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existence of their own and be integrated in an economic and social mechanism which becomes oppressive and exploitative of human
beings Mandel and Novack, 1970: 16.
2.2 Criticism
Joyce Hart a freelance writer and author of several books discusses the concurrence of power and helplessness that flows through Jean Rhyss novel Wide
Sargasso Sea. He argues that although an overall feeling of helplessness permeates Jean Rhyss Wide Sargasso Sea, there is a current of power that lies
underneath the surface of the story. Each character, no matter how helpless he or she may seem, is touched by this current. Much like the real Sargasso Sea, whose
mysterious forces gather all the wandering seaweed from miles around and hold them together in a haphazard mass, so does this underlying power align Rhyss
characters. As each character tries to understand her or his relationship with the other, the surge of power pulsates amidst fear and vulnerability and moves the
story forward. Rhyss opening sentence is a perfect example of this juxtaposition of
helplessness and power. The novel begins: They say when trouble comes close ranks. Like a pod of whales swimming in the ocean and suddenly realizing
danger, the white islanders tightened their circle to strengthen and protect themselves. Dennis Porter for the Massachusetts Review, states that jean Rhys’s
Wide Sargasso Sea is unlike her other novels with a contemporary setting, because it is based on another work of art Jane Eyre.
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2.3 The Context of the Novel
Jean Rhys was born in Dominica, one of the Windward Islands in the Caribbean, in 1890. The daughter of a Welsh doctor and a white Creole mother,
Rhys grew up in the final days of Englands colonial heyday, a time that witnessed the waning of an aristocratic and exploitative Creole culture. Her parents heritage
situated Rhys between two competing ideologies—one that sought to exoticize Caribbean life and one that incorporated the racial pluralism of West Indian
values. Rhys was further influenced by the black servants who raised her and introduced her to the language, customs, and religious beliefs of the native
Caribbeans. While Wide Sargasso Sea reflects the distinct sensibilities of a West Indian
writer, it also bears the stamp of European modernism. At sixteen, Rhys left her home in Dominica and moved to England, aligning herself more closely with her
fathers Welsh heritage. A feeling of displacement that characterizes both Rhyss own life and the lives of her characters left her unable to root herself to her
ancestors home. Throughout the 1920s, Rhys traveled in Europe as a bohemian artist, living
sporadically in Paris, where she became familiar with the innovative works of modern artists and writers. This period of wandering placed Rhys on the outskirts
of conventional society. Thus marginalized, she began to question the codes and traditions of the male-dominated urban environment. Plagued by poverty, illness,
and alcoholism, she felt firsthand the psychological and physical toll of being a single woman in a patriarchal culture a theme she explores in much of her writing.
