Reaching for the 'Other' across the Wide Sargasso Sea

Abstract

This paper investigates the representative characteristics of Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, in an attempt to explore the problems of its representation of the marginal class, its exploitation of this class, and hence its misrepresentation. The purpose of this essay is to reclaim an alternative understanding of the marginal class or the cultural "other" from the heavy-handed clutch of Orientalism. In other words, it will engage itself in reclaiming an understanding of these less powerful groups of people, in order to reconstruct their identity constructed by Orientalism. For this purpose, it will use Franz Boas' anthropological analytical tools to understand the "other" from their local contexts rather than from outside