When I visited the MoMA, Lee Bontecou’s steel-and-canvas sculptures which was created in 1961 attracted me the most. Even though this work of art was untitled, I would like to call it — black hole. At first, I thought this piece looks like tornado. The frames rotating around the black hole. While, when I stared at the black hole, I imaged it’s a black hole in the space. I felt the extension of space, and at the end of the space, there were fears, uncertainty and darkness. However, after a second, I see hopes, safety, and future. It made me want to enter the black hole; it made me feel the black hole was a place can protect me; it made me believe that I can pass the black hole and enter another world. The black hole could be a path to heaven, or a shelter, or another unknown planet. It motivated my limitless imagination. As Bontecou remarks: “I like space that never stops. Black is like that. Holes and Boxes mean secrets and shelter.” This work of art perfectly shows Bontecou’s idea.

This piece of artwork entitled “The false Mirror” was created by Belgian artist Rene Magritte. The concise outline firstly drew my attention. With the aid of its title, the meaning of this art becomes straightforward: to illustrate that our eyes are false mirrors which don’t reflect real word. Firstly, we observe the world subjectively. This means that we only observe what we are willing to observe and choose to ignore others. In addition, in this painting, the sky view is reflected in an unusual size. This also implies the unreality of the world. The World tends to be a product proceed by our minds. Our background and experience affect our perspective toward the world. For an individual, the world is a unique product of his imagination.
The dark pupil rest at the center of the bright sky. This strong contrast can easily draw audiences’ attention. In my perspective, this dark pupil represents blind spot in our life. There is always something that we are unaware of or misunderstand. Those are blind spots in our life, and it prevent us from finding the real world. Furthermore, in most cases, when we have limited knowledge about an event or have misunderstandings about it, we still assume we have known about it and seldom voluntarily study it.

This past week I went to visit the new Rei Kawakubo / Commes de Garçons exhibit titled “Art of the Between” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (I now know that we had to analyze a piece from MOMA.) The piece I particularly enjoyed at the exhibit was titled War /Peace. It was a collection of beautifully designed outfits on 5 of the same mannequins. The piece focused on the dynamic symbolism of the color red. The mannequins to the far right had rose shaped appliqués to symbolize love. The mannequins on the far right had blood splatter prints on their dresses to symbolize destruction and war. With this, Commes de Garçons creates the idea of duality and perception. Red is a strong color, one that represents the two most powerful emotions of humanity: love and hate. By creating this display, the artist (and designer) illuminates the blurred line between love and war. We often fight for what we love, a country, a person, ourselves and sometimes this love can create a war filled with hatred, destruction, and blood. This entire exhibit blurs the line between black and white, creating connections between polar ideas.

There was loads of art that grabbed my attention at MOMA but one stuck out the most for me and it’s a piece created by Lee Bontecou, Untitled 1961.

At first glance, I noticed this piece right away because of the size it had compared to other artwork in that area. From afar, a viewer can see an enormous black hole in the center of the piece similar to a pit. I immediately questioned why? There is as well loads of layers that surround the depth of that black hole. However, what truly allowed me to connect with this piece is what Lee Bontecou had stated regarding this piece “My concern is to build things that express our relation to this country—to other countries—to this world—to other worlds—to glimpse some of the fear, hope, ugliness, beauty and mystery that exists in us all and which hangs over all the young people today.” When I read her description about the piece I immediately started to submerge myself within this piece and make the piece become me. I started to invasion myself as Untiled. I believe I’m made up of many layers and each layer holds a mystery about ourselves that we may never know or be lucky enough to know in the years to come. One of our main purposes in life is to find who we really are, we will go through many layers (chapters) in life to reach that black hole or maybe we will die trying. We are a mystery waiting to be unfolded.

-Cristian Manuel Solano

In the essay “The Other Side”: Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre, the author Michael Thorpe compares these two literary works through a unique angle. In Jane Eyre, Bertha is only a poor ghost. The existence of Bertha more likely serves to the purpose of adding gothic element and winning sympathy for Rochester, as Thorpe states. It’s reasonably not to provide completed background for a minor character. While Thorpe argues that Jane Eyre is a more “dated” work because of its radical prejudice. In Jane Eyre, Rochester blames Bertha’s Creole blood for her madness. One’s geometric background doesn’t lead to his madness. It’s a total prejudice. Jean Rhys made up this flaw in her work and provides sufficient details to explain Bertha’s abnormality. Jean even give reasonable explain to Bertha’s unusual behavior, for example, she didn’t remember when she attacks her step-brother. This suggests that she is not mad but fragmental.

In addition, I was surprised at how similar Antoinette and Jane are. Both of them have terrifying childhoods. Bertha is locked up in the attic, while Jane is once locked in the red room. Furthermore, both of them struggle with their identity. Their experiences are such similar, while the finales are almost opposite. I believe Antoinette doesn’t have access to the resource which can support her resistance, such as education. While Jane is lucky enough to be educated and become independent.

In Wide Sargasso Sea, we see Bertha, from Jane Eyre, in a new light. We meet her as Antoinette, a creole woman, who like Jane herself is trying to find her place in the world. Jean Rhys sets the novel in a post-colonial society, unlike Jane’s Victorian era. However, the parallels between Jane and Antoinette become more and more illuminated through the Wide Sargasso Sea. I think Rhys does this to show the struggle for identity, especially for a woman who is trapped in her own society, withstands the test of time. This struggle transcends age, class, and time period.

The essay, “The Other Side”, illuminates some interesting points about the two characters as well as the two books. It’s interesting that Michael Thorpe questions whether is adequate to read the Wide Sargasso Sea without reading Jane Eyre. He states that Mr. Rochester is a shady character in the Wide Saragasso, one that we meet more profoundly in Jane Eyre. To me, I think reading the two together creates a holistic perspective for both the story of Jane and Antoinette. It creates a profound, layered and twisted story plot that allows us, the readers, to be critical of yet compassionate towards every single character in the book.

This text was very interesting, it related closely to the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. It demonstrates the character Berta found in Jane Eyre. In the Novel Jane Eyre Bertha is described as a mentally disturbed woman who comes from the Caribbean, the only reason she left is because she got married to Mr. Rochester for her money. Rochester’s story was only a cover up from all that Bertha had faced. It was what any outsider would believe if they hadn’t heard her side. Wide Sargasso Sea shows us that she wasn’t just a mentally unstable woman who wasn’t white. She had faced so many battles over racism, sexism, economical discrimination. Wide Sargasso Sea gives Bertha’s history and who she actually is. It gives us an inside view that it wasn’t her fault for anything that happened to her and Mr. Rochester was partially at fault as well as the time period she was in. The two different views are very important for the reader to understand what it was like through a white male’s perspective and a black woman’s perspective. During that time period everything was different and white male’s were the superior race. They were in charge, they held power. They believed they held so much power they needed to enslave people of color. The two characters Mr. Rochester and Bertha ultimately had two different fates at the end of the novel, Bertha was finally free of the cruel world she was stuck in.

The novel “Wide Sargasso Sea” was more of a pre-intro to the ” Jane Eyre” since the time period of the story happened right before Jane Eyre. “Wide Sargasso Sea” and ” Jane Eyre” have pretty much the same elements in both story, both Antoinette and Jane Eyre was reach for freedom, lonely that no one understand their world, grow up in a similar condition, and last married to Mr. Rochester. But something different about them is that one ended up with a happy ending and the other one was burned to death. They grew up in a similar childhood filled with no understanding from the surrounding because of their uniqueness. However, Antointee more depends on her beauty especially her beautiful and smelling hair, and helps her to catch Mr. Rochester’s love. But a tool is a tool, it can help you a short term but never lasting long. That’s how she ended up in sane. Last, there’s a hand behind Antointee helping her to make determination on marriage and life.Compared to Jane Eyre, she caught Mr.Rochester’s attention by her kindness and unique thought about things. Personality and knowledge will never leave you, it is always on your side. Plus Jane Eyre is luckier than Antointee, since Mr. Rochester lost his property, one else they might not get alone well, and he will alway view Jane Eyre as a dependable woman.

After reading the story, I found that the narrative sstructure of “Wide Sargasso Sea” is much more complex than that of , Jane Eyre. Rhys takes some autonomy with the original and her novel is considered as a written with a change. Rhys relies upon a selection of alternatives narrative most importantly multiple points of view. Although the characters and settings are certainly recognizable from the original from which it is derived, Rhys has written a new narration on history and the effects of both isolation and colonization. When Rhys tells the story of Antoinette (Bertha in Jane Eyre) and her husband (Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre), she highlights the negative impact and also takes the terrible but antagonistic figure of Antoinette from Jane Eyre and turns her into a sensitive victim due to the isolation and confusion caused directly by British colonization. Her isolation was due to her ethnicity, her class, and the white men oppression in her life. She says ” The blacks hated us, they called us white cockroaches “. Antoinette is rejected because her father was once a slave owner. This makes her unperson among the blacks and her family poverty makes her undesirable to the whites. Antoinette and her mother suffer torments at the hands of the white men their lives. These things create in her a sense of isolation. Rhys also takes Antoinette the helpless victim of her oppressive and heartless husband in Jane Eyre, and turns her into a quite powerful heroine who does what she can to take control of her life in the face of all oppression. Antoinette and her husband see the world in distinctly different ways, and those perspectives will do nothing but create division between them.

In conclusion, Rhys wants the readers to have more imagination about the story. And to know and understand that Bertha’s struggles in life are due to the effects of colonization and bad luck as she was isolated because of her ethnicity and class but also because of the lack of love from her husband.

Aminata Toure