From Self to Other: Esotericism as Discourse of Alterity in Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea” Cover Image

From Self to Other: Esotericism as Discourse of Alterity in Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea”
From Self to Other: Esotericism as Discourse of Alterity in Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea”

Author(s): Cristina-Georgiana Voicu
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Editura Universitatii Transilvania din Brasov
Keywords: esoteriscism; marginality; colonial discourse; cross-cultural identities; otherness

Summary/Abstract: The paper attempts to show how esotericism is developed into a symbolic discourse of alterity of an increasing distance between imagination and reality in Wide Sargasso Sea. Particular levels of meaning will be discussed with respect to the theory of metaphors and symbols. The fluid relationship between meaning and object and the importance of esotericism as important device preventing us from restricting the significance of particular objects to one single meaning. Thus, esotericism can support the notion of ambiguity and “irreality”, of the enigmatic tension between the perceptual and the intellectual elements, mingling the rational with the irrational.

  • Issue Year: 2011
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 69-78
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: English