Freud, Freud, Freud.

I wonder about Ruth's mental condition. If anything, I would have to say she seems to be Freud's ideal woman. Her actions seem senseless to me, but since I have only read so far into the story, I suppose that is understandable. From what I do know, her mind seems to be in a perpetually childlike zone. She is, as she aptly puts it, "her daddy's daughter" (Morrison 67). I know that her mother died and she takes after her with an alarming likeness. She demands kisses from her father, and lets him be her doctor even after her marriage. Can we interpret this as an intense love from daughter to father, or are we too bothered by the intimacy between the two?

Taking up Freud's side, I would like to argue that Ruth's actions are just a manifestation of her subconscious - the Electra Complex. With her mother dead, the Freudian shade of Ruth would have had no competition for her father's affection, and thus could allow her affections for her father to flow freely. And her freedom of expression clashed inevitably with her husband's expectations. Macon Dead Sr., who was obviously too chicken (at least on a Freudian scale) to admit to any sexual desire for his mother, would have interpreted Ruth's paternal love as the symptom of a grave madness. 

Yet because I am not a devote follower of Freud, I can sympathize with Macon's revulsion. Ruth is strange; her actions do hint at some ulterior motive, if not a bipolar personality. She seems to possess sexual instincts towards her young son, which is perhaps an even more frightening prospect than incestuous relations with her father. For it implies that she is spreading her fondness of incest, and ruining Milkman's possibility of a normal future.

As an end note, I feel like there is immense potential in conducting a Freudian analysis of Ruth Foster Dead. 

Jotting down some thoughts.

(This blog post is more for my own benefit. I want to keep track of my views on these characters as the reading progresses.)

I really, really dislike Macon Dead Sr. He has an attitude that needs to go. His behavior towards his family is abysmal, and his conduct in regards to others is equally horrifying. But I still hesitate to condemn him for I know he has had a troubled childhood, and based on my previous experience with tough and rough characters like him, I want to believe in him and his ultimate love for his family. However, it's hard to find justification for his behavior towards Pilate. He cares for her, and yet feels ashamed about her and her poverty, which I feel like is a moot point since he can help her with his money.

As for Pilate herself, I find her interesting. She has an air of mystery that begs for examination. I wonder why both her daughter and granddaughter call her Mama, why she sings so well, and why she makes wine.  There is a connection between her and Milkman that intrigues me too. She cares for Ruth and her brother too. She does mention that there are three Deads still alive - which makes me wonder who is the last one that we haven't met.

Ruth strikes me as a confusing character. She seems to suffer under a light form of mental disease. Her behavior is childlike, which annoys Macon. And her insistence on breast-feeding her son is almost obsessive. Yet she is incredibly pitiful. Her role as the oppressed and misunderstood housewife is one that almost always attract sympathy.

I'll keep you safe in my attic.

Wrapping up Wide Sargasso Sea, I feel an overwhelming surge of sympathy for Antoinette. Her humanity and sanity have been reduced physically to shrivers. And she is no longer Antoinette, but another. She is chained legally yet unwillingly to a gentleman who parades off to France to make merry with prostitutes. There is nothing left for her in this life except memories. Her caretakers - and I use that term lightly - do not care for her. The kind and understanding Mrs. Fairfax (or Mrs. Eff as she is called in this novel) we admired in Jane Eyre appear here to be entirely biased and narrow-minded. She calls Mr. Rochester "gentle, generous, brave," and scorns Antoinette. "He has grey in his hair and misery in his eyes. Don't ask me to pity anyone who had a hand in that" (Rhys 178). Yet the reader is very much like a Mrs. Fairfax to Antoinette. We have seen her struggle through her miserable childhood, and we have observed her own acts of humanity. We know her trouble with an unsympathetic mother and a hostile world. And most of all, we know her reluctance to marry Mr. Rochester.

For me, the moment when she attempts to back out of the upcoming nuptials is a testament to her own sanity. Somewhere perhaps in her subconscious, she knows that this union will bring nothing but trouble. It was Mr. Rochester who drags her into this marriage with well-placed words of cajolery, and by doing so, he has assumed a responsibility to fulfill the promises he made to Antoinette. "When you are my wife there would not be any more reason to be afraid," he tells her, "I'll trust you if you'll trust me" (Rhys 79). He sure kept her safe, locked away in an attic in the middle of England. Some stubborn defenders of Rochester will argue that Antoinette is safe and alive, and he ultimately will rescue her from the burning fire. But why couldn't he have just let her go? Christophine even offers to take her off his hands and Antoinette too wishes she could leave and never bother him again. It does not make sense to argue that Rochester has pride and refuses to return to England as the gentleman scorned by a Creole girl  for he returns to his homeland pretending elaborately to be a bachelor. So why can't he let her go? Why bring her here to a miserable home even he flees from to make her suffer? By forcing Antoinette in an attic where she is cut off from everything she knew and loved, he has become the worst of villains and the most terrible of tyrants.

Ruminations on Rochester.

I will not pretend that I don't have a bias against Mr. Edward Rochester. As a reader of Jane Eyre, I have seen his interactions with Jane. While he may claim to love her, he tests and teases her with a humor that is almost cruel. And his treatment of Antoinette is simply unacceptable. He courts her for his own gains. No matter how much his Father affected his decision to marry Antoinette, his actions are ultimately his own choices. When he persuades her to marry him through devious and questionable words of sweetness, he not only gives into his own selfish greed for money and familial approval, but he even ropes in an innocent girl.

I do sympathize with him, to a limited extent, given his position as the second and less favored son. He has to go out and seek his fortune the hard way. His success - thirty thousand pounds! - is a remarkable sum. But with great power comes great responsibility. Antoinette tried to back out of the wedding, claiming that she is "afraid of what may happen" (78). Yet Rochester kisses her fears away, churning out the mechanical phrases every woman probably wants to hear: "I'll trust you if you'll trust me... You will make me very unhappy if you send me away without telling me what I have done to displease you. I will go with a sad heart" (79). These hollow consolations have thrown any respect I might have for Rochester out the window. He is not afraid of exploiting his resources to get what he wants.

Yet I also realize that Antoinette is not entirely faultless either. She tried to poison him and she has an intense pride that rivals his. But what makes her character more bearable is her flaws: her struggle with self-identity, her loss of her mother, and her childlike naivety that can become an ugly ferocity. Her ups and downs are what defines her humanity and draws my sympathy. When Rochester tries to rename her "Bertha," he is trying to give himself, I think, an excuse - a reason for superiority if you will. He is clearly uncomfortable with the fact that she has purchased him - to think, a Creole has bought an Englishman, the outrage.

And Daniel "Cosway" provides him with the perfect yet dubious evidence. By allowing for his richer wife to be crazy, Rochester gives himself the justification for a moral and mental superiority. It now falls entirely on him to take care of her fortunes and who is a mad woman to challenge his judgements?

The Lost Eden.

Reading the beginning of Wide Sargasso Sea is like stepping into a corner of Eden. There is a "tree of life" blossoming in the overgrown garden at Coulibri Estate. "It had gone wild," we learn, but why wouldn't Eden be wild and untamed, preserved by Nature? "Orchids flourished out of reach for some reason not to be touched. One was snaky looking" (19). Placed side by side, the latter description seems to be foreshadowing an unfortunate end. Despite its sinister flaws, the garden nevertheless strikes me as an ideal home for Antoinette. She lives in Jamaica where she is hated, yet also where she thrives and loves. It is her home, the only one she physically knew. She "loved it because I [she] had nothing else to love" and called it "the most beautiful place in the world" (130). But like Adam and Eve, she and her family is chased out of paradise without a choice.

When she marries Mr. Rochester, she introduces him to her home with obvious affection for the place. She "picked up a large shamrock-shaped leaf to make a cup and drank. Then she picked up another leaf, folded it and brought it to me. 'Taste. This is mountain water'" (71). Then a few days after, she tells her husband where to find the bathing pool; "there are two pools, one we call the champagne pool because it has a waterfall... underneath is the nutmeg pool, that's brown and shaded by a big nutmeg tree" (86). But Mr. Rochester does not fit in and he even says that he feels "that this place is my [his] enemy and on your [Antoinette's] side" (129).

Although I haven't finished the rest of this novel, I have read and enjoyed Jane Eyre. I know the inevitable fate that awaits "Bertha," and compared to her life in the imperfect Eden, it is a frightening future.

Duality.

Duality gives a sense of balance, of companionship. With one is the other, ying and yang and all that jazz. In Wide Sargasso Sea, this theme of dualism is explored meticulously. The heroine, a sheltered and sensitive young girl, Antoinette Cosway is caught between the two cultures that have defined her childhood - white and black. She is biologically one and yet heavily influenced by the other. As a result, she does not fit in easily. The blacks reject her for her skin and the whites shun her for her impoverished roots that degrade her to a slave-like status in their eyes. And she herself is confused at her situation. On one hand, she yearns for the affection and approval of her French mother. Yet on the other, she longs for the comfort and attention of Christophine, her "da" (72). It's hard to place and describe her for she is so many things, but it's extremely easy to sympathize with her. 

One of the most emphatic use of duality happens in the scene where Antoinette stares at Tia, as if "in a looking glass" (45). Running towards her lone friend, Antoinette thought feverishly that she "will live with Tia and... be like her. Not to leave Coulibri. Not to go. Not" (45). Yet Tia rejects her too by throwing a rock at her. Standing before her injurer, with blood running down her face, Antoinette pauses, seemingly emtionless, and remarks lightly on the tears Tia is now weeping. We know from a previous passage that Antoinette has never seen her cry (23). But no longer. The strong and unbreakable Tia, symbolizing perhaps the resilient and black side of Antoinette, has yielded. And now our heroine is swept away into a foreign world of England and marriage.