Hagar: A Love Story

I did not begin the novel liking Hagar. For she was too rough, too foreign and too needy to empathize with.  Her love for Milkman, her cousin once-removed or what not, was an obsession that frightened me. The careful distinction between Hagar and her two Mamas, Reba and Pilate, was not one that tilted in her favor. She was the spoiled princess who demanded luxury. While her caretakers struggled to please her every whim - her happiness was the goal of their lives after all - she was still unsatisfied.

But as selfish and singleminded as Hagar appears, she does have a vulnerable side to her that draws sympathy. Her affections degrade her, rendering her subservient to the wishes and estimations of her beloved. As Guitar bluntly points out, she thinks that she is worthless because Milkman doesn't love her and believes completely in his judgement of her worth. For Hagar, love is about belonging. Yet rather than the typical you belong with me dynamic, she sees it as a belonging to kind of relationship. To love is to own, and to someone who is as prideful and self-indulgent as Milkman, that forceful affection is stifling. He who is used to convenience naturally despises being restrained by a woman, one who he only loves for her availability. One would almost say that he takes advantage of her and her boundless love, but can he really be accountable when she is willing to give herself to him so completely?

Guitar, who somehow transforms into a Dr. Phil-like character, observes that it is Hagar's lack of value for her own life that causes Milkman to lose interest in her. "He can't value you more than you value yourself" (Morrison 306). There is something overwhelmingly pitiful about that, and it puts a new light on Hagar's attempts to kill Milkman. She will never succeed because of how much she cares for him, yet she will never stop either because she can't bear for him to go on without her. It's a cruel and tragic circle. And the resulting death of Hagar only strengthens the sadness of this affair.

iBlog.

I like blogging for it provides me with a chance to jot down my thoughts when I forget my notebook at school. It's fortunately easy for me to open up Blogger in a tab and keep it there, going back as I read to record some new revelations. It's even better than writing because I type faster than I write, and it's easier for me to record some of my straying digressions that might turn out to have an interesting meaning. Other than that, the biggest perk of keeping an online blog is that it's public. My friends and peers can easily access my writings and leave their feedback. Their words encourage and challenge me, and since many of my blog entries are continuations of class discussions, my classmates' inputs inspire me to think critically outside of the classroom.

Another advantage of this online journal is its accessibility. Although it shames me to admit it, I am not the most organized person in the world; I like to write my ideas in the margins of my notebook, crowding them with doodles that express my visual interpretations of the novels. But they are not easy to track down, and I have often found myself frustratingly turning pages of my notebook trying to find a promising paragraph I had written the week before. Blogger gives me the option of storing my ideas in one place - one that can be found at my home and at school.

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.