Wide Sargasso Sea FULL Review

For the first reading selection for our Post Colonialism class, we were assigned to read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. It was by far the most confusing book I have ever read. This book was sort of written in the perspective of a child of a white plantation owner. However, this owner's husband died and they were really poor. The whole book was a stream of thoughts by the girl. It was really interesting, but I wasn't sure if I could trust her or not, since it was all in her point of view.

                This was the thing that really threw me for a loop. How could I trust this girl's judgment if she was once part of a family that owned slaves. Although, she did not own slaves anymore because she was dirt poor, she still had a mentality of one who owned slaves. But I could not go through the whole book questioning everything, so I decided to just accept what she said as truth.

                Although she was a white girl, I did feel bad for her at times. She was more or less the bottom rung of the white society. She was a white girl who was born in Jamaica. Other white people saw her as one of the black people who lived there. They did not see her as one of their own. This was sad to me. However, she did see now how black people felt to an extent.

                She did not have many friends either. She had Christophine, her one motherly figure. I mean, she had her mother as well, but her mother did not seem to care for her too much. So Christophine was that figure for her. She also had Tia. Had being the key word. Tia was kind of a jerk. Tia was a black girl who had befriended the girl, Antoinette. Antoinette and Tia would meet every morning and go to the swimming hole to swim. One day Tia bet Antoinette her three pennies that she could not do a somersault in the water. Antoinette knew that she could so she did. However, she did the somersault but was coughing up water as well. Tia said that she did not do it and took her pennies. Antoinette was upset and called her a 'cheating nigger.' This is one of the first times when we hear Antoinette use language like that. When Antoinette came out of the water to put her dress back on to go home, only Tia's dress was there. Tia stole Antoinette's dress along with her pennies. Antoinette had to wear Tia's dress home. It was dirty. This was very interesting because I was like a role switch. Antoinette was now wearing the dress of the slave, and Tia was now wearing the dress of the white girl. Antoinette now hated Tia for stealing her pennies and her dress, so now she really had no one but Christophine.

                Another thing that I found interesting was the passage where Tia was talking about how Antoinette was very poor. After Tia took Antoinette's pennies, Antoinette said that it was ok she could just get more. And Tia said (remember that this is all Antoinette's stream of consciousness),

"That's not what she hear, she said. She heard all we poor like beggar. We ate salt fish-  no money for fresh fish. That old house so leaky, you run with calabash to catch water when it rain. Plenty white people in Jamaica. Real white people, they got gold money. They didn't look at us, nobody see them come near us, and black nigger better than white nigger."

               This passage really hit me the most out of this book. I felt like there was a lot of truth about this passage. I am going to try to decipher what Tia said to have a better understanding of it. So before Tia says this, Antoinette has told her that she can get more pennies anytime. This is when Tia says that this is not what she hears. So where is Tia hearing about Antoinette's family being poor? Apparently the slaves are talking about the family's wealth, or lack of. Tia mentions that they eat salt fish instead of fresh fish. Salt fish costs less than fresh fish. In the notes at the bottom of the page, it says that salt fish was for slave and apprentice wages. Even the term 'salt fish' has connotations for low-class status. So most people know that they are poor enough to eat salt fish. Tia mentions that their house is so leaky that they try to catch the water that drops in a calabash whenever it rains. Tia also mentions that she does not think that they are real white people. She says that real white people have gold money. Tia calls Antoinette a white nigger. And she says that a black nigger is better than a white nigger.

                The term white nigger really struck me. Because white people would call black people niggers. It was something they called them to tear them down. But now that tables were turned and Antoinette was now being called a nigger because her family was as low as the slaves. And this was worse because no matter what, Antoinette and her family would always have the upper hand because they were white, but people didn't see that because they were maybe even poorer than some of the slaves. People would think that Antoinette and her family were worse off than the slaves, and all of the slaves thought this.

                This book was more interesting than I thought it would be and it really made me see the side of a failing slave owning family. It really made me feel for the daughter and how she grew up. She never really had a chance for a bright future with the mother she had. But then again, I do not really want to feel sorry for her because she was a part of a once slave owning family. So I'm still torn about how I should feel about this book. And maybe this is what they author wanted the audience to feel. Unsure.