Beauty Standards in Wide Sargasso Sea

In Part one of Wide Sargasso Sea, there are instances where beauty standards play a role in how people have treated characters involved in the story and the time period that it takes place in. When people are jealous of other people beauty, they tend to hate on them and try to bring them down in order to make themselves feel better about themselves. When we are first introduced to Annette, Antoinette mother, it is stated that “ the Jamaican ladies had never approved of my mother ‘because she pretty like pretty itself’”, the reason most people in the village did not like her was because not only was she pretty herself but also because she was too young for her father and also a Martinique girl, this goes to show how beauty or beauty standards have a role in how people see you and how they treat you. It was stated that many people would jeer at her or even laugh, this would make her feel bothered and frustrated so much that she would clench her fists and frown. Her beauty had a role in how others treated her.

Since most of Antoinette family was different from everyone else, most of the people that lived around them were not a big fan of the family. The standards that they had for their idea of beauty was not met with Antoinette or Annette, most of the people that lived in the village despised them because of their looks. It was stated that “ they hated us. They called us white cockroaches. Let sleeping dogs lie. One day a little girl followed me singing, ‘ Go away white cockroach, go away, go away’”, based on how Antoinette looked and the standard of beauty around the time period and area they were in, she was harassed by others and judged so much that they would taunt her and would want her to leave.  People disliked them so much that one day a group of people decided to attack their home and try to burn it. They cursed at them and called them names because of their differences. Since Annette and Antoinette did not match the ideal standards of beauty that the Jamaican women had, they had to face constant criticism which goes to show how being different or jealousy because of your beauty can lead to outcast and mistreatment.

The way that people treated Antoinette’s family based on their appearance or their background had a huge role in how their lives played out. Since many people disliked them because they were different or because they were jealous of them, they had to face constant judgment from others and had to adjust themselves in order to try to not be disliked. People often judge others when the standards that a specific society creates for beauty is not met. The way that they looked impacted their living situations because their house was burned by those who disliked them, it caused for Pierre to die, and Antoinette to be separated from her family. It was all kind of like a chain reaction, it all started because of their beauty and their looks that impacted the rest of their life, all because others were so infuriated and thought that they needed to be punished because their beauty was different.

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