambridge LrP. 1999.
Spivak. Gayatri Chal:ravor1i. "'fhree Wonten's Texls md a Critique of lmpcrialisnr." (-rilical
Inquiry l2 (Autrrmn l9tl5): 243-60-
Thomas, Srre. Ifte W-orlding tdJean Rhys. Westporl (iI:Grccnrvood. 1999.
Thorpe. Michael. "'The Other Side': Wide Sargasso S'ea and .Iane Ev'e;'AlLlEI- 8,-l (Jul"l' 1977):
99-l 10.

183