Comparative analysis of Property and Wide Sargasso Sea -- A grade - page 3
Keywords: Propery Valerie Martin Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys Central heroine authority's effect
By georgie1 on 31/12/2009
Level: A Level (Year 12) / AS Level
Page Number: 3 of 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
to visit Antoinette at the convent, showing his dogmatic approach to women. As a result of the sexist nature of these characters, the reader is aware of the disrespectful authority cast upon their wives and can clearly see the negative effect that this has o the two heroines.
An additional mechanism used to reiterate the position of power of the husband is via sexual activity. Property has been described as a novel about “the abuse of power within a loveless marriage.” In an interview, Valerie Martin said “I saw sex in terms of power”, therefore signifying that the abuse of sex is used as a tool for authority. The first instance of this is highlighted when Gaudet encourages young boy slaves to engage in a homoerotic ‘game’. He is using his status to violate others for his own pleasurable benefit. Manon later describes Gaudet’s repugnant behaviour: “His eyes swept over my figure in that rapacious way that I find so unsettling”. Gaudet is satisfying himself by admiring the sexuality of a woman’s figure. She is clearly uncomfortable with the situation: her use of the superlative “so” reiterates the extremity of the effect he has on her. By comparing this action to rape, it is evident that Manon is unwilling and Gaudet is has no respect for his wife as a woman, or as a person with emotions. Similarly, Manon uses torturous vocabulary when describing her sexual “embraces” with her husband: “his kneading and sucking...hurt, his fingers probing between my legs, his harsh breath in my face”. Evidently, she is distressed by these experiences as she describes the pain and austerity that he inflicts upon her. Despite this, Manon acquires a tincture that places her in a state of reverie in order to endure the bestial behaviour that he subjects her to. It is evident that Manon’s role as a wife is violated, leaving her without dignity or power. The reader is then left understanding the intimidating and dominant position that Gaudet exhibits.
Unlike this relationship, Antoinette and Rochester provide opposite libidos to that of Manon and Gaudet: Antoinette as a suggestive character with Rochester being less interested: “Her pleading expression annoys me”. This is because Rochester feels he is his wife’s property: “she has bought me”, thus making it is his duty to please her. He is disinclined to engage with Antoinette because he knows that a conventional relationship should involve the
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