So thanks to the explanations in class today I think I finally got it straight on who is who in Wide Sargasso Sea. I must admit I was a little confused when the author introduces almost a dozen characters in the stretch of 25 pages.
I took a history class last year that covered Central and South America so I have already learned about Creoles and some of the racial tensions in the area, so to read this short novel was a quick refresher on the area and what happened in the 1800's. Ultimately I was surprised to see how the whites are being portrayed as the lower class now unlike in other novels. I'm so used to seeing racism go from whites to blacks in these novels of the time period that to see it go the other way caught me offguard. If you think about it, it just proves that racism tends to go towards minorities, no matter what race they are. The race that is in the majority almost always is the one that tries to push their superiority on the other races.
I look forward to reading the rest of Wide Sargasso Sea to see how these situations pan out with race in the storyline. I think I will like some of these novels in the Carribean since I have some knowledge of the area from my history class I took.
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So the term "creole" has the same white/black adjective applied to it, in the same way as in WSS, in histories of other (related) ares? So, like the white creoles could also be Spanish in some places?
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