INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR INNOVATIVE RESEARCH IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY FIELD

Abstract: This paper explores how Jean Rhys uses literary devices to create alternative realities in Wide Sargasso Sea, demonstrating that Antoinette's psychological suffering results from her imprisonment within Homi Bhabha's "third space" of colonial hybridity. Using postcolonial theory, particularly Homi Bhabha's concepts of liminal existence and hybrid identity, the study will investigate how colonial displacement creates fractured psychological landscapes that compel the construction of alternative realities. The analysis examines generational trauma through Antoinette's mother Annette, whose mental decline demonstrates the impossibility of authentic existence under colonial systems. Antoinette inherits this hybrid positioning, existing between white European and Black Caribbean identities, creating psychological "unhomeliness" that forces her to construct alternative worlds for survival. Central to this analysis are Rhys's dream sequences and symbolic imagery, which function as alternative narrative spaces where hybrid identity surfaces beyond colonial control This study concludes that Rhys employs fragmented narrative techniques to demonstrate how colonial third space creates alternative realities that serve as necessary refuge for hybrid subjects unable to exist authentically within colonial binaries