The Symbolic Meaning of Antoinette’s Death in Wide Sargasso Sea

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62517/jhet.202515448

Author(s)

Li Ke1,2

Affiliation(s)

1ZheJiang YueXiu University, ShaoXing, ZheJiang, China 2Ph.D. Candidate in Sungshin Women’s University, South Korea

Abstract

This paper explores the symbolic meaning of Antoinette’s death in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea[1], situating it within the broader contexts of colonialism, gender oppression, and identity fragmentation. Drawing on Rhys’s own Creole background, the analysis demonstrates how Antoinette embodies the cultural margins of white Creoles who are rejected by both European and Caribbean societies. Antoinette’s tragic fate not only represents the silencing of marginalized women under patriarchal and imperial power, but also dramatizes the destructive consequences of cultural hybridity and displacement. By deconstructing imperial discourse and giving voice to the colonized female subject, Rhys critiques the oppressive structures of empire while reclaiming the silenced narrative of Bertha Mason from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. “That Bertha Mason becomes the narrative subject implicitly sets Jean Rhys and her text in opposition to her nineteen-century literary predecessor Charlotte Bronte, and her text. ”[2] Ultimately, Antoinette’s death functions as a symbolic act of resistance and self-assertion, highlighting her contribution to postcolonial feminist literature and her challenge to dominant narratives of race, gender, and identity.

Keywords

Post-Colonialism; Feminism; Identity; Symbolism

References

[1] Rhys, Jean. "Wide sargasso sea." Penguin, London,1968. [2] Adjarian, Maude M. "Between and beyond Boundaries in" Wide Sargasso Sea"." College Literature 22.1 (1995): 202-209. [3] Adjarian, Maude M. "Between and beyond Boundaries in" Wide Sargasso Sea"." College Literature 22.1 (1995): 202-209. [4] Erwin, Lee. "" Like in a Looking-Glass": History and Narrative in Wide Sargasso Sea." Novel: A Forum on Fiction. Vol. 22. No. 2. Duke University Press, 1989. [5] Ciolkowski, Laura E. "Navigating the Wide Sargasso Sea: Colonial History, English Fiction, and British Empire." Twentieth Century Literature 43.3 (1997): 339-359. [6] Boyce-Davies, Carole. Black women, writing and identity: Migrations of the subject. routledge, 2002. [7] Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Identity and Diaspora, Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory." Eds. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman. New York: Colombia UP (1994). [8] Mellown, Elgin W. "Character and Themes in the Novels of Jean Rhys." Contemporary Literature 13.4 (1972): 458-475.