Rochester and Antoinette

A question that we've been addressing over the course of the novel and explicitly in class today is who is the more sympathetic character: Rochester or Antionette.  And additionally, whose story are we reading?

I believe, like many others in the class, that Rhys is primarily concerned with Antoinette and her previously unexplored background, especially as it relates to her fate in Jane Eyre.  Antoinette's childhood is flushed out in great detail, not only recounting scarring events such as the burning of her home in Coulibri and her emotional falling out with Tia, but also her troubled origins.  As the daughter of a hated slave-owner and a mentally unstable (labeled insane by locals) mother, she is cursed to be a social outcast, treated with disgust by both upper-class whites and the former Jamaican slaves.  Antionette is strikingly perceptive, conveying much of her situation with few words.

(Antoinette and her mother)

"A frown came between her black eyebrows, deep - it might have been cut with a knife. I hated this frown and once I touched her forehead trying to smooth it. But she pushed me away, not roughly but calmly, coldly, without a word, as if she had decided once and for all that I was useless to her."

(Antoinette and Tia after the burning of Coulibri)

"I looked at her and I saw her face crumple up as she began to cry. We stared at each other, blood on my face, tears on hers. It was as if I saw myself. Like in a looking-glass."

Strife stemming from class and race dynamics remains a theme throughout the the novel, which makes it hard to imagine that Rhys was writing a story about Rochester, who serves to represent the external, white upper-class perception of Antionette more than anything else.  His background is detailed only in relevance to and to provide context for his relationship with Antoinette.  However, Rochester is not a simple character by any means, harboring his own insecurities and pain.  Rhys ultimately shows the damage that these class/racial dynamics have on both characters in the novel.

The Stranger and Richard Wright's Native Son

In last year's African-American Lit. class we read Native Son Richard Wright.  Besides its strong focus on the effects of a deeply racist and disadvantaging environment on a young black man, the novel also addresses naturalist vs. existentialist questions.  After a series of events, the protagonist, Bigger, accidentally kills a young white woman.  However instead of being overcome by guilt, he is almost elated, seeing it as an escape from his former life of irrelevance.

"He had murdered and created a new life for himself.  It was something that was all his own, and it was the first time in his life he had had anything that others could not take from him."

Both Bigger and Meursault evade their fate for as long as possible (Bigger physically evades his capture and Meursault is fearful and frantic in his cell), but neither character in interested in defending their innocence. Both characters simultaneously acknowledge their fate and express a newly found vigor for life, affirming their controversial ideas/actions. However, when comparing the two, it seems that Bigger is the more complex, but also the more understandable and human protagonist. While Wright and Camus each wrote novels concerning existentialist topics, Camus uses Meursault much more explicitly to convey his agenda to the reader. He is an especially reserved character, bearing little resemblance to most of humanity with his lack of ambition and self-reflection. After his first and last emotional outburst, he has an epiphany, finally understanding that his purpose is to create meaning in a meaningless world and life. It is certainly a well crafted representation of Camus's philosophy, but it has little regard for the individuality that such a character could have had; Meursault is unique only in his lack of motives for any of his actions. This is evident in Camus's treatment of the Arab as well, who is described especially briefly and never mentioned again in the deciding chapters. This is in strong contrast with Wright, who sought to use a naturalist argument to display the destruction of life that is wrought from a racist world, but respects the human value of his protagonist, allowing him to take ownership of his fate.