Susan Hill’s 2012 ‘Dolly’ and Jean Rhys’ 1988 ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ both inhabit the themes of darkness, monstrosity and the supernatural, but in very different ways and to varying degrees of success and innovation. In ‘Dolly’, the self-proclaimed ‘Ghost Story’ uses the theme of darkness and the supernatural relatively literally, with gothic tropes which are conventional to the literary genre with a seemingly Victorian style inspiration. On the other hand, ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ uses more subtle nuances which suggest darkness and the supernatural in a way which more significantly highlights Antoinette’s feeling of colonial isolation whilst reflecting contextual racism. However, despite their different approaches, both novels ultimately use the idea of the supernatural and darkness as a device used to further highlight the effects of fate and consequence. We can see that as well as being used for dramatic effect, darkness and the supernatural are used more importantly as an extremity which, when built up within the characterisation of our protagonists, allow us to recognise the consequences of certain actions and events in a didactic fashion. In this essay, I will be exploring this thesis through assessing how the themes of supernatural and darkness are used as devices to highlight wider issues; in colonialism, fractured familial relations and oppression.
The use of the supernatural in Rhys’ ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ is essential firstly in building up the sense of the Caribbean culture which Antoinette is so closely aligned to. The building of identity for Antoinette is so important because we must consider Antoinette as an extension of Bertha in Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’ . Bronte confines the characterisation of Bertha to such a minimal proportion of the book, that through establishing a sense of cultural identity in ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, Rhys forces a much more prolific effect when we consider the subsequent stripping of Antoinette’s identity, making us consider the wider parallel to effects of colonialism. Rhys establishes this primarily through representation of the supernatural with the idea of Obeah magic, which when linked to the natural environment highlights the sense of exoticism and colonial juxtaposition which sets her apart from Rochester’s British ideals. For example, the depiction of a supposed ‘sixth sense’ through magic, dreams and premonitions which Antoinette and the other Caribbean’s inhabit, suggests a certain attuning to evil and instinctive awareness which the British colonials are ignorant to. Where Mr Mason, an Englishman, cannot understand Creole apprehensions, Antoinette has a seemingly instinctive awareness for the danger they pose and feels as if the ‘sky and the sea were on fire’ . The ignorance which the British display here in occupying Antoinette’s home is one which we can parallel to Hill’s ‘Dolly’. Leonora’s desperation to possess a royal Indian Doll is inherently reminiscent of British occupation in India, and her reaction to not getting what she wanted, subsequently leads to the cursing which stains her name and future generations. Leonora’s doll is a supernatural representation of the victim of colonialism, similarly to Antoinette. From this we can see that ‘Dolly’ is largely about consequences, more specifically about how the punishment may be much greater than the crime, often disproportionately affecting more people than just the perpetrator. Interestingly, in comparing the texts we can see that the supernatural is used to promote a sense of power. For example, where Leonora’s doll has the power to curse her, Antoinette is given a sense of higher power through her supposed supernatural abilities, as we as a reader can view her premonition of ‘fire’ as an ominous foreshadowing to the burning house. Antoinette’s knowledge of magic is her one source of power and independence, and is one used to build her sense of identity.
The effect of colonialism is also represented through the depiction of the natural world, supported by darkness and the supernatural. It represents an ecocriticism framework, emphasising ‘solid divisions…emphasising the interaction of culture and nature’ . In ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, the use of nature in conjunction with character and culture is part of Rhys’ establishing of characters’ identity. We can see that Obeah magic is closely associated with the natural world, for example when Rochester discovers the Obeah offering ‘bunches of flowers tied with grass’ in the forest. This is especially prevalent when we consider that the theme of nature and natural landscapes is another theme which underpins the story, occupying Antoinette’s subconscious with her constant forest dreams. Antoinette’s relationship with the supernatural is so closely intertwined that the lines between fantasy and reality are seemingly blurred, from her dreams to the real world. This is asserted further by the representation of the natural world around her. Her garden can be seen as a symbol of corrupted innocence, having given itself over to wildness and a savage overgrowth that marks the entire estate, where the ‘smell of dead…mixed with the fresh living smell’ . If we consider Antoinette’s link to nature, by establishing a sense of decay, which is supported again in the imagery of the poisoned horse, ‘dead…eyes black with flies’ , the collapse of the natural world can be seen as a parallel to Antoinette’s descent to madness being moved to England. The theme of death is also prevalent in ‘Dolly’, but can be seen much more obviously as a feature of consequence, as the doll curses Leonora and Edward’s bloodline.
Similarly to ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, ‘Dolly’ uses features of darkness in the representation of the natural world, notably to extend underlying emotions prompted by the supernatural features of the doll. It is essential to consider ‘Dolly’ in conjunction to its supernatural themes, as the book lends itself as conventional to the gothic tropes seen in Victorian ghost stories with the use of sensory language in ‘dark’, ‘grey’, ‘stone’ , and the use of pathetic fallacy in the ‘whistling winds…echoed by eerie cries’ . It is important to consider the use of postcolonial gothic, which was ‘fundamentally linked to colonial settings, characters, and realities as frequent embodiments of the forbidding and frightening’ . Its usage in these texts display an ‘everyday haunting of place and people – to make visible and palpable the history and legacy of the repression, silencing, erasure, and remapping that was colonialism, whether imperial rule or settler invader culture’ . These criticisms are given confidence when we consider the overt use of monstrosity or the supernatural in highlighting this contextual racism more specifically. For example, when we consider the ideas promoted by the British in ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ in regard to Mrs Cosway, ‘This young Mrs. Cosway is worthless and spoilt, she can't lift a hand for herself and soon the madness that is in her, and in all these white Creoles, will come out’ . As Wester suggests, these racialized discourses are ‘about anxieties over the potential that the other brings for the cultural and racial degeneration of British citizens’ , which is an idea closely linked to the controversies surrounding colonialism. Through this presentation of England, the presence of its colonial opposite in India is given a similar importance to that of the Caribbean in ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, which is consequently reflective of contextual racism and attitudes to colonialism.
Darkness and the supernatural are also used to further our understanding of the fractured familial relations and absent parents which affect the development of the characters. The giving of the doll in ‘Dolly’ forefronts the prevailing theme of motherhood. In essence, the delegation of the doll is symbolic of Leonora’s mothers’ rejection of her, which we can see has translated into Leonora’s character. If we consider that the unveiling of the doll is a symbolic substitution for a real birth, Leonora’s rejection of the doll in throwing it against the wall is an example of this. Her ‘dreadful animal howl’ which she emits is one which is parallel to her actual birth later on where she lets out a ‘howl…exactly the same as the one she had uttered on the night of her birthday’ . With this in mind, the smashing of the doll against the fireplace is then clearly a symbol of fractured familial relations. The theme of motherhood which is displayed through the use of the doll helps us to recognise figures of maternal instinct, or lack thereof. Where Leonora seems to reject these feelings, seen in how she ‘sat with one stockinged leg crossed tightly over the other’, surprising we see a reversal of gender norms in the fact that Edward does seem adopt these parental instincts. He seems to provide the most care for the doll, for example in initiating a proper burial after Leonora smashes it, so it is ironic that later on, Leonora is pregnant and Edward has not yet had children.
Through the use of darkness and the supernatural we can assert the feminist criticism which suggests that it paves the way for oppression. This is especially prevalent in ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ when considering its predecessor, ‘Jane Eyre’. The form of the novel sees Antoinette dictating the first and last part, where she is isolated and consumed in her own thoughts, whereas in the middle she is largely under the control of Rochester. Rochester's disappearance from the narrative suggests that he now hovers over the plot in a way suggestive of a mastermind puppeteer, looking down onto what Antoinette considers to be her ‘cardboard prison’. His overlooking of her in this way, speaks to the audience who have looked onto the character of Bertha in ‘Jane Eyre’ as simply the mad woman in the attic in a form of pitiless voyeurism having not known her story. In ‘Dolly’ on the other hand, we see a role reversal and a form of oppression which empowers the female protagonist. As aforementioned, the novel is centred largely around the theme of motherhood and familial relations, and this subsequently dictates Leonora’s emotions. This is significant when considering how the supernatural extends the presentation of wider issues such as oppression, because in a novel where the central theme is almost exclusively female, she is subsequently empowered over her male counterpart characters.
The absence of parents is a significant trope continued over the two texts, and is significant in assessing how the supernatural is used to display fragmented familial relations. A gothic-feminist criticism may suggest that the physical absence of Leonora’s mother has a certain spectral element in itself, in the fact that she is ever-present in her life through the sending of letters and gifts, yet is not there to develop a proper relationship with her daughter. This forces Leonora to dwell on, and confront the fact that her mother is absent from her life; signifying ‘the problematics of femininity which the heroine must confront’ . The detachment between parent and child is one which we can see carried over into ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ in the characters of Antoinette and Daniel. Like Antoinette, whose mother disowns and rejects her, Daniel is also rejected, as a bastard son. He also suffers the indignities of his parentage and is powerless to change his inherited stigma. As rejected children, Daniel and Antoinette share their sense of isolation, displacement, and anger. In Antoinette’s case, this isolation she feels from her mother forces her to seek it elsewhere, making herself vulnerable. The maternal care she receives from her Aunt Cora is stripped away when she is sent to school, only to push her into another form of nurturing in the convent nuns. The nun washes her face, seemingly in an act of ritual purification. In the safety of this new environment, through a feminist outlook we can deduce that she is rid of the oppressive patriarchy when she is with the nuns, and is able to find a rare peace in the women’s’ maternal affection. We can see that the absence of parents is significant in displaying the impact on the child; effectively relayed through supernatural features typical to the gothic representation of children. Critic Georgieva argues that ‘young people are not only vessels for adult projections, hopes and fears but are also extremely receptive to the influence of evil…easily influenced and manipulated’ . This view can be given credence through the fact that the doll itself is initially presented as a child, and is essentially the perpetrator of subsequent events. This quotation also infers that it is the misgivings of adults who inflict such evil on their children, which is useful in that when used in comparing ‘Dolly’ and ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, we can see that the display of supernatural or darkness in the characters through the use of gothic features is used in order to better expose the consequences of fractured familial relations. The idea of unknown past generations and absent parents makes us wonder about a colonial past which has potentially been lost or displaced. In this instance, the theme of motherhood fuelled through the doll not only exposes the consequences of family relations, but also makes us consider the effects of colonialism which is rooted so deeply in the idea of family. In this respect, Gelder suggests that it actually turns ‘domestic experiences of loss into symbolic accounts of lives that are simultaneously independent and hopelessly enslaved or exploited, as if these two conditions are now difficult to distinguish’ .
To conclude, darkness and the supernatural are used as extremities which, when built up within the characterisation of our protagonists, allow us to recognise the consequences of certain actions and events; notably colonialism, oppression and family relations. Both authors use conventional gothic tropes in order to do this, employing them in ways which expose the consequences of wider themes in correlation with their contexts.