Subaltern perspective in Wide Sargasso Sea: An insight to the Plight of Antoinette

Abstract

In the past few decades subaltern studies has gained much momentum. Subaltern studies draw attention towards lives of people who are denied social, political or economic access to hegemonic power of the metropolitan homeland of an empire. Jean’s movement from colonial margins of Dominica to metropolitan center of England gave her new insights into the marginalised treatment a non-native is subjected to. She expressed her feelings through letters that states: “England was terribly cold when I first came there. There was no central heating. There were fires, but they were always blocked by people trying to get warm. And I’d never get into the sacred circle. I was always outside, shivering” (Rhys, 2000, p. 221). The coldness, eviction, subordination, isolation and betrayal she suffered during her stay in England and Europe is extensively portrayed through her texts Rhys through her canonical text, Wide Sargasso Sea attempts to give voice to voiceless Bertha Mason of Jane Eyre. This paper attempts to study Wide Sargasso Sea from subaltern perspective as through this text Rhys has attempted to bring forth the plight of white Creole plantation class who were compelled to live a life of an outcast in West Indies and simultaneously marginalised by native English also have been defined in the abstract.