Antoinette and Bertha Mason as victims of Racial Oppression - Essay Example

The novel basically deals with the theme of racial discrimination and the roughness of displacement and integration. It deeply and sensitively describes the cultural barriers that exist between the whites and the blacks and explains the insecurities and adjustment problems that commonly arise when people from different cultures are set to live together and use to hold certain prejudice for each other. Rhys touchingly describes the intricate relations of oppressor and oppressed through the depiction of the marital relations of the main character Antoinette that has been drawn from the character of Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre.

The novel has been plotted in Jamaica and depicts the time after the liberation of the slaves in the Caribbean. That was the depressing era when the tension over the issue of racial inequity and hatred was on the peak level in the Caribbean. The main character of the story is a lady Antoinette who spent her childhood in the West Indies and frequently faced problems related to ethnic prejudice and shrewdness. She neither succeeded to adjust among the white Europeans nor among the black Jamaicans to whom she belongs but due to her white Creole heiress she remained different from them as well.

Antoinette was the first wife of Mr. Rochester given the name of Bertha Mason in Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Antoinette got married to a white man. She had the dream of having a happy married life but all of her dreams were ruined when his husband betrayed her having his own personal reason. After the marriage, he realized that her wife belongs to an impure ethnicity and is not acceptable as a white lady. He started sexually abusing her and when they went for their honeymoon, Antoinette saw the dark side of their marital life but she has no other choice rather follow the ungenerous and unyielding demands of his husband.

Surprisingly Antonito behaved in a strange way and didn’t protest on any of his acts. She felt herself all alone in the world and her depression reached an extreme level and finally their marriage was ended. The character of Antoinette depicts an interesting slant on the character of Bertha Mason.