Who are you? Who am I? What make me me, and you you? How are we at all different from each
other? What makes everyone different
from each other is their identity,
how they view themselves and how they show themselves to the world. A HUGE part of our identity comes from our
early years of life that we have no control over. Our identity is formed by our community, our
culture, our family, etc, and even if we
change our views we still carry a bit of them within ourselves. As children if you don’t have this identity
to latch onto, you often feel lost and completely helpless and could have major
psychological problems down the road.
In Wide
Sargasso Sea, Antoinette has very little to latch onto as a child. First of all, she has no support from her
family. Her mother “rejects” her to deal with her own problems, her father is
dead, her new step-dad completely does not understand or want to understand
anything that is going on, and her brother Pierre is killed at an early
age. Second of all, the community that
she grew up in and most “identifies” with hates her and her family and
literally forces them out of their house and Coulibri. As a child, this all is extremely
psychologically damaging. One of the
most powerful scenes of the book is where Tia throws the rock at her face after
the burning of the Coulibri estate.
“Then, not so far off,
I saw Tia and her mother and I ran to her, for she was all that was left of my
life as it had been. We had eaten the same food, slept side by side, bathed in
the same river. As I ran, I thought, I will live with Tia and I will be like
her. Not to leave Coulibri. Not to go. Not. When I was close I saw the jagged
stone in her hand but I did not see her throw it. I did not feel it either,
only something wet, running down my face. I looked at her and I saw her face
crumple up as she began to cry. We stared at each other, blood on my face,
tears on hers. It was as if I saw myself. Like in a looking-glass.” (pg 45/41)
This
passage shows how much attachment Antoinette has for Coulibri and for her
childhood life that is now completely gone. Antoinette most identifies with Tia
and desperately wants to live like Tia and be a part of Tia’s community. But
yet she can’t, as the thrown rock indicates, and is rejected by Tia and her
community because of her family and race.
Having all of this taken away at such an impressionable age really tears
apart Antoinette’s identity. Who is
she? She is most certainly NOT English,
but is not accepted by the people in Coulibri or really anywhere in Jamaica. The wide Sargasso Sea literally represents
this:
for it is in between the West Indies and
England, but doesn’t have any real definite boundaries or identity, just like
Antoinette.
