Browsing by Author "Younus, Ahmed"

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Racial and gender discrimination against the creole identity in jJean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea
(2016) Younus, Ahmed; 01. Çankaya Üniversitesi
Jane Rhys's novel Wide Sargasso Sea builds around the theme of identity as seen in the experience of the female protagonist Antoinette Cosway, who struggles as a female Creole to prove her identity in an environment that rejects her. In fact, she is faced with double discrimination on the basis of her race and gender. The first part of this thesis will address the writer Jean Rhys and her connection with Wide Sargasso Sea and her female protagonist Antoinette. The chapter will attempt to compare and contrast the characteristics and reactions of two female characters in two different novels -Antoinette from Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane from Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre - in the face of the hardships they have to deal with throughout their lives. The second chapter of the thesis will focus on the racial discrimination against the white Creole protagonist, Antoinette, whose multiple efforts to identify with the black community of the Caribbean ultimately prove to be futile, as she is faced with rejection every time she attempts to do so. The chapter will also discuss the rejection that Antoinette is subjected to by the white English community, and the painful experience that she goes through after her marriage to her husband , who can be viewed as a representative of the English community. The third chapter will deal with the racial discrimination against Antoinette as a female Creole caught in a patriarchal society. As a woman hopelessly trapped in a society dominated by male values, Antoinette has been renamed, displaced, and ostracized by her controlling husband. She desperately struggles to resist him as he tries in more than one way to strip her off her real identity. Given the gender issues handled in the novel, the experiences of the female protagonist will be discussed from a feminist point of view.