The Creole in Wide Sargasso Sea: A Caribbean Person’s Perspective

As a person of Caribbean descent, reading this novel particularly helped me understand the difficulties of growing up as a Creole in the West Indies.  In Caribbean society, lighter-skinned individuals who were direct descendants of the European slave owners, or those who were of mixed race were often treated with privilege and were highly favored over other people who were darker or direct descendants of Black Africans.  This is particularly demonstrated in Daniel's description of his life as being biracial as well as the story of his brother Alexander.  According to Daniel, his brother Alexander benefited more from being of mixed race than he did. He states, "Then there is my half-brother Alexander, coloured like me but not unlucky like me...He was the old man favorite right from the start... Because he prosper he is two-faced and won't speak against white people." (124) Reading this passage reminded me of when my parents told me stories of their childhood of adults having a preference for their children who had a lighter-skinned complexion than their siblings.  Obviously this preference remained for many generations afterwards and continued into my parents time.  Knowing that this kind of attitude persists until today, it was actually enlightening for me to learn of the difficulties that Creole people had growing up in this society. In the novel, Antoinette cannot completely fit in with the black children because of her family history and the connotation her complexion has become associated with.  Early in the novel Antoinette describes her experiences with other children when she says, “I never look at any strange negro.  They hated us.  They called us white cockroaches.  One day a little girl followed me singing, ‘Go away white cockroach, go away, go away.’ ” (23) Obviously, Antoinette had a difficult time getting along with other black children, and even when she manages to befriend Tia, Tia is not able to look past Antoinette’s background; which is seen when she tricks Antoinette into giving her the pennies and throwing the rock at Antoinette when her family was trying to escape.  Not only is Antoinette ostracized from the former slaves, she is alienated from those of European descent.  Her husband the unnamed Englishman scrutinizes over her race when he says “I watched her critically...She never blinks at all it seems to me.  Long, sad, dark alien eyes.  Creole of pure English descent she may be, but they are not English or European either.” (67)  In the eyes of a European person, Antoinette does not fully fit in with them because she was not born in Europe, and as stated earlier, she cannot fit in with the black people due to her complexion and family’s history in the system of slavery.  She does not have a clear sense of identity and belonging because she is stuck in the middle. Due to my own knowledge of bias towards lighter skinned individuals in Caribbean society, until reading this novel, I had not considered the issue of dual identity that West Indian Creoles or their descendants had to deal with between Caribbean and European society.  Since I am only halfway through the novel, I am interested in seeing how race relations will play out when Antoinette moves to England, and if this will play a role in her going insane.