Wide Sargasso Sea

Wide Sargasso Sea

First edition cover
Author	Jean Rhys
Language	English
Genre	Postmodern Novel
Publisher	Deutsch (UK) & W. W. Norton (USA)
Publication date	October 1966
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	192 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-233-95866-5 (first edition, hardback)

Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 postcolonial novel, by Jean Rhys, which acts as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's famous 1847 novel Jane Eyre. It is clearly the story of the first Mrs. Rochester, Antoinette (Bertha) Mason, but the name Rochester does not appear in the book.

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler The opening of the novel is set a short while after the emancipation of the slaves in British-owned Jamaica. The protagonist Antoinette conveys the story of her life from childhood to her arranged marriage to an unnamed Englishman (Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre). As the novel and their relationship progresses, Antoinette, whom he renames Bertha, descends into madness. The novel ends in England, with Bertha's fateful decision to burn down the estate and jump off the roof.

The novel is split into three parts. Part One is narrated by Antoinette. It describes her childhood experience. Also it includes the fact that her mother is in a madhouse, which is consistent with Jane Eyre. Part Two is from the point of view of her husband following their marriage. One of the likely turning points and catalysts for Antoinette's downfall is the suspicion with which they both begin to view each other. Antoinette's old nurse and the man that Rochester comes to trust feed the distrust between the two of them. This increased sense of paranoia tinged with the disappointment of their failing marriage probably triggers what was Antoinette's already precarious mental state. The shortest part, Part Three, is once again from the perspective of Antoinette, now known as Bertha. It traces her relationship with Grace, the servant who is tasked with 'guarding' her in England. Written as a stream of consciousness Bertha decideds to take her own life as she believes it to be her destiny.

Characters in Wide Sargasso Sea

Antoinette Rochester nee Cosway

We see that Antoinette is constantly scared and insecure and constantly needs to feel safe. In the beginning she says “my father, visitors, horses, feeling safe in bed-all belonged to the past”. “A soft black cloak to cover me, hide me, keep me safe. But not any longer. Not any more.” Indeed in the beginning she had a stick with nails under her bed when she was young because she thought it would keep her safe. Things first started changing when she went to the convent. She also has many scary dreams at night most of them being foreboding and she is considered to be a very mysterious child which can be seen in the fact that already from the first chapter she has 2 dreams very much alike all of them very scary and all of them showing to her what is yet to come. Moreover we see that throughout the three parts she gets dreams telling her about her future. Particularly in her last dream she sees she has to burn Thornfield to find herself and she proceeds with doing so in the end. She is also very introverted which can be seen in the fact that she constantly thinks to herself and very rarely reveals her thoughts to others “It was covered with green moss soft as velvet and I never wanted to move again.” Moreover she is very proud because she says “I would have died sooner than run”. Her pride is seen again when she stops talking to Edward when he sleeps with Amelie. However she does give it up at some point seeing that she does go to Christophine and ask for an obeah potion because she is desperate to make Edward love her. Antoinette is a very calm person which can be seen by her reaction when she new she was going to get mocked or pushed around on her way to the convent. Yet she never panics and maintains a very cool and calm attitude. However we do see that she loses her cool when Edward sleeps with Amelie next to her room however it must be pointed out that her reaction is nothing out of the ordinary. Antoinette really loves her mother despite the fact that she keeps pushing her away and only pays attention to Pierre which can be seen in the fact that she felt safe when she was close to her “A soft black cloak to cover me, hide me, keep me safe. But not any longer. Not any more.” This can be seen in the fact that when she is in the convent she is very sad and misses her mother “and my mother, whom I must forget and pray for as though she were dead, though she is living, liked to dress in white”. She only leads a normal life for a short while, when she is in the convent and when she is friends with Tia. Her feelings about Edward are very mixed. She does love him and trusts him she is very confused and constantly fears he might hurt her. We see she constantly falls into streams of consciousness especially towards the end which shows that maybe Daniel was rights concerning the fact that she may suffer from some form of hereditary madness. However we do see that she has a form of logic considering that she waits till Grace Poole snores to take the keys and leave the attic. This is what makes us come to the conclusion that she was probably driven to madness because Edward didn’t love her. Antoinette above all is characterized by a great love for the West Indies. She really admires nature and appreciates the beauty of the place. She feels that Granbois is her refuge and that if everything gets lost she will still have it until Edward ruins it for her by breaking her heart. Antoinette has been deeply scared from her childhood and the experiences she went through at that time. She is part of two cultures black and white and can’t be at ease or comfortable with either. This can be seen by the fact that she gets bullied by black people when she is young but still she cant understand the way Edward behaves and how he has learned to hide his feelings. In the end we see Antoinette has lost herself and no longer knows who she is “who am I?”

Christophine

Throughout the novel Christophine is the only friend Antoinette has. She really loves and cares for her. This is illustrated very clearly in the conversation she has with Edward in Part II were she begs him to leave Antoinette behind so that she can take care of her. She is involved in some kind of black magic “obeah” as it’s called in the book which adds to the whole mystery created around her character. She is very calm and always treats others well whether she likes them or not even when referring to Edward he says that he has a good heart which is objectively true.

Annette Mason nee Cosway

She is very miserable an introverted like Antoinette which can be seen in the fact that she spends a lot of time in her room by herself. She loves Pierre and rejects Antoinette which is shown by the fact that when Pierre dies she goes mad and when her daughter goes to visit her she pushes her away. She understands and appreciates blacks which can be seen in the way she supports them when she has fights with Mr. Mason. She has spent her entire life with them and thus doesn’t treat them condescendingly like the English imperialists do. We never really find out what happens to Annette until the very end of the book when we see she became an alcoholic, this shows us that Mr. Masons neglect really did affect her and that she probably wouldn’t have gone mad had Mr. Mason taken care of her and had her keepers not abused her.

Cora Cosway

Throughout the novel aunt Cora is the only family member Antoinette gets close to. Aunt Cora handles the incident with the black people burning Coulibri very calmly and rationally and handles the situation in such a way so that they all get saved. This shows how calm and rational Aunt Cora is.

Richard Mason

Mr. Mason like all English colonialists wants everything under his control which explains why he is so captivated by Annette because he simply can’t control her. This also explains why he clipped the parrot’s wings. He neglects Annette when she gets mad and hires to random people to take care of her and doesn’t visit her much, although he cares for her he doesn’t like seeing her in such a state which shows that he is like Richard selfish.

Edward Rochester

Like Mr. Mason he also likes to control things, which is why he hates Granbois. Because it is placed in an uncontrollable environment he feels out of place in an environment where “the rain fell more heavily, huge drops”. However the more he falls for Antoinette the more he starts to admire the beauty of the place he is in despite the fact that it is the antithesis of England. He is also very arrogant which can be seen in the way he bosses everyone about and condescend the servants. This is very clearly illustrated in the scene were he steps on the wreath that the people at Granbois made to wish him and Antoinette a happy life together. He always gives out the impression that he is cold when he is uncomfortable or when he wants to hide his feelings. For example when he talks to Christophine about Antoinette’s condition we see his thoughts and the pain he feels but he never puts these thoughts across to Christophine because that was the way he had been brought up. He has to face a difficult relationship with his father seeing that his father favors his brother. That is the reason for which he marries Antoinette to prove to his father he can make his own living and is worthy of being his son. This is illustrated in the letters he writes to him in which he has a very cold and detached tone and at no point does he reveal his feelings of unhappiness. Towards the end however we see he hates his father and blames him for his bad luck “All I get is curses and get-outs from that damn devil my father”. He is very selfish and possessive which is illustrated in the fact that he won’t let Christophine keep Antoinette and take care of her. This is very effectively illustrated where he says “My Lunatic” and “My mad girl”. This is also illustrated in the fact that whenever he talks about pain for ruining his relationship he always refers to his personal pain and never that Antoinette feels. We see many relevant aspects in the relationship between Mr. Mason and Annette and Edward and Antoinette seeing that both mother and daughter go mad due to neglect. Moreover their attitude towards the blacks and the civilization there is equally condescending and shows a great amount of arrogance. He does care for Antoinette which is illustrated in the fact that he doesn’t abandon her when she is mad. At some point he even admits to loving her. Even in the end we see he remembers all their past conversasions. He is also very proud which is illustrated in the fact that he sleeps with Amelie the minute Daniel insinuates Antoinette may be cheating on him with Sandi. Moreover whenever someone shows pity for him he immediately gets offended. He is very pompous because he doesn’t believe he could be wrong and even when Christophine confirms what Antoinette has been saying he refuses to understand. We also see he is very closed minded because the minute he listens about Antoinette’s possible madness and cheating he closes his ears to everything Antoinette has to say. The climax of his possessiveness and willingness to control his environment is seen when he starts calling Antoinette Bertha and thus in a way strips her from her identity and her true self simply because he liked the name Bertha.

Daniel Boyd (Cosway)

He is very bitter, which is a result of his father’s rejection and the fact that he wasn’t recognized. He hates Antoinette which is illustrated in the fact that now that she is finally happy he wants to ruin it. He is illiterate which can be seen in the way the letter is written. He also twists facts so that they favor him. For example in the letter he mentions Antoinette’s mother being mad but he never explains the full story that made her become mad.

Setting

The place where they live is very isolated and the next door house was thought to be haunted “Mr. Luttrels house was left empty, shutters banging in the wind. Soon the black people said it was haunted, they wouldn’t go near it. And no one came near us.” Coulibri is a hauntingly beautiful place which is however overgrown and neglected due to the current state of poverty in which Antoinette’s family is in. The whole atmosphere is very hostile because the black people constantly jeer at them, poison their horses and never go near them. There are unbridgeable gaps in society between whites, blacks and Creoles. Their house however was very beautiful and Antoinette really loved it “our garden was large and beautiful as the garden in the Bible-the tree of life grew there but it had gone wild.” There is also very exotic vegetation and the setting has many colours making it extremely overpowering “It was a bell shaped mass of white, mauve, deep purples, wonderful to see. The scent was very sweet and strong I never went near it.” “Deep and dark green under the trees, brown green if it had rained but a bright sparkling green in the sun.” Towards the end of part one there are certain incidents that show us the tension is very close to the surface “It was then I heard the bamboos creak again and a sound like a whisper.” Moreover we see how close to the surface the tension is when Annette tells Mr. Mason not to discuss racial issues in front of the servants because they cannot be trusted, “I shouldn’t discuss that if I were you. Myra is listening. Colours are one of the most prevailing visual imageries throughout the novel seeing that Rhys constantly plays with the blues, the greens, the reds and the intense passionate colours found in the West Indies. There is a form of Supernatural in the atmosphere, the fact that Christophine is obeah, the fact that moths are so big and the fact that people are so superstitious there adds to the eeriness of the atmosphere.

Narrative Technique

The fact that the first part is narrated by Antoinette as a child is very effective because we see the racial tension, Coulibri, her relationship with her mother from the eyes of a child and we see exactly how much her childhood scared her. The author creates a very eerie and isolated atmosphere by saying things like “Mr. Luttrell’s house was left empty shutters banging in the wind. The use of the local dialect, patois, makes the scene described feel even more real and creates aural imagery. Antoinette’s foreboding dreams add to the whole mysterious atmosphere of the novel by showing the reader some things about what will happen in the future. The scene that the black people set fire to the house is very well narrated seeing that tension keeps rising and Annette keeps begging Mr. Mason to leave Coulibri and the more he declines the more the tension is rising. It reaches a climax where it says that “its bad luck to see a parrot die.” Moreover the fact that time keeps passing and the story is told in bits and pieces makes it look more as if it’s a person reminiscing his childhood. Indeed we see that even in Edwards narration parts are being skipped thus not only increasing the feeling of memories this novel creates but also increasing suspense and leaving things open to interpretation. For example it is never clarified whether or not Antoinette had a relationship with Sandi. The above fact is also enhanced by the use of gossip as the main source of the readers’ information. For instance most things about Antoinette's past we learn them from the letter Daniel sent to Edward which isn’t a reliable source of information seeing that Daniel always tries to twist facts to his benefit. There is a great deal of foreshadowing in this novel which adds to the mysterious atmosphere Rhys creates having incorporated characters like Christophine in it that are supposedly involved with black magic. The fact that we have three narrators: Antoinette, Edward and Grace Poole helps us sympathize with both Antoinette and Edward and view the facts that pushed Antoinette to madness from multiple angles.

WSS and Jane Eyre

Main article: Jane Eyre

There are several differences between the chronology of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, most notably Antoinette's age. The "Bertha" Jane sees at Thornfield Hall is middle-aged; Antoinette in Rhys' novel is about five to ten years younger.

Major themes

Wide Sargasso Sea is usually taught as a postmodern and postcolonial response to Jane Eyre.[1][2] One particularly postmodern innovation is the use of multiple voices (Antoinette's and her husband's—although we assume it's Mr Rochester, he is never given a name) to tell the story; another is the novel's dense intertextual relationship to Jane Eyre. In addition, Rhys makes a postcolonial argument when she ties Antoinette's husband's eventual rejection of Antoinette to her Creole heritage (a large factor in Antoinette's descent into madness). As postmodern and postcolonial literature have taken a greater place in university curricula, the novel has been taught to literature students more often in recent years.

The world in which Antoinette lives is a patriarchal society. The convent where Antoinette is sent by her Aunt Cora represents a matriarchal bubble within this patriarchal world. Her demise can be seen as her spirit being crushed by the oppressive male world around her as her identity is taken away from her by her husband. Her individuality, i.e. her name Antoinette Mason, nee Cosway, is taken away from her: first her surname is taken—she has to take her stepfather's, then her husband's name—then her given name is taken when he renames her 'Bertha'.

Awards and nominations

It won the WH Smith Literary Award in 1967, which brought Rhys to public attention after decades of obscurity. It was also named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.[3]

Film, TV and Theatre adaptations

• 1993: Wide Sargasso Sea, Film adaptation directed by John Duigan and starring Karina Lombard and Nathaniel Parker
• 1997: Wide Sargasso Sea, Contemporary Opera adaptation with music by Brian Howard, directed by Douglas Horton, produced by Chamber Made
• 2006: Wide Sargasso Sea, TV adaptation directed by Brendan Maher and starring Rebecca Hall as Antoinette

External links

• From Antoinette to Bertha: the process of 'colonising' within the marriage in Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea