Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2018

Incipient Female madness

splintered…looks as if it has been through the wars”. This room is the representation of the disorientated society that she lives in. The protagonist’s allusion to war and violent imagery reinforces her hatred towards the house. Her disconnections to society is further shown through the lack of communication with other people besides her husband. As the story continued, readers hear more and more about her resentment towards the wallpaper in her room. The protagonist is immediately repelled by the wallpaper as she describes in asyndeton that the “colour is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow” and she has “never saw a worse wallpaper in [her] life”. The pattern of the wallpaper particularly bothers her as she strongly sees it as “one of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” then continuously uses negative connotations when describing the wallpaper. As the protagonist pictured the patterns to “commit suicide [and] destroy themselves”, she foreshadows her own deterioration later in the story. Gilman uses the wallpaper to show the convoluted nature of the unnamed protagonist’s insanity. The revolting and repetitive pattern of the wallpaper along with her vision of the woman trapped behind the design reflects on the protagonist’s mental state as she realises her confinement within the constraints of her society. It can be seen that the motifs of the inanimate objects help unravel the psychological complexity of the protagonists’ unusual behaviours and dilemmas. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys represents Antoinette’s alienation from society as being due to her race, preconceptions of her mother and especially her relationship with her husband. Coming from a Creole background, Antoinette is constantly faced with racism from the Caribbean locals which is worsened by her mad mother’s reputation. Furthermore, her toxic relationship with Mr. Rochester caused her great distress which leads to her to isolate herself from the others in her household. Rhys sets the tone of imminent racial disruption after her father’s death; her family not only fell apart but was left defenceless to the abuse and racial discrimination from the black slaver community. This is seen when a young girl sang in repetitive verse “The white cockroach she marry/ The white cockroach

10