“He didn’t come to the West Indies to dance – he came to make money as they all do”: Ecofeminism and Conquest in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea

Abstract

This essay examines Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) through an ecofeminist and post-colonial lens, arguing that Antoinette and Rochester’s marriage symbolically enacts a dynamic of colonial domination. Through reference to ecofeminist theory as outlined by Margot Lauwers and historical analyses of Caribbean colonialism, this paper contends that Antoinette’s alignment with the natural world represents the shared exploitation of women and nature under patriarchal power. In contrast, Rochester embodies the ecofeminist “logic of domination” as demonstrated through his economic extraction and imposition over Antoinette’s identity, establishing their relationship as a metaphor for violent colonial conquest.