Wide Sargasso Sea

One thing in the book that I really like is that in the first part Antoinette is the narrator.  Then in most of the second part, with the exception of Antoinette’s small part, her husband is the narrator.  I like that as readers we are able to read their lives from both of their perspectives.  Even though I like hearing the story from Christophine I do not like him because I believe he just married Antoinette for her money and properties.  Antoinette even feels the distance between the two of them.  She tells Christophe “he does not love me, I think he hates me.  He always sleeps in the dressing-room now and the servants know.  If I get angry he is scornful and silent, sometimes he does not speak to me for hours and I cannot endure it any more, I cannot.  What shall I do?  He was not like that at first” (Rhys 65).  So, he took Antoinette’s money and land, and then he starts to treat her badly and becomes distant.  It just does not seem fair that he gets to take everything that was given to her in order for her to survive and then for him to treat her poorly.  I understand marriages have their troubles, but those troubles should be worked out if they are married.  And if he is not happy in the marriage he should let her have her money and properties back and he should leave! 

            He explains later in the novel that he hates Jamaica.  He said he “hated its beauty and its magic […] above all [he] hated her.  For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness” (Rhys 103).  So he left her behind, hired a woman to take care of her, and he left for England.  This act of Christophine leaving Antoinette proves that he was primarily in the marriage for her money.  If he really loved her he would have stayed with her and not left a woman who is a stranger to be paid to look after her.  So, her money and properties that she inherited were taken from her by her husband and then she is left with a strange woman to take care of her…this does not seem fair.   

Iran and the Western World

Throughout both Persepolis and Reading Lolita in Tehran, both women try to escape the Iranian repression that they are feeling.  Marji wants to change her appearance and become a punk rock girl, and Azar choses different books, mostly American authors, for her and the seven students to read.  Both though, remained true to their countries as best that they could, even though they were in disagreement with the regime in power.  In Persepolis, Marji and her father praise Iran and are extremely patriotic towards their country when they go to war and are dropping bombs on Baghdad, Marji says "I was all wrong about Dad, he loved his country as much as I did."  In Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar says, "I left Iran, but Iran did not leave me."  These woman have pride in their country, they are proud to say where they hail from and how it has shaped them.  Why then is there such a heavy presence on Western society in the worlds that they live?  This Western influence is not one that is pressed on them either, but one that they choose.  Reading through the books, its clear that Marji's want to be a punk rock girl and to be rebellious and listen to different music, and Azar reading Western books and gathering with her students to discuses them, isn't about changing who they are, or not being proud of where they come from.  It is about the prospect of freedom, and having the freedom to be who they want to be, when they want to be that.  I think that one thing that Western society, especially American culture pushes is that we are free.  To read books, and listen to music and wear denim jackets, this isn't something we do out of rebellion.  What we do to rebel, is protest things we don't like that the government is doing, just as they do.  But they protest and face police in riot gear for their rights to be like Western society, not to be Western society.  They simply want the choice that Western society has, to not have to veil themselves, or to do that if they so wish.  The push of Western society in these two books for me is a way to express the freedom that they are searching for, not necessarily the want to be a part of Western society.  Its just something that I noticed and something that was briefly brought up in class, what do you guys think?

An Epiphany of Truth

I feel as though there is a lot going on in this particular book and I am having a difficult time trying to figure it all out in my head. I am one of those people who has to talk about what is going on inside my head out-loud. So the first thing that is going on in my head is the parallel between what these ladies are reading and what is going on around them. The class is created around fictional novels. These fictional novels provided some kind escape from the harsh oppressions that are surrounding them. For example, the main character, Azi had to quit her job. She was forced to quit because her classroom was no longer hers. Her classroom became the government’s classroom; she just had to be the robot that ran it. Azi no longer was able to exhibit agency within her own class. Not to mention the issue of her being a woman in what was a very patriarchal society. Okay, now back to my first point, I thought there was an extreme parallel between the class and what Azi was saying in the first few chapters. She begins by introducing the class and the people in the class. She gives each young woman some aspect that would set them apart from the rest. Even when she describes her own home, she talks about how it is different from the traditional Iranian home. Everything in her world has to deal with separating herself from what is happening around them. Then Azi goes into describing where she sits,

I could not see my favorite mountains from where I sat, but opposite my chair, on the far wall of the dining room, was an antique oval mirror, a gift from my father, and in its reflection, I could see the mountains capped with snow, even in summer, and watch the trees change color. Tat censored view intensified; my impression that the noise came not from the street below nit from some far-off place, a place whose persistent hum was our only link to the world we refused, for those few hours, to acknowledge. The room, for all of us, became a place of transgression. What a wonderland it was!

This quote hit me in the face like a big brick hurled at my face. Azi was not just creating parallels; she was creating her own fictional world to get lost in. I am thinking that Azi needs to escape from the world the surrounds her and create her own reality, even if it only exists in her imagination. Now, I know the class was a real thing, but the world that is around them during the class is one that Azi creates through her oval mirror. By quitting her job she no longer has any grasp on the real world. The college was her link to reality. With her loosing that she was free to create her own landscape, her own noises, and most importantly her own colors.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the matter? Do you think she was starting to lose sense of what was reality and what was fiction? I definitely think that there is a link between the types of books she is reading in her class and what is going on in her life to cope with the outside world. And, if so, we are seeing a relationship between inside and outside once again!