In addition to being a
fascinating, layered, moving paragraph, the last paragraph before the break on
page 45 of Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys, also gives us great insight
into Antoinette’s character, as well as her relationship with Tia.
On the surface, Tia and Antoinette are two very
different girls. One is black and one is white. One comes from a
poor family, the other from a rich one. One is often the bully, the other the
victim. However, through all of this, Antoinette still feels pulled more toward
Tia, rather than her family in a very chaotic, dangerous, intense scene.
She used to play with Tia as a child, and as much as Tia may have bullied
her, she was still her only real friend.
The paragraph starts out, "Then, not so far off, I saw Tia and her
mother and I ran to her…" I find it very interesting that Antoinette
says "I ran to her" rather than "I ran to them" (in
reference to both Tia and her mother). I think this goes to show how much
Antoinette was focused on Tia and how much she cared about her. The sentence continues, “… for she was
all that was left of my life as it had been.” This pretty much speaks for itself; Antoinette doesn’t
really like change or the unknown and will do anything to keep her old life.
In the following sentence, “We had eaten the same food, slept side by
side, bathed in the same river,” we see surface comparisons of Antoinette and
Tia that highlight their similarities.
The next sentence shows her naïveté in a heartrending light. “As I ran, I thought, I will live with
Tia and I will be like her.” The
way that is it so simply stated makes it sound like Antoinette is trying to
convince herself that it’s true, that she really could live with Tia and that
she really is like her. Although,
I think that deep down inside she understands that that is not possible, even
if she doesn’t know why. However,
she is still holding onto the last shred of hope that she might be able to keep
her old life, and that people could accept her for who she is and not who she
was born from.
Her hope makes the throwing of the stone all the more heartbreaking. Not only is her friend betraying her,
so to speak, but I believe that Tia throwing the stone at her is what makes her realize that she can’t
keep her old life, that she can’t be like Tia, and that the infamy that she was
born with will follow her for the rest of her life.
We want to hate Tia for turning on Antoinette and for dashing her hopes,
however, when we see that Tia is in anguish over her action, we feel just as
bad for her, and realize how similar the two girls really are. The next few sentences really drive
home that point. “We stared at
each other, blood on my face, tears on hers. It was as if I saw myself. Like in a looking-glass.” This doesn’t just refer to the surface similarities (they’ve eaten the same food,
they’re the same age, they’ve both got things streaming down their faces) but also the deeper one. They are both girls who are caught in the rip tides of their
respective societies and are being made to do things that they don’t fully
understand or want to do. You can
tell by Tia’s tears that throwing the stone is something she regretted, so I
think that she did it simply by impulse, not completely sure what she was doing
or even why (like Meursault’s killing of the Arab). On the flip side, Antoinette ran towards Tia impulsively,
because being with her was where she felt the most comfortable. The initial part of the paragraph
almost feels trance-like, but when Tia throws the stone the spell is broken.
On the surface, Tia and Antoinette are two very different girls. One is black and one is white. One comes from a poor family, the other from a rich one. One is often the bully, the other the victim. However, through all of this, Antoinette still feels pulled more toward Tia, rather than her family in a very chaotic, dangerous, intense scene. I think it's because she (probably unconsciously) understands how similar they really are and how much she cares about Tia. As much as Tia may have bullied her when they were children, Tia was still her only real friend.
On the surface, Tia and Antoinette are two very different girls. One is black and one is white. One comes from a poor family, the other from a rich one. One is often the bully, the other the victim. However, through all of this, Antoinette still feels pulled more toward Tia, rather than her family in a very chaotic, dangerous, intense scene. I think it's because she (probably unconsciously) understands how similar they really are and how much she cares about Tia. As much as Tia may have bullied her when they were children, Tia was still her only real friend.
I was actually really annoyed at Antoinette for running towards Tia like that. I understand all the parallels between the two girls' lives, and how the chaos of the scene and in general, Antoinette's life, may have drawn her to Tia, but detaching myself from the literature perspective, I hated that she ran to Tia. Tia was incredibly mean to her; like you said, she was the bully and acted like Tia's friend only to victimize her, call her names, and steal her clothes. By running towards Tia like that, it shows all the people who attacked their house that they had won, that they had scared Antoinette and her family.
ReplyDeleteHowever, she's young and in the craziness of the moment, I completely understand her urge to run to Tia. Especially because her mother is too busy worrying over Pierre, she doesn't feel close enough to Mr. Mason, and Christophine is occupied with other things. Antoinette barely feels like she has a family throughout the novel, and in this crucial scene, her family isn't there for her, so she has to grab onto the idea of Tia and Tia's family as her surrogate one.
This is an excellent close reading of this pivotal passage. The comparison to Meursault, with Antoinette not really consciously intending anything and simply following an impulse here, is interesting, but there are significant differences, and overall I think Antoinette's action is easier to make sense of. For one thing, she's in the midst of a truly bewildering and chaotic situation, and there's NO clear sense of what anyone is "supposed" to do. And she does feel conflicted loyalties, long before this moment brings it to a crisis: in important ways, Christophine is more maternal toward her than her own mother, and Tia is more of a sibling that her brother (through no fault of his own, but still . . .).
ReplyDeleteI'm less inclined than Divya to place all the blame on Tia for their earlier spat. It starts off as ordinary kid stuff--a dare or bet to see who can do a trick. It's Antoinette who takes it to another level when she tries to save some face by leveraging her presumed racial superiority, which fails utterly, since (she knows) she isn't "really" white in the local taxonomy. But both kids here are just parroting their elders, and that's the saddest part.