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Motifs
Definition of Personification
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the sentence, "The rain poured down on the wedding guests, indifferent... read full definition
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the sentence, "The rain poured down... read full definition
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the... read full definition
Part 2
Explanation and Analysis—Secrets:
Throughout Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys seems to warn the reader against expecting a single, coherent, and easily accessible narrative. Alongside the hazy and conflicting accounts, details, and impressions that narrators and characters provide of past and present, the motif of secrets contributes to the feeling that truth is unattainable.
In the second part, the husband is consumed by the impression that everyone around him is privy to information that will forever remain beyond his reach. As a matter of fact, the husband feels as though the place itself is keeping a secret from him. Rhys uses personification to capture his feeling of being haunted and excluded by the beauty of Granbois.
It was a beautiful place—wild, untouched, above all untouched, with an alien, disturbing, secret loveliness. And it kept its secret.
After this reflection, he thinks to himself that though he feels like he sees nothing, he wants "what it hides—and that is not nothing." When thinking about the setting, the husband often describes it as though it were a character. This personification has the twofold effect of making the place more comprehensible to him and to underline that he feels victimized by its incomprehensibility. His relationship to the Caribbean is contradictory in a number of ways: he experiences it as beautiful yet disturbing, all-consuming yet nothing, dead yet alive.
At the same time, it is worth noting that the "beautiful place" that the husband feels so torn by metonymically stands in for the people who live there—and know the place better than he does. The husband grapples with his outsider position through brief parentheticals and nebulous questions.
(Is she trying to tell me the secret of this place? That there is no other way? She knows. She knows.)
In this parenthetical, the husband groups the place and Antoinette together; he feels as though his new wife and his unfamiliar surroundings have teamed up against him. Later in the second part, he articulates this very feeling in a conversation with Antoinette: "I feel that this place is my enemy and on your side."
Towards the end of the second part, as they prepare to leave Granbois, the husband suddenly acquires a new perspective on the place—and the weight of its secret seems to diminish.
So I shall never understand why, suddenly, bewilderingly, I was certain that everything I had imagined to be truth was false. False. Only the magic and the dream are true—all the rest's a lie. Let it go. Here is the secret. Here.
(But it is lost, that secret, and those who know it cannot tell it.)
Not lost. I had found it in a hidden place and I'd keep it, hold it fast. As I'd hold her.
In this passage, the husband again examines his feelings about secrets through parentheticals. Reenacting a conversation with himself, he gives the reader insight into his ambivalent feelings about the place and Antoinette. Just as they're about to leave, he feels a desire to accept and cherish the parts of Antoinette that he will never understand. The voice in the parenthetical tells him that the secret is lost, and with it the opportunity to make amends with Antoinette. For a moment, he objects to this impulse and feels a desire for intimacy with Antoinette.
In the end, however, the husband returns to his former attitude: he feels victimized and excluded by everything he doesn't understand about Antoinette and where she comes from. As they leave Granbois, he thinks to himself that he hates "its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know."
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Explanation and Analysis—Menacing Trees:
As the second part wraps up, the husband encounters and communicates with his surroundings as though they were human. The alienation he has felt over the course of the honeymoon culminates in these final scenes, as he feels threatened by inanimate objects, trees, and topographical features. He describes this through personification and simile.
After Antoinette lashes out at him, the husband feels shunned and terrorized by all of the objects and nature around him:
[...] but it seemed to me that everything round me was hostile. The telescope drew away and said don't touch me. The trees were threatening and the shadows of the trees moving slowly over the floor menaced me. The green menace. I had felt it ever since I saw this place.
In this passage, the husband personifies the telescope, the trees, and the shadows. Even just the green glow of the flora feels threatening. This demonstrates the extent of his alienation. He doesn't literally think the telescope is speaking to him, but rather feels reminded of his alienation by everything he lays eyes on.
A few pages later, the husband continues to personify the nature around him: "I watched the hidden mountains and the mists drawn over their faces." Gazing at a specific tree, he imagines it preparing for the hurricane season as though it were sentient.
The hurricane months are not so far away, I thought, and saw that tree strike its roots deeper, making ready to fight the wind. [...] Some of the royal palms stand (she told me). Stripped of their branches, like tall brown pillars, still they stand—defiant. Not for nothing are they called royal. The bamboos take an easier way, they bend to the earth and lie there, creaking, groaning, crying for mercy. The contemptuous wind passes, not caring for these abject things.
This passage is full of personification. First, the husband imagines that he can see the tree grow its roots below ground, in preparation for the strong winds. With a simile, he compares the royal palms to "tall brown pillars." Although he compares them to something inanimate, he also personifies them by calling them "defiant." He also describes the bamboos as if they were human, imagining them bending towards the ground and groaning in the wind. Finally, he personifies the wind, calling it contemptuous and visualizing it "howling, shrieking, laughing." All this personification emphasizes the husband's loneliness—without consistent and conventional human contact, nature becomes human. At the same time, the personification emphasizes his paranoia, because he thinks these elements of nature are out to get him.
In fact, as they prepare to leave Granbois, he imagines himself talking to the house. Feeling as though it's straining "away from the black snake-like forest," the husband thinks he can hear it call out to him: "Save me from destruction, ruin and desolation. Save me from the long slow death by ants." In his mind, he sends the house a response.
But what are you doing here you folly. So near the forest. Don't you know that this is a dangerous place? And that the dark forest always wins? Always. If you don't, you soon will, and I can do nothing to help you.
The husband seems to identify with the house, as both of them made the mistake of settling in a "dangerous place." However, he drives away his tenderness for the house by blaming it for its own eventual destruction. He's getting away, and he tells the house he can't do anything to help it.
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