"Hoodoo Love" and Obeah

A while back, Hoodoo Love was being preformed at Krannert in the Studio Theatre as part of the theatre department's showcase this year. The play deals with obeah or hoodoo in a similar situation to how Antoinette tries to get Christophine to use it on Rochester. The female protagonist in Hoodoo Love tries to get her traveling lover to stay with her and be true to her by going to her neighbor and famed practitioner of hoodoo magic. Similar to in Wide Sargasso Sea, the two lovers in the play begin to fall in love by natural means before the magic. In both stories, the women then deal out the appropriate potion and get their respective men intensely ill. The man in the play, however, doesn't realize that his partner tried to put a spell on him and doesn't figure it out until much later in the play. When he eventually does figure out what his girl is doing, he is extremely angry and it ruins their relationship. The reaction to people doing magic on a character to control their emotions is always frantic and intense.

So why does this idea of magic and love freak people out so much? It has to do with free will. Especially in hopeless situations, the only thing that one can be sure of having is the ability to choose. The idea that this inherent right of humans can be simply taken away by a potion or a ritual, is really terrifying. If you are inclined to take Rochester's side, you can use this instance in his defense. It is not a stretch to call Antoinette a villain because she is trying to alter the sacred institution of love with a sort of magic. I guess (not really), that you could say Rochester's retaliation is a fair punishment for someone like Antoinette. I am not inclined to this opinion because I favor Antoinette and don't think it's fair to think that Antoinette should somehow just know she didn't need to magic him while he is being so bad to her.

As a side note, this idea of love and magic and their interaction has been used as a theme in a variety of works. For example, Shakespeare's (or Bacon's depending on how you are inclined to believe) A Midsummer Night's Dream deals with the same issue but with a different, happier ending. Also, in Aladdin he isn't allowed to wish for love, just to tie in some Disney movie knowledge.

Christophine in a new light

I have really thoroughly enjoyed this book but when Antoinette went kind of crazy and was like biting Rochester I was concerned because she was really the only character I liked. I didn't know who I was going to side with now that my initial favorite was not entirely sane. After a brief time of wandering around in the book favorite-less, Christophine and Rochester started fighting and I started liking Christophine. In the beginning of the book, Christophine seems like this emotionally distant, creepy character. As we get to know her, it becomes apparent that she has a particular attatchment to Annette. The first time we see her emotions get the best of her is at Annette's funeral. Her initial impression on me was not a very good one. It bothered me that it seemed like everything she did for Antoinette was really to please Annette. I was of the opinion that Christophine had little personal attatchment to Antoinette. In this battle with Rochester (153-161), Christophine defends Antoinette passionately and she seems like the most sound character in the novel. She is in her right mind and conducts herself accordingly. During his time in Jamaica, Rochester has made no attempt at learning about the country and in regards to Antoinette, no attempt to bond and learn about her past. For some reason, the only person he believes about her past is that man who claims to be her half brother. Antoinette tries to enlighten him about her past the night before but he spends the conversation interupting and judging. I like Christophine in this scene because it just seems like she is fed up with all of Rochester's crap and she is going to tell him exact what kind of awful person he is and what he should do. I don't like Rochester and I liked seeing him being called out on what he did to Antoinette, who was somewhat unstable throughout the whole novel.
I don't know if I'm quite done with this post but I've said mostly what I wanted to say. I like Christophine and think that she is the most stable and strongest of the characters we've met.

Changing up the narrator

The initially vague and disorienting changes of narrator in Wide Sargasso Sea have an interesting effect on the book and how its read. At first, I didn't like leaving Antoinette, our first narrator, because I didn't want to leave the character I was beginning to side with and viewed as the protagonist. I thought it put a bump in the flow of the novel just as I was settling in and getting oriented after the somewhat confusing start. Still, even with my concerns, I continued to enjoy the novel so I decided that it wasn't all that bad and began trying to figure out why Rhys would choose to switch narrators as she does. I have come up with a few reasons. First of all, getting an outside opinion of Antoinette helps develop a picture of her more completely in a reader's mind. During the first part, the reader only hears from Antoinette speaking about her isolated unhappy little world. She tells us about herself on the inside but having the narrator change and hearing about Antoinette from someone who is shoved into her little world and forced to try to connect with her gives us a better idea of what Antoinette appears to be on the outside. It also helps the reader get to know Rochester, who, to many, seems like a villain in this story. If the whole novel was told from her perspective, Rochester could seem like this terrible man who came, uninvited, into her life and who didn't even try to make their relationship work. When Rochester narrates, we get his side of the story and we learn that his home life was extremely unhappy and as a result, he continues trying to please his father in his adult life. We also see how Rochester thinks of his relationship with Antoinette and how he sometimes tries to comfort her or regrets not loving her and it makes him and his position much more sympathetic. The third and most subtle effect the changes of narrator have is that they sort of mimic the confusion, disorientation, and sense of not belonging that Antoinette feels. Throughout her life she struggles with finding her social position in the community she lives in and passes through a variety of different living arrangements as a result. I guess it is kind of a stretch but going from narrator to narrator keeps us a little confused about who we should side with just like Antoinette. And If, in fact, the two narrator are supposed to mirror Antoinette's awkward position between black culture and white, and Rochester is clearly the white culture side, does that mean in that Antoinette would be representative of black culture? and if so, what does this say about the side Antoinette chooses, or wants to choose, to identify with? and Why would she identify with the black culture more that white? They both seem to hate her. But why wouldn't she?

It seems that my last idea left me with more questions than it answered... but its still an interesting idea.

Antoinette and her Mothers

Children, daughters especially, are significantly effected by the relationship that they have with these female figures of authority in their lives. Though in this early stage of the novel, we don't know Antoinette, it is evident that her troubled relationships with all of the mother figures in her life is part of the reason she has such feelings of loneliness and depression. Thus far, it seems that Antoinette has three mother figures, her real mother, Annette, Christophine, and the mother of the convent she stays at. Each of these relationships are odd and distinctively unhappy.

First off, Antoinette's relationship with her real mother. Being a child, Antoinette has a very strong affinity for her mother but Annette does not reciprocate the affection. The interesting thing about their relationship is that Annette is not unkind to Antoinette but her behavior toward her child is better described as cold. Even when Antoinette is trying to smooth the wrinkles from her mother's worried face, Annette pushes her away. Another disturbing part about their relationship is how much Annette seems to value men in her life more than her daughter. There are two obvious examples in the book, Pierre and Mr. Mason. Psychologically this cannot be good for Antoinette. The convent as a setting has a really interesting effect on how we see Antoinette because it gives us, the readers, a chance to see her away from any men who may overshadow her and take her attention.

The next mother figure we meet is Christophine. Christophine is presented as the more loving of the mother figures but this relationship is no as happy as it may at first appear. The inherent problem with this mother-daughter relationship is that they aren't actually mother and daughter. Christophine is really an ex-slave so caring for Antoinette is part of the job rather than a choice. On the other hand, one may argue, Christophine could leave the family as she is no longer a slave but to use this in an argument, one must evaluate Christophine's motives for staying. It seems that her connection to the family is really through Annette and not Antoinette. Although Christophine is much more attatched to Annette than Antoinette, she still is connected to Antoinette through the fact that she want Annette to stay happy and Antoinette is kind of a part of Annette.

Both of these mother figures are soon lost, Annette dies and once she dies Christophine leaves to go live with her son. The next mother figure to come about is Mother Justine. Mother Justine and Antoinette are not related but their relationship seems to be based on a kinship they have from their religion. Like Christophine, Mother Justine takes on a motherly role in regards to Antoinette as she teaches her about how she should compose herself and act like a saint. Also like Christophine, Mother Justine has little personal connection to Antoinette; she teaches Antoinette and the other girls as part of her duty to the church. The church is to Annette as Mother Justine is to Christophine in a way. The other issue with this relationship is how the girls tend to mock Mother Justine which is contrary to the respect they are expected to have towards their leader.

I think I'm going to need to come back to this analysis as we continue reading the book and finish off some of my ideas but this is a start.

Does the murder add meaning?

One of the panel presentations brought up the theory that Meursault killing the Arab added meaning to his life. I thought this was really interesting because it seems to be true but in a sort of ironic way. I think the murder does add meaning to Meursault's life because it is the first time that his actions make a difference. Throughout the book, Meursault claimed that it didn't matter what he did because his actions had no definite consequences. When Meursault pulled the trigger and killed that man, he ended up condemning himself and in Meursault's religionless world, death is final and absolute. At last, something that Meursault did, did have a definite consequence. This idea goes against his theory that life is absurd but at the same time, life around him will go on even after his death, affirming that, in fact, his life was meaningless and absurd. The kind of meaning that is added to his like is really just being an example to those who have not realized how meaningless it all is. By being publicly executed, Meursault is both an example of the punishment that comes with breaking the law and a tool that makes the people watching the execution appreciate life. The people see Meursault's life ending permanently and even for the most religious person, the idea of it all ending is terrifying. Meursault, in his enlightened state at the end of the novel, would say that this affirms the idea that even though life is absurd and appears, in the long run, completely pointless, human beings love being alive and love living their insignificant little even though it will all have to end. Its interesting that the depression of impending death led the seemingly emotionless Meursault to such a life affirming  conclusion.