A Postcolonial Reading of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

A Postcolonial Reading of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean RhysRes. Asst. Neşe ŞenelErciyes University, nesesenel@erciyes.edu.trAbstractDespite the fact that the story retold in Wide Sargasso Sea on the surface seems to be a pathetic love story of a Creole woman who goes crazy due to unrequited love in hermarriage to an English man, through a close postcolonial reading of the novel severalcrucial cultural and political orientalist attitudes towards Creole people, Europe’salternative and potential “other,” are depicted. “Orientalism, in Said’s formulation, isprincipally a way of defining and ‘locating’ Europe’s others”. Accordingly, within thecontext of this paper, the other version of the story of “the othered” will be examinedfrom a post colonialist perception through the representations of the charactersespecially, that of Mr. Rochester. His orientalist and “othering” attitude towardsAntoinette and the Creole way of life in the Caribbean and the related crucial identityproblems of Antoinette will be discussed within the framework of this postcolonialreading on Wide Sargasso Sea.Key Words: postcolonialism, orientalism, postmodern paroody, Wide Sargasso Sea, Jane Eyre