Haunted by Silences and Absences

“Haunted by silences and absences, the novel ‘Eve Green’ is an intense exploration of love”. Compare the ways in which love is presented referencing to both novels.

In Fletcher’s ‘Eve Green’, Eve, the female protagonist in the novel, is haunted by the absence of her mother after her sudden, unexpected death. Thus, she seeks out the love and comfort she received from her mother in other, not so effective substitutes as a means of devising a sense of belonging in her new environment. Similarly, in Jean Rhys’ ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, Antoinette is haunted by the absence of love due to her distant relationship with her mother which almost forces her into an intense exploration for this love.

Within the two novels, both protagonists, Eve and Antoinette exhibit a deep appreciation for their environments. Susan Fletcher was very much inspired by the Welsh landscape when she went on holidays to Wales as a child. In ‘Eve Green’, Eve’s love for Wales is directed more towards the nature itself – ‘On a blustery night I’d push open my bedroom window and listen to the moaning coming from the Tor’ – the personification of the Tor heightens its power and allows the reader to comprehend the significance it has for Eve. The verb ‘Moaning’ has connotations with suffering, which is perhaps indicative of the events that have occurred there and haunted the town such as Rosie’s disappearance. Eve listening to the Tor in this way demonstrates her deep connection with it and hence her love of Wales. Moreover, in ‘Stars were hard to see there… My mother said that stars were the souls of babies that hadn’t been made yet. … Welsh evening wasn’t like that… I looked for stars but there were none’, Fletcher cleverly uses the symbolism of the stars to describe Eve’s profound sense of loss. It is made clear that through the change of setting, Eve is haunted by the absence of her mother – she feels disorientated without the strong sense of belonging she receives from her mother.

Comparatively, Antoinette’s appreciation for her environment in ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ is portrayed to be more of a psychological dependence. The alliteration and personification of furniture in ‘friendly furniture’ highlights how Antoinette seems to have turned her landscape into another person to love, as there is an absence of love from everyone else. The noun ‘furniture’ is a very mundane choice of diction hence makes the situation seem even more miserable as Antoinette turns to such a thing for her source of love and protection. Some critics have said that writing a stream of consciousness in this way is Jean Rhys’ way of communicating the ‘inner life and fragmented identities of the characters’. Here we see that even as a child, Antoinette’s psyche seems somewhat troubled and arguably even mildly tormented. This stream of consciousness becomes even more evident as the novel progresses. In my opinion, Antoinette does this out of deep rejection. She is constantly looking for safety, psychologically as a child she is naturally searching for comfort and protection which she does not receive from her mother - in turn, this adds to the melancholic atmosphere of the novel. This is further informed in the quote ‘The barrier of the cliffs and the high mountains. I am safe. I am safe from the strangers.’ The metaphorical ‘barrier’ suggests that Antoinette is protected by the landscape. Alternatively, she could also be isolated – the use of the word ‘high’ illustrates that there is a substantial distance between her and the ‘strangers’. Dominica was the only place that Jean Rhys felt was truly home to her, hence her return in 1936. Antoinette’s clear rejection in the quote ‘the only home I ever had’ could be a mirroring of the way Rhys was rejected by her own mother. She did not fit into her family – her mother was fond of remarking that black babies were prettier than white babies. Both authors similarly use personification to depict the characters’ deep connection with their environments, giving each place a strong sense of presence using poetic, lyrical language. In contrast, I think through the individual descriptions and each character’s perspective on the setting, their psychological states are subtly depicted. Eve’s intense love of Wales, for its beauty is evident here. It is also made clear through the setting that Eve is haunted by the absence of her mother. Whereas, Antoinette is haunted by the absence of love from her mother. This causes her to seemingly latch onto inanimate objects and hence her intensity of love for place appears to be due to a psychological human need for love and protection.

In Eve Green, Susan Fletcher intensely explores a love of landscape which is closely linked to the idea of belonging. Initially, we are introduced to the bustle of city life and its strong sensory description, portraying a negative image of Birmingham itself. As Fletcher, herself was born in Birmingham, she may be drawing upon her own memories and experiences as a child to create this ingenuous narrative perspective and description. The personified ‘dustcart munched up bin bags and burped out a vegetable stench’ – the choice of subject matter and colloquial choice of diction ‘burped’ reinforces the childish narrative perspective and illustrates the lack of beauty in Birmingham. Personification intensifies the sense of life in the city, and so when the dustcart does not come, it alludes to the death of Eve’s mother. Furthermore, the stench of the dustcart is comparative with the stench of the farm in Wales – ‘I could smell the farmyard – straw, dung, petrol, the stench of dead water…’ – this strong sensory description contrast that of Birmingham. The natural smells of the farm become positive as they are what Eve links to the protection and safety she receives from her Grandmother, an efficient substitute after the loss of her mother. Fletcher’s love of nature and landscape seems to be evident in her vivid descriptions such as these and it is noticeable from her social media that nature is very important to her.

However, in ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, Antoinette differs as she strongly feels the absence of love in her life from people. It is her landscape which she feels most connected to and uses it to replace love from a person. The utilisation of metaphor in ‘the razor grass cut my legs and arms… All better than people’ depicts how sharp and brutal the grass is. The fact that such harshness seems better than people adds to the melancholy sense of the novel. It is almost as if she makes the setting into a character – Jean Rhys felt rejected by society as she too was a white girl in a chiefly black community, born to a welsh father and creole mother in Dominica. In this quote, due to Antoinette’s isolation, she favours the rough landscape over the people there. She is isolated, but still feels a strange, equivocal sense of belonging. It is evident that Jean Rhys felt similarly – ‘I don’t belong anywhere but I still get worked up over the West Indies’ she once said. Absence of belonging is further informed in ‘Watching the yellow and red flowers in the sun thinking of nothing… not myself any longer’ – Sensory language and choice of description highlights how Antoinette completely loses her sense of identity in the landscape. Her desire to lose herself adds to the haunting melancholia of the novel. Personally, I think that when Antoinette loses herself in the landscape, it is an amalgamation of her losing part of her identity and it being part of her identity. Jamaica is the only place which she truly resonates with but it also allows to satisfy her desire to not be herself – this is due to the rejection she experiences, she wishes to be someone else or worse still, not there at all. Antoinette is haunted by her lack of love and protection, hence the way she turns to landscape to look for something to love. Jean Rhys herself was surrounded by Dominica’s natural beauty growing up. Her nostalgia for this is shown in the reminiscent way she writes about Antoinette’s feelings for Jamaica. Displacement from where she belongs is reflected in symbolism in her new setting, such as the bare trees stripped of their branches. Comparatively, both authors depict how Antoinette and Eve seem to accept negative aspects of their environments. However, Eve’s questionable liking of the dustcart seems to be mainly due to her childish, imaginative nature. Antoinette’s tolerance of such rough aspects of her landscape seem to be due to the sadness and isolation she feels elsewhere in her life. I personally think that Fletcher’s use of childish narrative perspective is more effective as it captures the innocence and humour of a young child. Rhys does achieve this narrative perspective, however more so through the stream of consciousness and with a heart-rendering atmosphere.