p 24-29
Goes to see mother, goes to school.
Passage on pg 26
Antoinnette- Quite excited about seeing her mother, -wants to see her mother, wants her to have changed- doesn't really believe that it is going to be her mother.
Mother- Harsh, confused, angry and grief stricken...crazy?
Themes
Rejection- from mother, and people looking after her mother.
Black/White- makes a point of saying what colour skin the people have, ingrained in her.
Language-
Unsure, short sentences, not certain, now that she is in a safe place, whether her mother still exists, it's like that was another world. Not much emotion behind the words, fast action. Facts not thoughts.
'Trouble' - repeated several times, as if Antionnette is evil, they are trying to indoctrinate her. Like the black/white issue.
Similarities to Jane Eyre-
Rejected, not liked, not confident, gets expectations up and then is crushed a lot.
Part one.
Lot of similarities to Jane Eyre, exotic description. Narrative voice, so that you can get inside her mind. Racism seems to be the other way round, family is at the bottom of the scrap heap. Stark contrast between the amount of description in the passive and the lack of it in the fast action. Lots of thing scare Antoinnette- action- too painfull to cunjure emotions, blank.
Status
p11
' " She grow up worthless" ' (Christophine) even though she is white she has a very low status in the West Indies, she's a 'white cockroach'
p10
argument with Tia resulting in loss of dress. Prejudices' are passed down the generations, do they know any better, do they have any idea what they are saying?
p12
'sold her last ring' all she has left that has any worth.
'all better than people' she seeks solitude, she longs for it, massive contrast with Jane Eyre.
p14
'Obeah woman' ~(Christophinhe) seen by Europeans as superstition, whitchcraft, poison. Element of the supernatural.
Contradiction, they talk of Christophine as an Obeah Woman but she is in fact a Roman Catholic, unusual for Jamaica.
p15
' " You don't like, or even recognise, the good in them." ' Anette wants to understand and know the local people, even though they hate her.
p16
'the black people did not hate us quite so much when we were poor' it is better to be white and poor than white and rich. Anntoinnette wants to be liked by the black people.
p17
'I was glad to be like an English girl' she likes to feel normal, when she's behaving how she thinks other people think she should, .
p18
Mr Mason sets himself apart from the native people, with English Decor etc.
p20
'So did Mr Mason but more slowly' Mr Mason doesn't care about Pierre, so why is he marrying Annette?
Antoinnette shows very little emotion at anything, which is a huge contrast to her mother, is she bottling it up? Is she emotionally unstable, like her mother, but in a more quiet way?
p22
Aunt Cora: ' "They are laughing at you" ' Why are the people so cruel and spitefull?
Religion
'God who is indeed mysterious' she has faith of some sort.
p23
Religion 'Bad luck to kill a parrot' but not a human?
p24
'"You cry for her- when she ever cry for you? Tell me that?"' The bitterness from the locals is really strong.
Anto about Tia 'It was as if I saw myself. Like in a looking glass' They are very similaer yet worlds apart, if circumstances were different they could be friends. It's very sad.
Motifs, snakes, evil the devil.
p25
Looks are important to Antoinnetter.
p27
She is hated by the local children, the prejudice runs deep.
p29
Similarities to Jane Eyre's life at Lowood.
p30
Antoinnettes Roman Catholic education sets her apart from the local childreen.
Helebn- Helen in JE
p31
'Would I be lonely? She asked and I said 'No' ' Like JE she has been cut off from her family.
'This convent was my refuge' a place where she can forget all about her past (JE)
p32
'Hot coffee and rolls and melting butter' stark contrast with meagre meals at Lowood
'wherever her soul is wondering for it has left her body' Her mother is dead? Or is she pretending that she is, in trying to forget, aor can she not quite beluieve that she is alive, what with her being safe.
'Everything was Brightness or dark' she likes things to be clear.
p33
Told that she's leaving with Mr Mason.
She thinks she ought to be happy, so she hides her feelings, she felt safe in the convent, set apart from the worl @(unlike JE)
p34
Dreams about a man and a dress and is worried...Hell?
p35
We learbn that the mother is dead, with very ittle emotion, as if she already knwe it.
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2 comments:
A good close reading. Aim to post in continuous prose from now on. I like the way you reflect on the similarities with JE. Can you clarify what you mean about racism being the other way round?
I like the point about passive and active decription. Is this an effective way of getting the reader into her state of mind?
I think that we can tell a lot about Bertha from the way she interacs with the world around her, not only in the descriptive passages but also in the action parts. I think that some of Bertha's imagery in section one gives us a huge insight, particularily throgh Rhys' choice of language.
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