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.
Yes, like her own culture, Englishness too is ambivalent for Antoinette: part of her wants to "be like an English girl," even though her notion of what this means is almost totally comprised of images from fairytales and paintings like "The Miller's Daughter." The new identity Mason seems to offer is attractive to her, and she's never been fully comfortable within her own cultural context, but she also feels that something important could be lost (she likes Mason's food, but she misses the taste of Christophine's cooking, so to speak).
ReplyDeleteAs we see when she meets Rochester, however, the idea that she even *could* "transform" in this way is an illusion--she'll always be "alien" to him, which simply means unfamiliar. Her roots will show.