Goddamn Lyotard!

Because Wide Sargasso Sea takes place before the passage of the Married Woman's Property Act of 1870, Rochester gets Antoinette's family fortune. He says, "The thirty thousand pounds have been paid to me without question or condition. No provision made for her..." (WSS 63). But how could this money ever really belong to Antoinette if she had been economically controlled by Mr. Mason prior to her marriage? The entire marriage was just a financial transaction between Mr. Mason and Mr. Rochester, while Antoinette was again denied her independence.  As a result of Mr. Mason and Mrs. Rochester's economic dominance, Antoinette has no physical property of her own. Antoinette only has her name, which was given to her by her mother, and her confusing cultural identity. Mr. Rochester eventually takes away both Antoinette's name and her identity, leaving her with no tangible or even intangible property.  I think it's significant that Antoinette's name is s...

In class we've discussed connections between Meursault's anti-religious philosophy and Existentialism. Existentialist philosophy is basically a way of thinking about life where you acknowledge the absurdity of your existence but battle against the universe's indifference by creating meaning for yourself. If we're following this definition of existentialism, then we can see that Meursault certainly agrees with the first statement: that the universe doesn't care about us. He says, "...I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself -- so like a brother, really -- I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again" (Camus 123). It's kind of surprising to hear this introspective statement from a character who often seems emotionally closed, but this is a beautiful way to think about the world. The world doesn't have to care about us, and we don't have to ascribe any "deeper meaning" to the al...