Essay Outline for WSS

Prompt A: The relationship between men and women, and the differences in their role in society, are central considerations in many works of literature. Discuss the part they play in Wide Sargasso Sea.

Main Ideas:

• Imperialism: Patriarchal System (Imbalance of Power) - Marriage of Antoinette and Rochester
• Antoinette's Madness: Product of the Patriarchal System
• Impact on Identity

Introduction

Thesis Statement: Within the novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys explores the constructed gender roles in the patriarchal system, in context of the nineteenth century, and the resulting impact on identity. 

Main Point 1: Patriarchy 

Topic Sentence: One’s identity is shaped by the expected gender role of their culture. 

Antoinette:

• The value of beauty and sexual attractiveness is reinforced for Antoinette as this will enable her to find a husband for economic dependency. 
• The importance of appearance in constructing a woman’s identity is emphasized around Antoinette; use of clothes, mirrors, the picture of the Miller’s Daughter, image of an idealized English woman. 
• Passivity and obedience are taught at the convent school.
• Antoinette also challenges these norms. 

Rochester:

• Traditional Victorian gender roles cast men as rational, strong, protective, and decisive; they cast women as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing, and submissive.
• Rochester is representative of the main aspects of masculinity as seen in his dominant attitude, rational thinking, and the active role he plays in the plot.
• This is seen in his language which is more passive and observing, Also, he places more emphasis on reason, logos. In contrast, Antoinette is more passionate, reflective and imaginative; the dream-like language.

Main Point 2: Patriarchy (Marriage of Antoinette and Rochester)

Topic Sentence:

Ideas:

• Rochester is simultaneously portrayed as a victimizer and a victim of the patriarchal system.
• When Antoinette fails to reach these standards in his eyes, he starts to see her beauty as being deceitful and as Other.
• He uses his dominance to injure and imprison her. He not only renames her but calls her his marionette.
• His letters and interior dialogue reveals insecurity within his familial relationships. 
• In response to the West Indies, Rochester re

Main Point 3: Madness (Antoinette)

Topic Sentence:

Ideas:

• “Madness” because she deviates from the expected social gender role (wife). 
• Antoinette acts outside the normative frameworks of a Victorian society; she rages at her husband when she is angry and expresses her sexuality openly. Her sexuality frightens him since female sexuality is repressed in Victorian England.