Identity and Power: A Study of Thing-Narrative in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea
Abstract
As the prequel to the "madwoman" Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea responds to the obscured lived experiences of the colonized female figure in the canonical text with Antoinette's life tragectory, revealing women's tragic plight caught in the intertwining of colonial power, patriarchal order, and identity crisis. The novel invests material things like plants, costumes, letters, and mirrors with significant narrative functions, rendering them crucial mediators of identity construction, power dynamics and subjective alienation. Drawing on theories of Tang Weisheng's study on narrative of thingness, this paper explores how these things participate in the shaping of the protagonist's fate and the evolution of power relations. The deprivation of things first undermines Antoinette's ties to her homeland, memory and the self, which destabilizes her identity and precipitates the progressive retreat of subject's agency. Subsequently, the displacement of things reconstructs Antoinette's living environment, reinforcing the hegemonic position of colonial and patriarchal power within the process of identity alienation, thereby continuously eroding her subjectivity. The confinement of things ultimately disciplines both body and psyche through completely sealing off Antoinette's identity and annihilating her fundamental agency, consequently driving her toward the tragic ending of self-destruction. By analyzing the narrative agency of material things in the text, this paper aims to enrich existing research on Wide Sargasso Sea and to offer useful insights into the predicaments of identity crisis, power imbalance and mental fetter in the human condition.
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