IndexIntroductionThe Lover by Marguerite DurasThe Tempest by William ShakespeareThe Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean RhysConclusionIntroductionOtherness is one of the prevalent and strong themes in literature. According to the American Psychological Association, “Socialization is a vital part of human development.” While some creatures and humans are automatically viewed with a sense of otherness and shunned, this could create antisocial and potentially violent behavior. This essay analyzes the theme of power over others in The Lover by Marguerite Duras by comparing it with The Tempest by William Shakespeare and The Great Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, discovering the themes of isolation and injustice in literature. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The Lover by Marguerite Duras" I already know a thing or two. I know that it is not clothes that make women beautiful or not, nor beauty treatments, nor expensive creams, nor the distinction or cost of their frills I know the problem is elsewhere, I don't know where, it's not where women think... You didn't have to attract the desire. Either it was in the women who aroused it or it didn't exist. Or it was there at first sight or it had never been there it" (Duras, 19-20). Marguerite Duras delivers this prophecy about attraction to the reader in her novel The Lover, words that she, as we soon discover, uses to explain her involvement with a man twelve years her senior. She, at the tender age of fifteen, claims to know more about the beauty and attraction of women twice her age. She is aware of her body, on the verge of maturity, and what it does to men. She, short of many of the resources listed above, has learned to become creative and uses her body as her only tool of attraction and lust. She, at fifteen, is more sexually aware than most people her age. His body signifies power. She is the power. It is her power that she will use to survive, even if that means what we would call using her body and the man she is sleeping with. Marguerite's lover is unnamed. He is identified only by the color of his skin and his country. She knows her name, but chooses to hide it from us to let us see what she sees, the color, the body, the emotion. No name, no other relationship to him than she has. He is leaving his name out to distance himself so that we are distanced. We see his money, his limousine, his meals, his clothes. We don't know him. Let's just see what it's for. "The elegant man has gotten out of the limousine and is smoking an English cigarette. He looks at the girl in the man's felt hat and gold shoes. He slowly approaches her. He is obviously nervous... His hand is shaking. There is it's a racial difference, he's not white, he has to prevail, that's why he trembles" (Duras, 32). The image is of a young girl dressed in a man's hat. The Chinese trembles when he approaches her. He always trembles when he interacts with her. He is aware of his skin, she is aware that he is not white, not her. He offers her a cigarette which she refuses to take from him. The figure of the girl dressed as a man and the trembling Chinese man persists throughout the book. From the beginning they have switched genders. She, from the beginning, has the power to reject or take him away. And, above all, it is defined by what she is not. He is lack. It's not white. It is not painted completely. He is aware of his deficiency. He wears elegant clothes, travels in a luxury car and smokes European cigarettes; tries to cover up his flaws with his money and status. She is poor and white, he is rich and not. She isn't even in her country, but she has established a dominion that he cannot take away from her:"The image begins long before she approaches the white child near the tracks, it all begins when he got out of the black car, when he began to approach her, and when she noticed it, she knew that he was afraid. Until from the first moment, he more or less knows that she is at his mercy. Along with the racial power, in a short time Marguerite also gains sexual power over the Chinese, she tells him to use her for what he wants, sacrificing her body. one of her main sources of power, and she may lose it all this way he doesn't take it away from her, she willingly gives it away and is still in control because she quickly becomes too involved and dependent on her desire, his love and his accessibility. "He says he is alone, horribly alone because of the love he feels for her. She says she is alone too. She doesn't say why. He says: You came here with me as you could have gone anywhere with anyone... She tells him that she doesn't want him to talk, what she wants is for him to do as he usually does with the women he sees. door into his apartment. She begs him to do it" (Duras, 37-38). Duras begs for sex as a man would. The Chinese man's body becomes the object, not hers, even if she sees it in that light. The Chinese man always gives her the the sex he wants. She has the power to take it away from him whenever he wants, she lets him do what he wants, turning their relationship into a no strings attached carnal lust he lets himself be carried away by his emotions and his mercy "The body. The body is thin, devoid of strength, of muscles, he could be ill, he could be convalescent, he is hairless, nothing masculine about him except his sex, he is weak, probably a defenseless prey to insult, vulnerable. She doesn't look at his face. He doesn't look at it at all. She touches him.... He moans, cries. In terrible love". His body has no physical strength and power over her. He is thin, hairless, like a boy or a prepubescent child. He is weak, vulnerable to her like prey. She avoids eye contact and focuses on his body, touching him, making him cry, getting emotional like a girl would. She: stoic, emotionless, distant. Marguerite would have nothing to do with the Chinese if it weren't for the money white is a compromise He is willing to compromise his body and his money for his love for the white girl, for her it is an equal exchange, although his family is a little harder to convince, but they have no problem to use it as a meal ticket. They gorge themselves on food and don't let them pay. "My brothers will never say a word to him, it's as if he's invisible to them, as if he's not solid enough to be. perceived, seen or heard. This is because he loves me, but it's a given that I don't love him, that I'm with him for money, that I can't love him, it's impossible, that he can accept any kind of treatment from me and still still love me. That's because he's Chinese, because he's not a white man... Let's all treat my love like he [his older brother] does. I myself never speak to them in their presence. When my family is there I should never say a single word to them" (Duras, 51 years old). Marguerite is aware that her family's exploitation of the Chinese mirrors her own, this is not her goal. Her goal in this passage is his awareness that the Chinese man will do anything to win the affection of his family, trying to buy their approval And it will never work because of his race, but he will put up with their rudeness because he depends on Marguerite and will put up with it. any treatment towards him because he has no other choice. He is trapped in taking his family out to dinner. He is trapped in enduringtheir uncultured, ravenous behavior and understandably sensitive lack of appreciation regarding this treatment, he realizes will never win them over. But he continues to do so because his love for Marguerite forces him to do so. "In the presence of my older brother, he ceases to be my lover... he is nothing to me anymore. He becomes a burnt shell... an unspeakable offense, a shame that should be kept hidden." .... [I am] exasperated that I have to endure this affront just for the sake of eating well, in an expensive restaurant, which should be a completely normal thing." Marguerite feels guilty for having taken advantage of the generosity of the Chinese. She is angry because her family mostly ignores her, she is angry with her brother his mother compromises her daughter for money reasons. It's the same reason she lets her go He will try to please them. He can give them what they don't have and they will still look better in the end. The Lover is not the only text that addresses power over the "other." Like The Lover, Shakespeare's play, "The Tempest", has a pronounced motif of use and exploitation of the "other" with a backdrop of domination over the natives in a foreign land. Nearly every scene in the play portrays a relationship between a figure who possesses power and a figure who is subject to that power. The most significant master-servant relationship is between Prospero and Ariel, and Prospero and Caliban. Exiled on a desert island, Prospero uses Caliban, the island's only native, as his slave. Although Caliban inhabited the island long before Prospero's arrival, he is at Prospero's mercy because he is aware of Prospero's magical powers and his superior intelligence. Prospero, of course, is also aware of his dominance over Caliban and exploits it for his own convenience and gain. "This island is mine from Sycorax, my mother,/which you took from me. When you came first/you caressed me and gave me much importance; you gave me/water with berries in it; and you taught me how /to name the greater light, and as the lesser one,/that burn day and night. And then I loved you/...and here you keep me/in this hard rock, while you keep me away/the rest 'island' (1.2.331-344). Caliban feels reclaimed or expelled from his only home, and with good reason. He didn't invite Prospero to live there, Prospero invaded his space and took it away from him, he betrayed and enslaved Caliban, and he expects him to be grateful and submissive to him. "Thou lying slave, whom punishments can move, not kindness. I have used thee / (Dirty as thou art) with human care, and lodged thee / In my cell..." (1.2.345-348). Prospero always tells a story with an emphasis on his good deeds and everyone else's bad deeds, especially when he talks about his brother, Ariel, and Caliban. Prospero's control over Caliban is based on his ability to dominate him through words. It is unknown whether Caliban is another race, but his mother was a witch and his father the Devil, his identity, therefore, is dark and uncertain. In any case, Caliban takes on the role of the "other". Prospero is not threatened by him because when they met Caliban he could not even speak, and he feels that Caliban will forever be indebted to him for teaching him the language. Ariel creates an immediate and powerful contrast between Prospero's two servants. Where Caliban is uncultured, bitter and brutal, described as a "hag seed" (1.2.368), a "poisonous" (1.2.322) and "lying slave (1.2.347) and as "earth" (1.2.322 ) 317),Ariel is delicate, refined and kind. He is characterized as a spirit of the air, while Caliban is a creature of the earth. Although the two are both servants of Prospero, Ariel serves Prospero somewhat willingly, in exchange for freeing him from the tree, while Caliban resists serving him at all costs. Although when Prospero arrived on the island, he freed Ariel and enslaved Caliban, it was probably because he knew that Ariel could be more useful to him thanks to his powers. Given that Prospero is a European, his exploitative treatment of Ariel, and particularly Caliban, may represent the disruptive effect of European colonization on native societies. Prospero's colonization left Caliban, the island's original ruler, subject to slavery and hatred because of his dark appearance and, in Prospero's eyes, rough because he is not European. Not even obedient and well-mannered servants like Ariel can avoid Prospero's imprisonment, at least until Ariel is no longer of any use. Like The Lover, the stranger who ends up in a foreign land turns the situation to the detriment of the native, making him the outcast, "The Other", unacceptable, wild, moron. The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys In Jean Rhys' novel, The Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette and her mother are strangers in a strange land. They are often the subject of violence and animosity because they are Creoles living in a predominantly black society. Antoinette's mother, Annette, is the victim of stares and whispers and has no confidants. "Standing next to the bamboos she had a clear view of the sea, but anyone passing by could stare at her. They stared at her, sometimes laughed... A frown formed between her black eyebrows, deep... I hated this frown and once I touched her her forehead trying to smooth it. She rejected me... as if she had decided once and for all that I was useless to her" (Rhys, 11 years old). It is this isolation and feeling of inadequacy that transforms Annette into a distant and brooding person. Although they live in what appears to be enemy territory, Antoinette and her mother remain, despite threats to their lives and the murder of her son and brother. Soon, however, Annette's treatment gets the better of her. Whether or not she actually went mad is a matter of debate. It is closely linked to the wild and exotic garden near their home. The smell and sight are both intoxicating and disgusting to Antoinette when she is younger, and she never wants to get close to it. This image of the wild garden and Annette's depressed, lobotomized state suggest a kind of underlying madness or fever. Either it was too much for her to handle, or the country was too much for her to handle. In any case, Annette was quickly eliminated, due to early harsh treatment and being a social outcast for being too different. This, however, is only the beginning of the struggle for power over the "other". When the nameless man, like the Lover's nameless "other", narrates the second part of the novel, he and Antoinette are already married. He comes from England, is a second son and therefore has no right to inheritance, and therefore is married off as a daughter to Antoinette, an heiress, to ensure a secure financial future. Also a stranger in a foreign land, the man depends on Antoinette because their way of life is so abnormal for him. Antoinette is also abnormal for him. She has that sort of exotic, exasperating disposition about herself that, she learns, her mother also shared. "I looked at her critically. She wore a tricorn hat that suited her. At least it hid her eyes which are too large and can be disconcerting. She never blinks, it seems to me. Long, sad, dark, alien eyes .Creole may be pure English decent, but they are notnot even English or European" (Rhys, 39). Antoinette is strange to him and in a way almost scares him. Her ways are foreign and she has a mystical energy that he can't place because it's unlike anything he's ever had. known. Even the environment itself has the same effect on him as it has on her. Used to England, where foliage is only found in the countryside, and it is cloudy, rainy or cold ninety percent of the time, his land. she's too alive and wild for him to handle. "Everything is too... Too blue, too purple, too green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too close. And the woman is a stranger. His pleading expression bothers me. I didn't buy her, she bought me, or so she thinks... The girl is considered beautiful, she is beautiful. And yet… (Rhys, 41). Immediately after his arrival, Antonietta's husband remains in bed with a fever for two weeks, immediately falling victim to this environment. Where he is powerless against his family, his wife and where he lives. "I was tried by these people. I didn't like their laughter and their tears, their flattery and envy, conceit and deceit. And I hated that place. I hated the mountains and the hills, the river and the rain. I hated the sunsets whatever her color, I hated her beauty and her magic and the secret I would never know. I hated her indifference and the cruelty that was part of her beauty. Above all I hated her because it belonged to the magic and beauty she had it left me thirsty and my whole life would be thirsty and longing for what I had lost before I found it again." He hates the country, the people who live there, and his wife might as well be from another planet, she is so foreign to him. He feels like the butt of every joke. He feels betrayed by his family. He feels like Antoinette is getting in the way of what he wants. Desperate to remedy his feeling of property, his alienation and inadequacy, he must reclaim power over Antoinette if he wants to feel normal again. "Very soon she will join all the others who know the secret and don't tell. Or can't... Yes, you have to keep an eye on them... She's one of them. I too can wait... for the day in which she will be just a memory to be avoided, to be kept hidden, and like all memories a legend or a lie...". Unlike The Lover and "The Tempest", the social outcast takes revenge against the injustice imposed on him. Unwilling to compromise, Antoinette's husband gets rid of her altogether because she represents a real threat to his virility and happiness. She leaves no room for a peace treaty because she listens to rumors that she might be crazy and will never change. For him there is no other option and no other possibility that he is willing to take or believe. Bringing her to England will completely change their roles. He will live in an environment that is familiar to him while she may be too colorful to fit in, forcing her to take on the role of “the other” and bringing the power back to him. The real tragedy in this is that Antoinette chooses to follow him and chooses madness. He compromises her happiness because he believes his suffering is greater than she will bear. Conclusion The Wide Sargasso Sea depicts the authoritative superior as a victim in the end, and as not realizing his power until it was pointed out to him, unlike Duras and Prospero, who are aware of the injustice. Regarding the geographical context shared by The Lover and "The Tempest", it is also important to note the different direction that the Great Sargasso Sea takes. When in Jamaica, Antoinette is no more native to that land than her husband is, and each of them has experienced the uncomfortable situation of being an outcast. However,.