Table of contentsIntroductionThe Lover by Marguerite DurasThe Tempest by William ShakespeareThe Great Sargasso Sea by Jean RhysConclusionIntroductionOtherness is one of the dominant and strong themes of literature. According to the American Psychological Association, “socialization is an essential component of human development.” Although some creatures and humans are automatically perceived with a sense of otherness and rejected, this can create antisocial and potentially violent behavior. This essay analyzes the theme of power over "the other" in The Lover by Marguerite Duras in comparison 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 Should Not Be Banned”? Get the 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 the expensive creams, nor the distinction or the price of their finery. I know that the problem is elsewhere, I don't know where, I only know that that's not what women think.... Desire should not be attracted. Either it was in the women who had aroused it, or it didn't exist at first glance, or it was an instantaneous knowledge of the sexual relationship, or I didn't know that too. " (Duras, 19-20). Marguerite Duras gives the reader this prophecy about attraction in her novel L'Amant, words she uses, as we soon discover, to explain her involvement with a man twelve years her eldest At the age of fifteen, she claims to know more about beauty and attraction than women twice her age. She is aware of her body, on the verge of maturity, and what it does. to men. Short of many of the resources listed above, she has learned to become creative and uses her body as her only tool of attraction and desire. At fifteen, she is more aware of her sexuality than most people. of her age. Her body is synonymous with power. It is her power that she will use to survive, even if it means using her body and the man she sleeps with. of Marguerite is anonymous. He is only identified by the color of his skin and his country. She knows his name, but she chooses to hide it from us so that we can see what she sees, the color, the body, emotion. No name, no other relationship with him than the one she has. She leaves her name out to distance herself so that we are distant. We see his money, his limousine, the meals, the clothes. We don't know him. We only see what he is good for. "The elegant man got out of the limousine and is smoking an English cigarette. He looks at the young girl with the man's fedora and the gold shoes. He slowly approaches her. He is visibly nervous.... His hand is trembling. There is a racial difference, he is not white, he has to get over it, that's why he is trembling" (Duras, 32 years old). The image is of a young girl wearing a man's hat. The Chinese man trembles when he approaches her. He always shakes when he interacts with her. He is aware of his skin, she is aware that he is not white, she is not. He offers her a cigarette which she refuses to take. The figure of the young girl dressed as a man and the trembling Chinese man persists throughout the book. From the start, they changed gender. From the beginning, she has the power to refuse him or take him. And above all, it is defined by what it is not. He's missing. He's not white. It is not completely painted. Heis aware of his deficiency. He wears elegant clothes, rides in a luxury car and smokes European cigarettes; tries to cover his shortcomings with his money and status. She is poor and white, he is rich and not. She is not even in her own country, but she has established a domination that he cannot take away from her: "The image begins long before he approaches the white child near the rails, it begins when he got out of the black car, when he started to approach her, and when she knew, knew he was scared. From the first moment, she more or less knows, knows that he is at her mercy. " Along with racial power, Marguerite soon gains sexual power over the Chinese. She tells him to use it for whatever he wants. She puts herself in a risky position, sacrificing her body, one of her main sources of power, and could lose everything But this way, he doesn't take it from her, she gives it willingly, and she is still in control because she is the coordinator. The Chinese quickly becomes too involved and dependent on her because of. his desire, his love and his accessibility "He says he feels alone, horribly alone because of this love he feels for her. She says she is alone too. She doesn't say why. He says: You came here with me like you could have gone anywhere with anyone... She tells him that she doesn't want him to talk, what she wants is that he does as he usually does with the women he has. brought to his apartment. She begs him to do that” (Duras, 37-38). Duras begs for sex like a man would. The Chinese's body becomes the object, not his, even if he sees it from that angle. The Chinese always gives her the sex she wants. She has the power to say no and she has the power to take him from him whenever she wants, she lets him do what she wants with her, turning their relationship into a carnal desire with no strings attached, at least for her. END. But he lets himself be carried away by his emotions and his mercy. The body is thin, lacks strength, muscles, it may have been ill, perhaps convalescent, it is hairless, nothing masculine except its penis, it is weak, probably prey to insults, helpless, vulnerable. She doesn't look him in the face. He doesn't look at him at all. She touches him... He moans, cries. In a terrible love". His body lacks strength and physical power over her. He is thin, hairless, like a boy or prepubescent child. He is weak, vulnerable to her like prey. She avoids eye contact and focuses on his body, touching him, making him cry, moving as a girl would. She: stoic, emotionless, distant. not being white is a compromise willing to make. He compromises his body and his money for his love for the white girl, it's a fair trade, even if her family is a little harder to convince. however, have no problem using him as a meal ticket. They stuff themselves with food and don't look at him. "My brothers will never say a word to him, it's like he's invisible. for them, as if he wasn't strong enough for them to perceive, see or hear. It's because he adores me, but it's obvious that I don't love him, that I'm with him. him for the money, that I can't love him, it's impossible, that he can accept any treatment from me. and continue to love me. It's because he's Chinese, because he's not a white man... We all treat my love like him [his older brother]. I myself never speak to him in their presence. When my family is there, I am never supposed to say a single word to them” (Duras, 51 years old). Marguerite is aware that her family's exploitation of the Chinese reflects thehis, that’s not his goal. His focus in this passage is his conscience. that the Chinese 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 is dependent on Marguerite. and will endure any treatment from him because he has no other choice. He has to take his family out to dinner for everyone. He is forced to endure their uneducated, voracious behavior and lack of appreciation. naturally sensitive to this treatment, he realizes that he will never win them over. But he continues to go there because his love for Marguerite obliges him to do so. "In the presence of my older brother, he ceases to be my lover... he is no longer anything to me. He becomes a charred shell... an unspeakable outrage, a shame that must be kept out of sight. .... [I am] exasperated that I have to endure this indignity just to eat well, in an expensive restaurant, which should be something completely normal.” Marguerite feels guilty for taking advantage of the generosity of the Chinese. She is angry that her family ignores her. Most of the time she is angry with her brother. His power is handed over to him. When they are all together, he is the one who takes the lead. He knows just as well that he can use Chinese for his own purposes. Her mother also compromises her daughter for money. She lets her run around dressed like a prostitute and more or less acquiesces to his affair because she knows why her daughter is sleeping with him. It's the same reason she lets her go. It is useful to them. He will try to please them. He will submit to it. He can give them what they don't have and they'll still end up looking better. The Tempest by William Shakespeare The Lover is not the only text that addresses power over “the other”. Like The Lover, Shakespeare's play "The Tempest" has a strong motif of use and exploitation of the "other" against the backdrop of domination over the natives of a foreign land. Almost every scene in the play depicts a relationship between a character who possesses power and a character who is subject to that power. The most significant master-servant relationship is between Prospero and Ariel, and between 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 arrived, he is at Prospero's mercy because he is aware of Prospero's magical powers and superior intelligence. Prospero, of course, is also aware of his dominance over Caliban and exploits him for his own convenience and gain. "This island is mine by Sycorax my mother,/that you took from me. When you first came/you caressed me and did much to me; you would give me/water with berries inside; and you would teach me how/To name the greatest light, and how the least,/Which burns day and night/And then I loved you/...and here you immobilize me/In this hard rock, while you keep me/The rest "the island" (1.2.331-344). Caliban feels taken back or driven from his only home, and for good reason. -down, Prospero invaded his space and took possession of him, betrayed and enslaved Caliban, and expects him to be grateful and submissive “You, the most lying slave, only the blows. can touch, not kindness. I used you/(Dirty as you are) with human care, and lodged you/In my own cell..." (1.2.345-348). Prospero always tells a story with emphasis on his good deeds and the bad deeds of everyone else, especially when talking about his brother, Ariel and Caliban Prospero's control over Caliban rests on his ability to overpower him through words It is unclear whether Caliban is. another race, but his mother was a witchand his father the Devil, his identity is therefore dark and uncertain. Regardless, Caliban takes on the role of “the other.” Prospero is not threatened by him because when they met, Caliban could not even speak, and he feels that Caliban is eternally indebted to him for teaching him the language. Ariel creates an immediate and powerful contrast between Prospero's two servants. Where Caliban is uneducated, bitter and brutal, described as a "witch's seed" (1.2.368), a "poisonous" (1.2.322) and "the most lying slave (1.2.347) and as "the earth” (1.2. 317), Ariel is delicate, refined and graceful. He is characterized as a spirit of the air, while Caliban is a creature of the earth. Although both are Prospero's servants, Ariel serves Prospero quite 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 Ariel could be more useful to him due to her powers. Given that Prospero is a European, his abusive treatment of Ariel, and particularly Caliban, could represent the disruptive effect of European colonization on indigenous societies. Prospero's colonization left Caliban, the island's first ruler, subject to slavery and hatred because of his dark and – in Prospero's eyes – rough appearance because he is not European. Even without politeness, obedient servants like Ariel can avoid Prospero's imprisonment – ​​at least until Ariel is no longer of any use. Like The Lover, the foreigner who finds himself in a foreign land turns the tables on the native, making them the outcast, “The Other”, unacceptable, savage, deficient. The Great Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys In Jean Rhys' novel The Great 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 near the bamboos, she had a clear view of the sea, but everyone who passed could look at her. They looked at her, sometimes they laughed... A frown came between her deep, black eyebrows... I hated this frown and once I touched her forehead trying to smooth it but she pushed me away... 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 incapacity that makes Annette a distant and sullen person. Despite living in what appears to be enemy territory, Antoinette and her mother remain, despite death threats and the murder of their son and brother. But very quickly, the treatment reserved for Annette takes over. Whether or not she actually went crazy is up for debate. She is closely linked to the wild and exotic garden next to their house. The smell and sight are both intoxicating and sickening to Antoinette when she is younger, and she never wants to go near it. This image of the wild garden and Annette's depressive and lobotomized state clearly suggest a sort of underlying madness or fever. Either she was too difficult to manage or the country was too difficult to manage. Regardless, Annette was quickly eliminated, brought on by harsh treatment at first and being a social outcast for being too different. But this is only the beginning of a power struggle for “the other”. When the nameless man, like the nameless “other” of The Lover, narrates the second part of the novel, he and Antoinette are already married. He is from England, second son and therefore ineligible for inheritance, and is therefore marriedas a daughter to Antoinette, an heiress, to ensure a secure financial future. Also a stranger in a foreign land, the man is dependent on Antoinette as their way of life is abnormal to him. Even Antoinette seems abnormal to him. She has this kind of exotic, infuriating disposition toward him that he learns his mother also shared. "I observed her with a critical eye. She wore a tricorn hat that suited her well. At least it shaded her eyes, which are too big and can be disconcerting. She never blinks. seems. Long, sad, dark alien eyes. She may be purely English, but they're neither English nor European either. In some ways, she almost scares him. Her ways are foreign and she has a mystical energy that he can't place because she's unlike anything he's ever experienced. same effect on him as her, accustomed to England, where foliage is only found in the countryside and where the weather is overcast, rainy or cold ninety percent of the time, her land is far too alive. and wild for him to manipulate. “Everything is too much... Too much blue, too much purple, too green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too close. And this woman is a stranger. His pleading expression annoys me. I didn't buy her, she bought me, at least that's what she thinks... We think the girl is beautiful, she's beautiful. And yet... (Rhys, 41 years old). Immediately after his arrival, Antoinette's husband was bedridden for two weeks with a fever, an immediate victim of this environment. Where he is powerless in front of his family, his wife and where he lives. "I was tested by these people. I did not like their laughter and their tears, their flattery and their envy, their vanity and their deceit. And I hated this place. I hated the mountains and the hills, the river and the rain. I hated sunsets of any color, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret that I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty that was part of its beauty. , I hated her because she belonged to the magic and the beauty she had left me thirsting and all my life would be thirsting and longing for what I had lost before I found it. He hates the country, the people who live there, and his wife might as well come from another planet, she is so foreign to him. He feels like the butt of all the jokes. He feels cheated by his family. He feels like Antoinette is getting in the way of what he wants. Desperate to remedy his sense of ownership, alienation, and inadequacy, he must claim power over Antoinette if he is ever to feel normal again. "Very soon she will join all those who know the secret and do not want to reveal it. Or cannot say it. Yes, we must watch them. She is one of them. I too can wait... the day when she is just a memory to be avoided, locked away, and like all memories a legend or a lie...". Unlike The Lover and “The Tempest,” the social outcast fights back against the injustice meted out to him. Unwilling to compromise, Antoinette's husband gets rid of her because she poses a threat to his virility and his happiness. He leaves no room for a peace treaty because he 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 accept or believe. Bringing him 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 adapt, forcing him to take on the role of "the other".