Magical Influences: Obeah

Magical Influences: Obeah

Obeah in the novel “Wide Sargasso Sea,” by Jean Rhys is a form of religion for much of the community. In referring to it as a religion, this is to mean that it seems to govern the actions and beliefs of many individuals through fear and superstitious gossip. Obeah is a practice of voodoo or perhaps witchcraft that allows those participating in it to cast spells and curses. It plays a very important role in the destinies of three main characters from the novel; Christophine, Rochester and Antoinette.
“Voodoo as it is called in Haiti-Obeah in some of the islands, another name in South America. They confuse matters by telling lies if pressed. The white people, sometimes credulous, pretend to dismiss the whole thing
The same thing that gives her power and control has the possibility of being her greatest downfall. She is being watched by a police man just in case she begins to participate in obeah once more. In a letter from a Mr. Fraser to Rochester, there is a warning to Christophine,” if she lives near you and gets up to any of her nonsense let him [the policemen] know at once. He’ll send a couple of policemen up to your place and she won’t get off lightly this time. I’ll make sure of that.” Through out the novel, Christophine does not seem frightened by her practice of obeah. Although she does not boasts about her powers she at times threatens others with it and in turn this could have her arrested. She once threatened Amelie, a servant, with great bellyaches, “perhaps you lie a long time with bellyache I give you. Perhaps you don’t get up again with the bellyache I give you. So keep yourself quite and decent. You hear me?” When Rochester decided to take Antoinette away, he was confronted by Christophine with somewhat of an argument, this was the final stage for Christophine and her practice of obeah. When Rochester threatens to call the police on her and have her taken away, Christophine hold to her grounds and refuses to be intimidated by him. When he tells her what he knows about her, she in a way backs off and gives up the fight. This
After awakening from their night of passion Rochester is overwhelmed by hatred, “as I watched, hating, her face grew smooth and very young again, she even seemed to smile. A trick of the light perhaps. What else?” He transformed from having a heart and the potential to empathize with other to completely being rude and longing to cause hurt just as he had been hurt. His heart becomes filled with anger even for the Coulibri estate, “I hated its beauty and its magic and secret I would never know…above all I hated her. For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness.” He becomes very angry with Christophine and Antoinette, he blamed Christophine for giving Antoinette the potion or poison as he called it and was hurt that Antoinette betrayed him, in which he stated over and over “she need not have done what she did…” The influence of obeah on Rochester’s destiny is that it ruined any potential for him to love and care for a woman and it turned him into an angry evil monster. His reaction to this influence is one of anger. He despises Christophine for her involvement, which leads to his threats to have her arrested. He hates Antoinette so much that he moves her away from the Coulibri estate to England, where he becomes very wealthy but not very