Multiple Perspectives and Christophine

Wide Sargasso Sea is the only book we’ve read this year to use multiple perspectives in telling a story, and I really liked the effect it created. While there was some confusion in who was narrating certain points, being able to explore the internal dialogue of both Antoinette and Rochester was incredibly illuminating. It is crucial for her gaining sympathy later on that Antoinette narrate her childhood scenes and give us a sense of her loneliness and innocence. However if Antoinette had narrated the rest of the book we wouldn’t experience Rochester’s confusion with the world, and we would lose Rochester’s thoughts which--in my opinion--actually make him a more hated character. Rochester’s thoughts are racist, judgemental, selfish, and uncaring, as seen in his description of Daniel Cosway and his reactions towards Antoinette living without him. The scene where he justifies bringing her along to England is especially revealing of how sick his character is by the end: wanting Antoinette to come with him because he is jealous and possessive of her; he’s allowed to start a new life, but she isn’t. “I’ll take her in my arms, my lunatic. She’s mad, but mine, mine. What will I care for gods or devils or for Fate itself. If she smiles or weeps or both. For me.” If we didn’t have Rochester’s perspective, we would perhaps view Rochester the same way as in Jane Eyre: a mysterious man who doesn’t always do good things, but may have some tragic backstory we don’t know about and therefore we don’t judge him as much because we see he’s in pain. But by narrating a majority of the story from Rochester’s point of view, Rhys is exposing his motives and internal thoughts, and making it impossible for the reader to give him the benefit of the doubt. It also allows us to have some sympathy for Rochester earlier in the novel where we know he is also lonely and lost, but by the end of the novel Rochester’s thoughts make him almost evil as he disregards everything about Antoinette as a person and just thinks of her as belonging to him. “My lunatic. My mad girl.”

After being exposed to the mindsets of both Antoinette and Rochester and getting exhausted from their emotional turmoil and general life problems, having a character like Christophine in the story is much appreciated. Rochester is cruel and Antoinette is emotionally unstable, but Christophine is actually productive and relatively level-headed. While I have sympathies for both Antoinette and Rochester, I definitely think Christophine is the easiest character to fully support. She is responsible, takes good care of Antoinette, has an admirable amount of respect/fear from the townspeople, and she gives pretty good advice. She’s a rational thinker and doesn’t get completely taken over by emotions the way Rochester and Antoinette do, yet she is still fiercely protective of Antoinette, and she can still understand what they are feeling.

Christophine is a vitally important person in Antoinette’s life, having had no other figure to love her or help her. Even when her mother was around, Christophine was the person Antoinette associated with safety and comfort. “I left a light on the chair by my bed and waited for Christophine for I like to see her last thing. But she did not come, and as the candle burned down, the safe peaceful feeling left me.” Christophine stays with Antoinette and though she is her maid, Antoinette respects her and trusts her with her most important questions. I think Christophine is pretty intimidating and maybe if she hadn’t performed Obeah for Antoinette, or if she hadn’t mentioned to Rochester the possibility of Antoinette remarrying, things would have turned out better. But in comparison to Rochester and Antoinette, her sound advice and also her loyalty and responsibility make her a much more likable character.

It would have been cool to get some of the story from Christophine’s perspective, but I don’t think it would have been completely necessary because she is able to speak about her emotions regarding Antoinette very effectively anyway, unlike both Rochester and Antoinette who go crazy trying. Still, her character is pretty mysterious and I'd be interested in knowing some of her backstory.

Meaning and Higher Powers vs. Meursault

Meursault’s whole attitude of “nothing really matters” and “we’re all going to die anyway” kind of annoys me and I relate to the other characters of the book who are unable to grasp his indifference. “Do you want my life to be meaningless?” asks the magistrate when Meursault brushes off religion as useless and irrelevant. While the chaplain and magistrate definitely come off as overbearing and suffocating Christians, I kind of sympathize with their reaction to Meursault’s philosophy. By saying he doesn’t have time for them, he is saying everything they do and work for is meaningless, that anything anyone works for is meaningless, and that’s a really depressing thought. It’s kind of true: everyone will die, nothing you do will change that. Most things don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But my personality at least does not like being told that everything I do is meaningless. It’s a valid way to see things, but if I dwell on the meaninglessness of my existence then I am not doing anything for anybody, and while Meursault is perfectly content with this lifestyle, I am not. I think there’s a lot of meaning in little things like singing a song, getting a card from a friend, accomplishing something you didn't think you could, and being around people you care about. Meursault enjoys some things I would call meaningful, like admiring a sunset and swimming in the ocean and reconnecting with a neighbor. However Meursault doesn’t recognize these at meaningful. They don’t matter because in the long run, little things don’t make you live longer or change the course of the universe. These things matter to me because they affect the quality of the life I’m living and make me feel like I have a purpose. Meursault thinks having a purpose is ridiculous and made up, which is fine, it is sort of made up. But it's also something pretty crucial to human nature and fitting into society and I can understand why people take offense to his views (although this really shouldn't be the main argument against him in court).

Meursault's lack of emotion or purpose in The Stranger make for some interesting interactions with the religious characters like the examining magistrate and the chaplain. The scenes where the magistrate screams at Meursault and waves around the Crucifix, or where the chaplain cries and says Meursault must believe in God, don’t portray religious people, or people who believe in a greater purpose for the world, in a very positive light. They’re basically seen as insane, hypocritical, and unable to control their emotions, which is a pretty stark contrast to Meursault who is calm and a little too rational for us to be comfortable. Meursault is the one who has committed murder and yet Camus is much harsher on the religious people and the people of the court. By providing these absurd people to make fun of, Camus is able to make Meursault’s lack of belief in anything at all seem like a good quality, making it easier to ignore the morally questionable things he does as a result. As a religious person myself, it’s a little sad that the two religious characters in the book are absolutely horrible, and also that both Christians and Meursault claim to not judge people yet they are both judging each other pretty hard core. Both of these characters are so certain in how they think of the world and so sure of the meaning (or lack of) in their life, they are both a little intimidating to me.

We talked in class about “the Absurd” being humanity’s desire to give meaning to things in a meaningless universe, and how Meursault’s personality is based on an awareness of this absurdity. I feel like an awareness that the universe is ultimately unaffected by your presence is maybe a healthy thing, to keep everything in perspective and not get carried away by things that go wrong. But keeping this in mind, I don't think it's necessarily healthy to believe nothing you do matters because on a smaller scale, people are affected by things you do all the time. Meursault may not care much for them, but people matter to me quite a bit.