Fueling the Dream Fire

Gayatri Spivak refers to Antoinette’s dream sequences in her analysis of author Jean Rhys’ mirror imagery in “Wide Sargasso Sea and a Critique of Imperialism.”  Spivak notes the second dream’s enclosed garden setting, the “place of encounter with Love,” pointing out that what Antoinette encounters is not love, but a “strange, threatening voice that says merely ‘in here,’ inviting her into a prison which masquerades as the legalization of love” (242).  I recognize many of these symbols throughout Wide Sargasso Sea.  The dreams have too many themes and symbolic images to analyze in this space, but I offer some examples supporting Spivak’s topics and adding a few related observations. 

The first dream occurs after Antoinette’s mother rejects her as shameful.  Antoinette is walking without her mother, outside the safety of her home.  She hears “heavy footsteps coming closer and though I struggled and screamed I could not move” (15-16).  She is aware it is someone who hates her.  This follows closely after she reveals all the Negroes hated her and her mother (13).  It appears the follower is male, and lays hold of her in a menacing way from which she is helpless to save or free herself.  She is imprisoned by a strange man who does not love her as she strives in vain for freedom and safety.

The second nightmare happens on the heals of an evening visit from Mr. Mason, her step father who is now a widower since her mother’s death.   Mr. Mason never really loved her mother, but Antoinette had concluded it was “better to be peaceful and protected” in a masquerade of marriage than live in danger outside that legalized love (21).   When she came to this realization was the first time she ever kissed her stepfather.  Now Mr. Mason had been with Antoinette in the parlor of her convent.  He kissed her, held her at arm’s length, and she felt shy and ill at ease.  He invited her to come live with him, using the word “here” (35).  He paid her compliments, made her laugh, talked of dancing and nuns being too strict.  He lured her away with promises of happiness and security.  She thought of the cheerful nuns, “They are safe.  How can they know what it will be like outside?”  They don’t need men--they are secure within the enclosed walls. 

Her dream begins again by leaving the safety of home, outside--in darkness this time and wearing what is clearly a wedding gown:  a long, white, beautiful dress she holds up as it trails because she doesn’t want to soil it.  She follows the man with her, terrified yet choosing not to be saved by herself or anyone else.  Concluding “This must happen,” she asks, “Here?”  When he turns a hatred-filled expression on her and replies, “Not here, not yet,” she is suddenly reprieved in an enclosed garden--her version of safety.  “When I was safely home I sat close to the old wall at the end of the garden….and I never wanted to move again.  Everything would be worse if I moved” (13).  In the dream garden as she clings to a tree, she murmurs to herself as if in self-comfort, “Here, here” and thinks, “I will not go any further” (36).  The reference to sexual restraint is hard to miss.  But then she hears the strange voice beckon, “Here, in here” as if commanding her inside a bridal chamber to her dreaded wedding bed.

Antoinette yearns for safety.  She accepts a fate as an imprisoned, unloved bride in return for the only type of safety she imagines possible--through a man.  This false belief must have been built on her lack of faith in God (another topic altogether), and the many times women failed to provide safety.  Her mother never was totally ineffective, relying on first one husband, then another to provide security.  When Annette’s wedding ring falls off (leaving her without the protection of her husband, so to speak) the house fire threatens their lives (23).  The female caretaker, Myra, didn’t protect her brother, Pierre, and he died (24).  Mr. Mason’s prayer is effective in stopping the yelling mob, even though women’s prayers have seemingly gone unanswered (25).  The would-be attacker accuses Mr. Mason of hiding “in the bushes”--as in a garden--and Mr. Mason commands the women to “Get in” (“here,” implied) to the carriage, so he can carry them away to safety (26).  The nuns didn’t protect Antoinette from the outside world, and her Aunt Cora left her and went off to England (33).  Antoinette’s closest friend, Tia, turns against her and hurts her physically and emotionally rather than offering her safety (27). 

In the third, final nightmare, Antoinette relates “I went further than I have ever been before” and wears a veil over her face, completing the wedding night imagery (111).  She has left the safety of her walled garden, gone to follow and succumb to what she is resigned to as her fate.  Yet, it turns out to be not the consuming fire of a man’s passion,  but a hellish flame of a different sort.