Existential struggles of the self and the other: Jean Rhys’s Voyage in The Dark ve Wide Sargasso Sea as postcolonial novels

Abstract

George Eliot lived in the early Victorian age which witnessed a transformation in the social structure because of the Industrial Revolution. In Middlemarch, she analyzes the emergence of the capitalist paradigm, and the impact of the new system on individuals and institutions. To demonstrate the interaction among history, culture, industry, defined gender roles and the position of woman in the newly formed social strata, she creates a set of characters from all the layers of the society and weaves their stories in a web of relations. The stories of three women, Dorothea, Rosamond, and Mary from the main classes of the society (aristocracy, middle class, and working class), are rendered along with the expectations of the specific classes in society, with social and political changes, and with the institution of marriage and the moral values pertaining to each class. Eliot indicates that the classes, the products of the capitalist economy, shape the personality of the characters. In the male dominated socio-economic model, women are left outside the production mechanisms, and their efforts for self-development are hindered by the norms of patriarchal society. Appreciating the individual efforts of women who try to go beyond the limits, but seeing also that women suffer from the insufficiency of opportunities, Eliot attempts in her work to depict an ideal heroine. Hence, Middlemarch is the story revealing the evolution of the female identity in capitalist patriarchal order. Born to a Creole mother and a Welsh father, Jean Rhys, in her novels, Voyage in the Dark and Wide Sargasso Sea, reflects her own background and experiences in those of her characters. As both a white Creole and an English woman, and as the embodiment of postcolonialism, Jean Rhys, reflects her own dilemma and existential struggle in these novels. In her novels, Voyage in the Dark and Wide Sargasso Sea, she reveals the social, cultural and economic paradigms of two different nations and cultures that is to say, England and the West Indies. Her handling of her material identifies her with postcolonialism, which speaks for the ‘oppressed’ and ‘silenced’, as an aspect that reflects the existential struggles of the Self and the Other. This thesis seeks to analyze Voyage in the Dark and Wide Sargasso Sea as postcolonial novels through the perspective of existentialism. After a brief introduction, the first chapter of the thesis examines Jean Rhys’s own life alongside basic principles of postcolonialism and existential philosophy. In the second chapter, Voyage in the Dark is analyzed as a postcolonial novel representing existential characters. The third chapter applies the same existential and postcolonial perspectives to Wide Sargasso Sea. In conclusion, the existential struggles of the self and the other reflected in these novels are considered as postcolonial entities.

Kreol bir annenin ve Gal’li bir babanın çocuğu olan Jean Rhys, kendi Kreol ve İngiliz benliğini Voyage in the Dark ve Wide Sargasso Sea adlı romanlarında yarattığı karakterler üzerinden yansıtmaktadır. Hem bir Kreol hem de bir İngiliz olarak, Jean Rhys sömürgecilik sonrası şartlarından kaynaklanan ikilemini bu romanlardaki varoluşsal mücadelede yansıtır. Voyage in the Dark ve Wide Sargasso Sea adlı romanlarında iki farklı milletin ve kültürün, yani İngiltere ve Batı Hint Adaları’nın, kültürel ve ekonomik paradigmalarını gözler önüne serer. Konusunu ele alış tarzı, onu ben ve ötekinin varoluşsal mücadelesini yansıtan bir özellik olarak “baskılanan” ve “susturulan”’ın sözcüsü olarak sömürgecilik sonrasıyla bağdaştırır. Bu tez, Voyage in the Dark ve Wide Sargasso Sea’yi sömürgecilik sonrası romanlar vii olarak varoluşçu bakış açısıyla ele alır. Kısa bir girişten sonra, tezin ilk bölümünde Jean Rhys’ın kendi hayatı, sömürgecilik sonrasının temel prensipleri ve varoluşçu felsefe irdelenmiştir. İkinci bölümde, Voyage in the Dark adlı eser varoluşçu karakterleri yansıtan sömürgecilik sonrası bir roman olarak ele alınmıştır. Üçüncü bölüm ise, aynı varoluşçu ve sömürgecilik sonrası bakış açılarını Wide Sargasso Sea’ye uyarlar. Sonuç olarak, bu romanlarda yansıtılan ben ve ötekinin varoluşsal mücadeleleri sömürgecilik sonrası özellikler olarak değerlendirilmiştir.