The Harder They Come 1972

1
The Harder They Come (1972)

• Reportedly the first Jamaican feature film made
  by Jamaicans
• The theme of country boys seeking fortune in the
  big cityIvan (Jim Cliff) moving to
  Kinstonpost-independence exodus from the country
  side to the ghetto and urban poverty
• Reggae singer turns outlaw
• Hollywood influence on Jamaican conception of
  selfhood and heroismthe popularity of American
  westerns in Jamaica in the 1970s
• Drugs dealingfrom wisdom weed to crime

2
Jean Rhys--Biographical Sketch

• 8/24/1890 Birth of Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams
  at Roseau, Dominica.
• 1907-8 Attends the Perse School, Cambridge.
• 1909-10 Tours as a chorus girl. Abandoned by her
  lover.
• 1919 Marries Jean Lenglet and moves to Paris. 29
  Dec., birth of a son who dies three weeks later.

3
Jean Rhys--Biographical Sketch

• 1923-24 Meets Ford Madox Ford. Husband in jail,
  affair with Ford. (ménage a trois--Ford, Stella
  Bowen, Jean))
• 1933 Divorce.
• 1934 Marries Leslie Tilden-Smith.
• 1945 TS dead. Begins work on Wide Sargasso Sea.
• 1947 Marriage to Max Hamer.
• 1957-66 Works on Wide Sargasso Sea after public
  interest following a radio broadcast of her work
  tracks her down.
• 1966 WSS published. Wins the W. H. Smith Award
  for Writers and the Heinemann Award of the Royal
  Society of Literature.
• 1978 Receives the Commander of the Order.

4
Writing beyond the EndingJane Eyre and WSS

• By turning a classic nineteenth-century novel
  inside out and giving its voiceless character an
  explanatory story, Rhys has constructed a
  critical examination of romantic thralldom and
  marital power--internalized and external
  institutions that support gender inequality.
  (45-6)
• By a maneuver of encirclement (entering the
  story before) and leverage (prying the story
  open), Rhys ruptures Jane Eyre. She returns us
  to a framework far from the triumphant
  individualism

5
Writing beyond the Ending

• of the character of Jane Eyre by concentrating
  on the colonial situations.Wide Sargasso Sea
  states that the closures and precisions of any
  tale are purchased at the expense of the muted,
  even unspoken narrative, which writing beyond the
  the ending will release. Remember, Doris
  Lessing reminds us, that for all the books we
  have in print, there are as many that have never
  reached print, have never been written down.
  (46) --Rachel Blau DuPlessis

6
Genealogy

• CoswayAnnette
• Alexander Daniel Pierre
• Sandi ----Antoinettehusband----Amèlie
• (Bertha) (Rochester)
• Christophine Tia

7
Questions for Part I of WSS

• What kind of mother-daughter relationship is
  described in Part I?
• Mothers rejection (11, 13, 15, 28-29,
  36death)
• What kind of racial relationship is described
  here?
• multiple alienations of the creolefrom the
  white people (9)/Mason does not understand the
  racial relationship (19, 21) from the
  blacksformer slave-owners white cockroaches
  (13)/white nigger (14)
• How will you describe the relationship between
  Antoinette and Tia?
• friendship (13-14), divided by racial
  differences (27)

8
Questions 2

• In WSS Rhys deliberately alludes to the biblical
  myth of the garden. How does she describe this
  garden? What is the significance of the garden
  imagery in Part I?
• What is the significance of the fire scene and
  the burning of the parrot (25)?
• How does the convent affect Antoinettes life?
• How will you interpret the two dreams (15, 35-36)?