Commentary
I have decided to do a re-write of Wide Sargasso Sea from the perspective of Tia. Tia is a minor character in Wide Sargasso Sea and is the friend of Antoinette, in part1 of the story. I know it was an interesting choice to do a re-write of a re-write but I found Tia a captivating character and wanted to find out more about her. I decided to keep Tia in Jamaica and near Old Spanish Town, since it was only slightly explored in part 1 of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.My re-write is set about 1840-45. Tia is still young (in her mid twenties) but has lived a hard life, like many around that time. It is narrated in a present tense but explores her memories through items in a chest.
In Jamaica after the abolition of slaves there were many botched laws put in place. Slaves were no longer slaves but were made to buy their freedom or to work for 6years as apprentices. You were only truly free if you were under 6 years of age. Many Masters for the plantations still used force and whips and solitary despite it being illegal. The plantation owners also charged high rent on the housing in which the slaves had built for themselves and paid low wages. After a revision of these laws the British government wiped the 'apprentice scheme' and the slaves were free and not bound by contracts. Abusive force was still used illegally in plantations after the abolishment of slaves.
However, during a huge sugar boom in the 1820's the British government shipped workers into Jamaica from China and India on contracts. So when there contracts were up many remained in Jamaica as the passage home was too expensive and dangerous. This led to there being a lot more Male workers in Jamaica so Women working in the fields were rare as they were not considered to be as strong or enduring. The diseases brought in by the European settlers were too harsh for the locals immune systems and if they fell ill it was likely they would die. The death rate was higher than the birth rate for the first part of the 19th century.
This is just a little about the unjust treatment the locals of Jamaica had to endure after the abolishment of slavery. My story touches on these issues. I hope you enjoy exploring Tia and you read this as much as I enjoyed writing her.
Swing low, Swing high
The light breeze brought a cool touch to
the skin for the warm climate of Jamaica. The roads were busy with empty carts,
locals, and horses leaving the market with fuller money pouches than when they
arrived. Tia wandered home with her
weeks worth of produce, staring up at the large clouds spilling over her. She
had stayed longer at the markets than usual to watch the young men and women
learning the Jonkonnu Festival[1]
dances and costume making. Although there was still a month to the festival
many costumes require different techniques from different seamstress to
complete. The walk home from the markets usually took no more than thirty
minutes, but the exhaustion of the weeks banana harvest left her dawdling. Stopping also, to enjoy the freedom of the
day and respond to ‘yow wah gwaan’[2] from fellow market goers on their way home.
Her last foot left the dirt road and
stepped onto the sand mixed path that led to her house and five others. These
houses were the quarters for woman who worked on the plantation, without
children or husbands. Tia lived with five girls; all were a lot younger than
her. She could sense that they didn't like her much and were scared of her.
This was lonely for Tia but it never bothered her and despite having the
smallest room, she didn’t have to share.
Arriving home Tia put down the basket,
relieved of the weight. Tia enjoyed lifting her arms after carrying heavy
weight and closing her eyes and pretending she was a bird flying, soaring over
the sea. The sensation only lasted 10 seconds but she enjoyed it every time,
especially after hauling bananas at the plantation. However, upon arriving home
Tia was more relieved to discover her housemates were out (probably busy with
Jonkonnu preparations) and she may have a few more hours of solitude.
Tia lay down on her mat in her room, which
had become a ritual on her day off, and dreamt of her impending voyage to
Britain. She had dreamt of this since she was a little girl ever since visiting
Coulibri Estate. She would run around and imagine the estate in all its
grandeur and envisage many all over Britain. To her it was always a place she
was close to. Today though was a sad day
as her dreaming turned to memories of her childhood and life.
The chest lay in the corner of the room
covered by blankets and acting as a surface for any items without a place in
her room. Beneath the disorder and blankets on top laid special items from
Tia’s life. Tia left the mat on the floor and instead traded the blankets and
items on top of the chest for her previous position. Then with a heavy heart
and heavy arms she lifted the chest that had been forgotten for many, many
years.
*
* *
Tia’s finger finds the old comforts of her
wedding ring. She takes her headscarf off and uses it to polish and shine the
ring until she can make out her silhouette in the reflection.
When Tia’s mother had taken her to the
sugar plantation when she was thirteen years old, she had found the work
grueling. Every day she would come home with blisters on her hands and cuts up
her arms, hungry and sore. She would cry, as her Mother would rub alcohol on
her blisters to make them hard calluses. All the other girls had started going
to work with their mothers when they were younger as apprentices, to become
seamstresses. Tia was happy to have work though as it was hard to find a good
job as the Chinese invasion and Indian immigrants took away a lot of the local
work[3].
Making it much harder for Woman to have work in the fields.
The Master at the sugar plantation was a
bad man. He was corrupt. He lived by the old ways. My Mother had worked for him
for many years before me; some years when the harvest was big they had no
breaks, and very little food. Christophine and her used to practice Obeah
against him, to make him suffer for his cruel mind.
At the sugar plantation a young worker from
the neighboring village befriended Tia. His name was Delonn. He would take her
out dancing and sing together at his church on Sundays. He would pack a basket
of food and take her for a meal in the fields. Maillotte liked Delonn very
much, and since Tia did not know her father, he asked her for permission to
marry Tia. Tia’s family had nothing to offer Delonn and Delonn had nothing to
give Tia. Except for her wedding ring wish he bought by working 14hours a day
for the majority of a harvest.
Tia and Delonn were a very happy newly
married couple and soon after Tia fell pregnant. Tia had to work hard at the
plantation still. Despite this she, had a happy healthy baby girl. Tia went back
to work on the plantation two weeks after the birth of her child. She was still
a bit sore but needed to otherwise she would lose her job, said the Master of
the plantation. So Tia went to work and found it very exhausting. After a week
the Master grabbed her and hit her. He called her swine. She was locked up all
day in a hot solitary box. That night she was so dehydrated she collapsed.
Delonn was made to work extra hard to make
up for Tia’s ‘laziness’ and started to lose weight and weaken fast. One morning
he was too sick to get up for work. Tia had to go to work but Maillotte stayed
and cared for him. When Tia came home the doctor was just leaving. Tia rushed
inside and Delonn had died. Tia screamed and screamed. But she did not cry.
Delonn had grown so weak he had picked up a European disease, which are very
deadly for the local villagers. That season 30 villagers died.
Tia and Maillotte sold all they could,
except her wedding ring, but did not have enough money to all take the ship to
Britain, Tia’s dream. Maillotte was getting too old for labour intensive work
so Tia stayed behind to work and save money. Tia left the sugar planation and
moved to a village on the other side of Spanish Town, away from her old life.
It has now been five years. Tia has never stopped grieving but she works long
and hard each day to fulfill her dream of seeing The Great Britain and her baby
girl and Mother.
With one more burning look at her wedding
ring Tia takes it off slowly and wraps it delicately in her head scarf and
places it next to an old school girl sized dress…
* *
*
Tia tra-la-la-la lad about a man going to
the markets, picked flowers and pulled at plants aimlessly waiting for
dinnertime.
‘Me gone a town y'ereg, Ay Zuzuma
Mind me pig fe me
Min' me goat fe me
Me gone a town y'ereg, Ay Zuzuma
Me gone a town, oh Zuzuma
Me gone a town, oh Zuzuma’[4]
Tia didn’t have any friends from the
village and kept to herself mostly, she enjoyed having time to herself. While
being lost in song Tia was startled when she heard rustling and saw the creole
girl. Embarrassed she had heard her singing and was spying she followed and
started singing:
‘Go away white cockroach,
go away, go away.
White cockroach, go away,
Go away, nobody want you, go away’
Tia ran home laughing as the girl had
started to walk faster and she had just followed her. This made Tia feel better
as she wanted the girl punished for spying.
The next day Tia and her mother, Maillotte
from Barbados, went to visit Christophine who practices Obeah[5].
Christophine was the lady of the estates handmaiden and also for her daughter,
‘the white cockroach’ Tia had followed the day before. Tia said nothing to the
girl and the girl, Antoinette, never apologized to Tia. Tia decided to play
with her to use up some of the time in her days.
Eventually, Tia began to very much like
playing with the girl and she became her friend. One morning, on her way to
Coulibri Estate a horse and cart was coming down the long road to the estate.
An English man got out and picked Tia up by her garments and shook her:
‘What are you doing on this road. This is
to Coulibri Estate, is it not?’
Tia’s small eyes, which were set back deep
in her head, were almost popping out
‘ya, sir, me neck back’
He dropped Tia to the ground and carried on
in the cart. Tia nursed her sore neck and went further into the bush to avoid
the road. Tia was ‘cold I up’[6]
and angry. She ran to Coulibri and made Antoinette follow her straight away,
before the man in the cart came, but she never told her she had seen the man in
the cart. Tia knew the man was there to take Antoinette away and felt so
betrayed. She hated Antoinette.
That day they went swimming and Tia bet
Antoinette her three pennies that she couldn’t tumble in the water. She didn't
even watch to see, she took the money. She felt this wasn’t enough to vindicate
her, and stole her dress too. She ran and ran and ran.
Tia only ever saw her friend once again. In
the time she had spent apart from her, Tia had grown jealous of Antoinette and
how she was to be whisked away to a fanciful place. Tia could only dream of
these sorts of places. The last time she saw Antoinette a riot was taking place
at the estate. The villagers marched through the dark and set fire to the
estate. This was the most fearful Tia had ever been, she was scared for her
friend, all the angry villagers scared her, she was scared. She held on to and
squeezed a jagged rock watching the house burn until it made her hand bleed. It
seemed like forever but eventually she saw the estate occupants emerge. Some
simultaneous effect of relief, anger and jealousy, when Tia locked eyes on
Antoinette, she threw the stone as hard as she could. Then she began to cry and
cry and cry.
Tia folded the musty smelling dress up and
placed it back in the chest. Yellowed with age and seemingly unimportant it lay
blended, to be forgotten again for many more years.
*
* *
On market day a week later Tia grabs her
basket and money pouch after swiftly tying her headscarf. Today she opted for a
bright yellow and green one. Stepping half out the doorway in barefoot onto the
cool morning path, she steps back in side and grabs a letter from the stand,
and steps back out on her way. Today she leaves earlier to catch the morning
mail mule at the market and the day is already warming up fast. The roads are
busy with the Chinese stalls, and other villagers walking to the markets. Tia
has a smile on her face as she steps in line with a family and the young
children are singing as she used to:
‘Monkey married to baboon sister
Kiss his lips and make it blister
What you think they had for dinner
Black eye peas and monkey liver
Conch style, oh aunt Johnny
Conch style, oh aunt Johnny’
Arriving at the market Tia is the first
customer of the day for the postman. She pulls out a letter addressed to an Antoinette Rochester and says:
“To England!”
The end
[1] A folk festival at Christmas time involving dance and costumes
‘John-Canoe’
[2] Colloquial patois greeting ‘hello’ pronounced ‘wa-gwaan’
[3] The British imported Indian and Chinese as indentured servants
[4] ‘Ay Zuzuma’ Jamaican children’s folk song
[5] Black magic practiced in the Caribbean
[6] Belittled- patois
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