While reading Jean
Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, one very interesting relationship is
the one between Antoinette and Tia. It was because of Christophine’s
influence that Antoinette met Tia. I think Christophine really wanted
Antoinette to have a friend and to have someone to play with. But I also think
that Christophine wanted Antoinette to have a black friend. Though Christophine
stayed with the Cosway family after she was set free, I think she knows that
the Cosway’s were very racist and evil people. For her, opening up Antoinette
to someone different than her might help her to be better (at least with the
black people) than her reputation serves her.
While watching
Antoinette and Tia's relationship develop, it is hard to say whether or not
they are really friends. It seems like they are mutually bad friends to each
other. I think the author poses the story to look at first like a little bit of
friendly foes. But as it develops we see that the two girls are very influenced
by what is going on around them.
For Tia we can see that
she knows about Antoinette's reputation. From the beginning it seems that she
knows about Antoinette's family and their history. She knows that their new
reputation is something that she can use to show Antoinette that she has no
rank over her because of her race. "Old time white people
nothing but white nigger now, and black nigger better than white nigger."
But Tia simultaneously seems to be also conscious that Antoinette has more than
her. The girls get into various quarrels with each other, but Tia is the one
who takes the coins and the dress from Antoinette. I think this reflects this
very difficult understanding of the relationship. But it also reflects Tia's
want to be like Antoinette and have the things she has. Despite the fact that
she has already told Antoinette that she isn't "better" like
Antoinette seems to believe.
We see the same ideas
again later on after the fire. Antoinette is comparing herself to Tia as well.
Antoinette was very rude and inconsiderate to her "friend" throughout
their relationship. But we see numerous times that Antoinette really relates to
Tia, and in some ways wants to be like her. "We stared at each other,
blood on my face, tears on hers. It was as if I saw myself. Like in a
looking-glass." Though they live completely different lives, Antoinette
sees so much potential and life and opportunity in Tia that she doesn't see for
herself. We see here that this friendly rivalry really reflects the way that
these girls see each other. They both live difficult lives but in very different ways.
Though neither girl is in an ideal position, they both yearn for a life other
than their own. They both want things that they don't have, and therefore try
to find those things within each other.
I do think that Tia's and Antoinette's friendship definitely made a huge impact on Antoinette's life, even though it was seemingly only for a short amount of time. (Or so Rhys makes it seem). The fact that their friendship is split on the grounds of racists remarks and bad blood, when they meet back up after the burning of Coulibri, we can see that all of that is set aside once more, like in the begining of their friendship. As Antoinette states, it was like looking throughout a looking-glass; although they may seem different when it comes to family status and history, they are virtually the same on the outside; just humans. This is a very powerful realization, especially since it's being made by a young girl who's been outcasted her whole life, so she has some grounds to hate people who are like Tia.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard--impossible, really--for us to say much about how Tia views this relationship. It is possible that she's just hanging out with Antoinette because her mother told her to, as a favor to Christophine. And the text only gives us a few paragraphs to go on. But in Antoinette's perspective, it seems clear that they are "friends"--the only friend she's had in her whole life to this point, it seems. They meet *every day* and spend the whole day together, parting at the fork in the road and meeting again the next day. They eat, swim, nap together, and Tia shows Antoinette how to do stuff with plantain leaves and lighting fires. This sounds like friendship (the kid variety) to me. And presumably Tia takes some social risk, spending all this time (hiding out, it seems) with this very unpopular young white girl.
ReplyDeleteBut it seems true that, in the end, the relationship means more to Antoinette than Tia, although we can't be sure. At the very end of the novel, when her dream culminates in this fantasy of leaping from the burning window into the pool at Coulibri, with Tia urging her to jump, we are struck by what a sad and futile dream this is. Just like at the burning of Coulibri, we know that this fantasy of running to Tia and "being like her" is impossible.
I wish there was a spin-off of Wide Sargasso Sea from Tia's point of view, like there was for the Arab in The Stranger.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Antoinette is jumping to Tia in her death at the end of the novel is very telling about the impact that Tia had on Antoinette. I never thought about what Tia reaped from Antoinette in their relationship, and it would be really interesting to understand more about Tia's point of view.
ReplyDelete