Wide Sargasso Sea is the story of Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress who grew up in the West Indies on a decaying plantation. When she comes of age she is married off to an Englishman, and he takes her away from the only place she has known--a house with a garden where "the paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched."(p.16).
Floral Images are central to the theme in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea. They are present throughout the entire novel and also have an effect on the atmosphere. There are several examples.
The first and most prominent floral image in the novel is of the garden at Coulibri, "But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell." (p.16). Antoinette describes the garden as being full of life but now everything is dead, this symbolizes something that is beautiful but gone back or is not going to last long. The garden is also compared to the garden of Eden, "Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible-the tree of life grew there"(p.16). When she refers to the "tree of life growing there" it is as though she is looking back and relating to the former slave owners. She also says "The scent was very sweet and strong. I never went near it."(p.16). This excerpt is symbolizing her constant fear to ever be close to giving love.
Another floral image is that of pink roses, "There where two pink roses…touched it the petals dropped."(p.72), "have all beautiful things sad destinies."(p.72). These quotes are referring that Antoinette is beautiful like her mother but look at their destinies.
Another image is that of a falling flower, "One morning a small flower fell…looked like snow.
Lehner, Ernst, and Johanna Lehner. Folklore and Symbolism of Flowers, Plants and Trees. New York: Tudor. 1960
In the beginning, the author explains how this young girl, Lizabeth, lived in the culturally deprived neighborhood during the depression. Lizabeth is at the age where she is just beginning to become a young woman and is almost ready to give up her childish ways. Through this time period she was confused and could not quite understand what was happening to her. In the end she rips Miss Lottie’s marigolds among the ugly place in which she lived. The marigolds were the only things that make the place a bit beautiful to the eye. In this scene the marigolds represent the only hope the people had for themselves in this time of depression. This could reveal how the author has experienced a loss of hope in times of need. In her explanation of how Lizabeth had torn up the flowers and destroyed all hope in that time of depression, might explain that she has also destroyed hope in a time of pain and grief. Later she writes, “And I too have planted marigolds.” This could mean she has learned from her experiences and that she has finally found hope and always tries to seek the good within the bad and the ugly. On another note, it could mean she just wants to act out on something, but she can’t, so she writes about her...
...ots her memory, the blossoms her dreams, and the branches her vision. After each unsuccessful marriage, she waits for the springtime pollen to be sprinkled over her life once again. Even after Tea Cake's death, she has a garden of her own to sit and revel in.
word “art” which may imply something about the materialistic world that she tries to be a part of. Interestingly, and perhaps most symbolic, is the fact that the lily is the “flower of death”, an outcome that her whirlwind, uptight, unrealistic life inevitably led her to.
?I would never find another woman [Rosa] with her green hair and underwater beauty.? (35, Ch 1) Green is the color the ocean and a symbol of blossoming and awakening while water is pure and innocent. It has a middling quality and mediates between two extremes, or two political standpoints (Socialism and Conservatism). Life ascends from red and blossoms in green, a feminine color of childbearing, as is seen through the many generations of green haired women. Green is a color of hope, strength and longevity, where Clara and Rosa?s hair help represent them as a very natural and bold feminine aspect of the book. Rosas blossom between green leaves and the symbolic name of Rosa sets the organic tone of femininity found within her sibling, Clara, also b...
...ioned “roses after roses”, which would be a metaphor for the dead amidst the beautiful roses, which is quite similar to the incident about the gun and the rose, and how all the hurtful things are beneath the beautiful things.
Symbols are one of those most important things to a story. They share the meaning of themselves, as well as the meaning for something else. Symbols usually make the important ideas stick out as well as make the reader have different ideas of what is actually being said. One of the many symbols in “Paul’s Case” is flower’s. From violets to carnations, the flowers Paul talks about are ones of many meanings. The flowers represent a continual motif, expressing Paul’s character.
“We pluck and marvel for sheer joy. And the ones still green, sighing, leave upon the boughs…” (14-16). This emphasis on nature reflects the respect and connection to the natural world the culture was trying to convey in their poetry. The colorful and illustrative descriptions of the physical world are indicative of the mindset and focus of these poems. Namely the fact that they were concerned with the world around us and the reality we experience as opposed to that of abstract concept of god or the supernatural as seen in other historical texts. This focus on nature is important because it sets the context in which the major theme of loss and separation originate from. In this poem the poet chooses to emphasize the passing of time in the choice of comparing the two seasons. Spring, in which life begins a new, and fall, in which the leaves begin to fall off and die. The poem reads “And the ones still green, sighing, leave upon the boughs- Those are the ones I hate to lose. For me, it is the autumn hills” (15-18). This juxtaposition of these two
Firstly, the literary technique symbolism has been used to represent power. The ruby choker, given to the Bride by the Marquis, is a symbol of power. The Bride describes the choker as a ‘choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat...bright as arterial blood’. This depiction is a useful method of representing the Marquis power because the necklace acts like a collar. This signifies how the Marquis behaves like his Bride’s master. (why master?) An example of the Marquis expressing this power is when the Marquis takes the Bride’s virginity. The Marquis tells the Heroine to wear the choker before consummating their marriage; in relation to power, this shows how the Marquis has the right to her body. Moreover, the overwhelming presence of lilies in the bridal chamber represents the loss of virginity. The quote ‘[mirrors] on the wall...reflected more white lilies that I’d ever seen in my life’ (pg10-11). This exhibits the overpowering image of lilies for the reason that lilies in reality connote death or loss, in the context of the story; this is the loss of the Brides virginity. In addition to this, the resemblance of th...
Since the days of the early Greeks, florigraphy - the language of flowers - has been used to convey "a wide range of human emotions, conditions, events, or ideas" (Seattle n. p.). From the "strength in character" of the gladiolus to the "delicate beauty" of the hibiscus, flowers are symbolic in the message and the image they produce (Tansy n. p.). Tennyson uses florigraphy to symbolize man’s desire to create the perfect Garden of Eden and to expose the contrary emotions the protagonist feels towards Maud. She is "associated with both lily and rose, as both a chaste subject and a sexual object" (Johnson 111). Traditionally, the lily symbolizes "coquetry and purity" and the rose symbolizes passion (Tansy n p.). Maud is the "shrinking reticence" of the lily when the protagonist is content with their relationship and the "aggressive...
The sense of fear attributed to the setting in 'Wide Sargasso Sea' may have been influenced by Rhys' own experiences as a creole woman growing up in the Caribbean. Rhys' great-grandfather's house was burned down by members of the local black community in an act of revenge, as he was a slave-owner. This event is often considered to have inspired Rhys to write about the arson of Coulibri. This supports the idea that Rhys was influenced by her own feelings of fear in her own home, which indicates that fear is a vital part of the setting in the
For the rioters, Coco the parrot, and Antoinette, fire offers an instrument of escape from and rebellion against the oppressive actions of their respective captors. Wide Sargasso Sea takes place shortly after the emancipation of Jamaican slaves. Annette's husbands, first Alexander Cosway and then Mr. Mason, have both profited immorally off of the exploitation of black Jamaicans. Unsurprisingly, the former slaves feel great hatred towards the Cosways--- hatred that boils over when the ex-slaves set fire to Annette's house (35). The significance of th...
That said the flowers have no human inference, which is the same in the other garden. In the garden of Eden where it is said to be full of beautiful things of all types. He said his garden was full of the most beautiful of things one can imagine. One thing that fits is that there are no bad emotions to be seen. In both gardens, there is no reason for them in a place filled with quality and promise of heart’s desire.
"A swollen river" gives off images of pregnancy, which could either be an image of flooding that can either make the land fertile or destroy it. " A mating call of sound" once again brings in the effect of sound but also includes sensual imagery, and the "hoarder of common ground" shows that the land belongs to everybody.
Rhys, Jean, and Judith L. Raiskin. "Wide Sargasso Sea." Wide Saragossa Sea: Backgrounds, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998. 3-112. Print.