Mr. Mason

In Wide Sargasso Sea, Mr. Mason is the first man in the novel to represent English ideals. His appearance in Coulibri causes much harm as a result of openly expressing his beliefs and attitude, thanks to his big mouth. Even when warned several times, he brushes racial concerns aside, thinking people around him are harmless. When Mr. Mason was conveying his interest of importing laborers from the East Indies because the "people here don't want to work", Aunt Cora warns him about speaking in front of one of the servants, Myra. However, Mr. Mason continues to reveal his ignorance by claiming the people in Jamaica "are children--they wouldn't hurt a fly" because they are harmless and ignorant (32). As a result, Aunt Cora quickly offers the other side of the story by saying that "Unhappily children do hurt flies" (32).

The significance of this scene, in fact, reveals Mr. Mason's ignorance for underestimating the tension between white and black people in Coulibri. Not only is he proven wrong by everything he says, but so far his behavior upholds a sense of arrogance for feeling so educated about life and humanity. Mr. Mason's intelligence and superiority could also by understood by his resources in England. Pierre is known to have some illness that causes him to be very frail, and because of this, Mr. Mason promises "to take him to England later on, there he will be cured, made like other people" (33). While Mr. Mason can be seen as a thoughtful person for trying to aid with Pierre's situation, the fact that he can only do something with the resources provided from England to make people into "real" humans gives Mr. Mason a sense of pride for belonging to a country that "influences" or "creates" real people. This sort of identity that Mr. Mason represents on behalf of England truly shows the superiority of his country compared to Coulibri. This is essential to understanding how tension within the Coulibri estate, from part one, moves the people to burn the house.

The depiction of Mr. Mason in the book not only brings forth the first notion of an Englishman, but it gives a bigger perception of the identity issues Antoinette has. Antoinette is possibly trying to feel a sense of belonging when she marries an Englishman, but her attitude and culture closely resembles those she grew up with.

Meursault's snapchats

In Part One of The Stranger, Meursault’s personality is demonstrated by his nonchalance to most events and (possibly) inability to piece events together. During class one day, Mr. Mitchell was describing Meursault’s impressions as a character and how he gives a “snapchat” of events. Everything is described in the present and his as soon as it happens, it is forgotten and irrelevant to what happens next. Meursault’s behavior in the first part parallels the “Snapchat” app, where picture messages are temporarily available and then disappear.   

An incident that reveals Meursault’s characteristic of living in the moment is evident by his surprise of a four-day weekend. When he takes two days off to attend Maman’s funeral, he counts for it as two days of refraining from work. The idea that he was taking work off on Thursday and Friday to mourn his mother’s death isn’t transferred in his head as a four-day break. In fact, at the end of chapter 1 after he arrives home from his trip, he says, “I knew I was going to go to bed and sleep for twelve hours.” Then chapter 2 starts off with,

“As I was waking up, it came to me why my boss had seemed annoyed when I asked him for two days off: today is Saturday. I’d sort of forgotten, but as I was getting up, it came to me. And, naturally, my boss thought about the fact that I’d be getting four days’ vacation that way, including Sunday, and he couldn’t have been happy about that” (19).

The lack of emotion Meursault experiences due to his mother’s death is quite surprising to me. It could be his indifference to the situation or that he doesn’t want to reveal his dreaded feelings toward his mother. In fact, his realization of skipping work for four days doesn’t become apparent until Saturday after he slept in from his return.

Also, Meursault does a good job of making excuses for himself when he doesn’t want to put the blame to himself. For example, he doesn’t tell his boss that he is skipping work for two days because he is mourning his mother’s death, but he almost passes it off as if his break wasn’t his fault, but his mother’s, because she is the one who died and caused all of the commotion for him. Overall, I find Meursault’s behavior in part one to be a little questionable based on his “snapchat” reactions to events that I would find to be heartbreaking.