What leads up to Mr. Rochester sleeping with Amelie? What implications of racial identity and ambiguity are there?

Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea is a postcolonial novel that considers the relationship between race, sexuality, and identity through imperialistic and patriarchal oppression.  In Part Two of the text, these perceived binaries (white/black; civilized/savage; colonizer/colonized; male/female; Self/Other) reach the foreground when Rochester betrays his wife Antoinette and sleeps with Amelie, the black housemaid.

On the day that Rochester sleeps with Amelie, he wakes up next to his wife and becomes violently sick. He states, “I woke in the dark after dreaming that I was buried alive, and when I was awake the feeling of suffocation persisted” (Rhys 137). When Rochester wakes up, he feels as if he is trapped and smothered, indicating a loss of power that directly challenges his patriarchal control over his wife and surroundings. He believes he has been poisoned, stating, “I thought, I have been poisoned. But it was a dull thought, like a child spelling out the letters of a word which he cannot read, and which if he could would have no meaning or context” (Rhys 137). In this simile, Rochester compares his awareness to a child performing a task with no understanding of the meaning, further conveying a sense of impotence and incompetence. As an English man in the patriarchal society of the nineteenth century, Rochester is obsessed with dominance and control, making his current state a driving factor for sleeping with Amelie later that day.  On a more subtle note, Rochester is agitated by his inability to categorize the racial identity of his Creole wife. This is portrayed through the color imagery that he associates with her sleeping body. He states, “I was too giddy to stand and fell backwards on the bed, looking at the blanket which was a peculiar shade of yellow. After looking at it for some time, I was able to go over to the window and vomit” (Rhys 138). The image of “peculiar shade of yellow” symbolizes the skin tone of his wife—she is neither black nor white, often referred to as the juxtaposed epithet of “white nigger” throughout the novel. Her racial ambiguity disturbs Rochester, causing him to become physically sick. This pivotal morning scene presents Rochester as a “colonizer” unable to understand the world around him, and his fear of losing his power causes him to later sleep with Amelie.

Rochester leaves Antoinette sleeping in their bed, covering her body with a sheet as if she was “a dead girl” (Rhys 138). Again, this simile conveys Rochester’s desired dominance over his wife—she is merely a body. Rochester wanders to an abandoned house in the nearby woods, falls asleep, and this time, awakens to Amelie offering him food and drink. Amelie comforts Rochester, and he states, “Her arm behind my head was warm but the outside when I touched it was cool, almost cold. I looked into her lovely meaningless face, sat up and pushed the plate away” (Rhys 139). This quote is a strong parallel to how Rochester viewed his wife earlier that morning, using nearly the same language to describe their physical features. He perceives his white wife and the black housemaid as the same person, accentuating the racial ambiguity of both women. Further, this ambiguity makes him ill, again aligning his inability to categorize with a loss of control.

This is perhaps why Rochester chooses to commit adultery with Amelie, but he does so in a way that blatantly demonstrates his power to both his wife and the servant: he sleeps with Amelie and knows Antoinette can hear them. He states, “I had not one moment of remorse. Nor was I anxious to know what was happening behind the thin partition which divided us from my wife’s bedroom” (Rhys 140). In true patriarchal fashion, Rochester does not feel guilty for committing adultery, and he uses the act as a demonstration of his authority. Yet, when he wakes up the next morning, he looks at Amelie and again becomes disgusted with her appearance. He states, “Another complication. Impossible. And her skin was darker, her lips thicker than I had thought” (Rhys 140). The imagery emphasizes Amelie’s “black” features, but simultaneously shows how Rochester perceives the woman—as a racialized body. This becomes apparent when he gives Amelie money in exchange for her time. He states, “I told her that I was leaving the island soon but that before I left I wanted to give her a present. It was a large present but she took it with no thanks and no expression on her face” (Rhys 140). By paying Amelie, Rochester treats her as an object or commodity, relying on the rhetoric of master-slave to describe their relation. This is reinforced by the lack of expression on Amelie’s face—she is merely a body. Thus, this act is imbued with implications of racial identity and ambiguity because it explores Rochester’s frustration over his inability to categorize the identities of both women, and it simultaneously serves to undermine his wife’s white identity, thereby casting her as an ambiguous racialized body. Rochester emerges from the scene with his power restored and his wife destroyed.