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

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 an 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.