Previous
Similes
Part 2
Explanation and Analysis:
Jean Rhys's style in Wide Sargasso Sea is characterized by vivid descriptions of the setting, rich figurative and lyrical language, and a fluctuating narrative structure. She pays close attention to the emotional and psychological states of her narrators and includes substantial portions of dialogue. In addition, the narrators often operate between multiple temporal layers at once, as Rhys gives plenty of space to flashbacks. In line with Rhys's attachment to the West Indies, the geographical settings play a decisive role in the story, almost serving as characters in their own right. The scenery has a continuous impact on the characters and mood.
Rhys cultivates a dreamlike—or nightmarish—experience for the reader through her repetitive, fragmented, and poetic prose. These elements consolidate Wide Sargasso Sea as a postmodern novel. The postmodern form also manifests itself in sections that feature a large number of parentheticals. In these sections, Rhys leaves it ambiguous whose voice is speaking. Sometimes, the italicized contents of the parenthetical are simply an echo of what another character just said or the narrator's unuttered response. This can be seen towards the end of the second part, for example, when the husband talks to Christophine about Antoinette:
"But all you want is to break her up."
(Not the way you mean, I thought)
"But she held out eh? She hold out."
(Yes, she held out. A pity)
"So you pretend to believe all the lies that damn bastard tell you."
(That damn bastard tell you)
With a rhythmic effect, the parenthetical responses give the reader access to the husband's inner monologue in parallel with his conversation with Christophine. As the conversation proceeds, most of the parentheticals are echoes of her statements or questions. Some of them, however, digress into the husband's thoughts or associations.
In other sections that include parentheticals, it's unclear whether the contents are a quotation from an earlier conversation, an imagined conversation, or a future conversation. When they prepare to leave Coulibri, for example, the husband seems to converse with an entity that is neither another character nor himself.
Here is the secret. Here
(But it is lost, that secret, and those who know it cannot tell it.)
Not lost.
In these portions, Rhys skillfully simulates the many voices occupying a narrator's mind at once, pulling the reader into their unraveling psyches. This fragmentation and ambiguity is typical of postmodern literature and contributes to the reader's sense that a single, coherent truth is unattainable.
Related Themes:
