Identity Confusion in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea: A Postcolonial Reading

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) based on theories of post-colonialism in specifically that of Homi Bhabha and Gayatry Spivak. It studies the influence of colonizers on the colonized people's identities. One of the most important concerns is the creation of identity confusion and crisis which is formed through the encounter of two different cultures. Rhys’s novel is about racial and sexual oppression caused by colonialism and wants to depict the hybrid people’s identity confusion and crisis. Consequently, the hybrid identity, ambivalence, and in-betweenness create a crisis and confusion for Creole and African-American individuals who are to be regarded in this novel.