From Oppression to Resistance: A Study of Political Issues in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea

The paper examines the political dimensions of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea through an analysis of power structures. It focuses on three primary sources of power: personality, property, and organisation. Drawing insights primarily from John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Anatomy of Power, the study explores how personality, property, and organisation, shaped by condign, compensatory, and conditioned power, respectively, generate resistance. The paper critically examines these power dynamics to demonstrate their role in shaping social and political hierarchies as portrayed in the socio-political landscape of the novel. It also investigates the systemic oppression faced by Antoinette in the context of colonial rule and her subsequent resistance to this subjugation. It further explores the intersection of gender, class, and colonialism in suppressing women’s rights. The study also traces the transition from subjugation to freedom and examines how female characters, in pursuit of liberation, resist and challenge oppressive structures like colonialism, patriarchy, and racial discrimination.