Wide Sargasso Sea

Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 novel by Dominica-born British

Wide Sargasso Sea
author Jean Rhys. The author lived in obscurity after her previous
work, Good Morning, Midnight, was published in 1939. She had
published other novels between these works, but Wide Sargasso
Sea caused a revival of interest in Rhys and her work and was her
most commercially successful novel. It is a feminist and anti-
colonial response to Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre (1847),
describing the background to Mr Rochester's marriage from the
point-of-view of his mad wife Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress.
Antoinette Cosway is Rhys' version of Brontë's devilish
"madwoman in the attic". Antoinette's story is told from the time of
her youth in Jamaica, to her unhappy marriage to a certain
unnamed English gentleman, who renames her Bertha, declares
her mad, and then takes her to England. Antoinette is caught in an
oppressive patriarchal society in which she neither fully belongs to
Europe nor Jamaica. Wide Sargasso Sea explores the power First edition cover
relationships between men and women and develops postcolonial Author Jean Rhys
themes, such as racism, displacement and assimilation. Cover artist Eric Thomas
Language English
Genre Postmodern novel
Contents Publisher André Deutsch (UK) & W. W. Norton
Plot (US)
Major themes Publication  October 1966
Race date
Colonialism
ISBN 0-233-95866-5
Awards and nominations
OCLC 4248898
Adaptations (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4248898)
See also
References
External links

Plot
The novel, initially set in Jamaica, opens a short while after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 ended slavery in the British Empire on
1 August 1834.[1] The protagonist Antoinette relates the story of her life from childhood to her arranged marriage to an unnamed
Englishman.

The novel is in three parts:

Part One takes place in Coulibri, Jamaica, and is narrated by Antoinette as a child. Since the abolition of slavery caused her
family to become very poor, Antoinette's mother, Annette, must remarry to wealthy Englishman Mr. Mason. Angry at the
returning prosperity of their oppressors, freed slaves living in Coulibri burn down Annette's house, killing Antoinette's mentally
disabled younger brother. As Annette had been struggling with her mental health up until this point, the grief of losing her son
weakens her sanity. Mr. Mason sends her to live with a couple who torment her until she dies and Antoinette does not see her
again.

Part Two alternates between the points of view of Antoinette and her husband during their honeymoon excursion to Granbois,
Dominica. Likely catalysts for Antoinette's downfall are the mutual suspicions that develop between the couple, and the
machinations of Daniel, who claims he is Antoinette's illegitimate, half-brother; he impugns Antoinette's reputation and mental
state and demands money to keep quiet. Antoinette's old nurse Christophine openly distrusts the Englishman. His apparent
belief in the stories about Antoinette family and past aggravate the situation; her husband is unfaithful and emotionally abusive.
He begins to call her Bertha rather than her real name and flaunts his affairs in front of her to cause her pain. Antoinette's
increased sense of paranoia and the bitter disappointment of her failing marriage unbalance her already precarious mental and
emotional state. She flees to Christophine's house, the servant woman who raised her. Antoinette pleads with Christophine for an
obeah potion to attempt to reignite her husband's love, which Christophine reluctantly gives her. Antoinette returns home but the
love potion acts like a poison on her husband. Subsequently he refuses Christophine's offer of help for his wife and takes her to
England.

Part Three is the shortest part of the novel; it is from the perspective of Antoinette, renamed by her husband as Bertha. She is
largely confined to "the attic" of Thornfield Hall, the mansion she calls the "Great House". The story traces her relationship with
Grace Poole, the servant who is tasked with guarding her, as well as her disintegrating life with the Englishman, as he hides her
from the world. He makes empty promises to come to her more but sees less of her. He ventures away to pursue relationships
with other women—and eventually with the young governess. It is clear that Antoinette is mad and has little understanding of
how much time she has been confined. She fixates on options of freedom including her stepbrother Richard who, however, will
not interfere with her husband, so she attacks him with a stolen knife. Expressing her thoughts in stream of consciousness,
Antoinette dreams of flames engulfing the house and her freedom from the life she has there, and believes it is her destiny to
fulfill the vision. Waking from her dream she escapes her room, sets the fire.

Major themes
Since the late 20th century, critics have considered Wide Sargasso Sea as a postcolonial response to Jane Eyre.[2][3] Rhys uses
multiple voices (Antoinette's, her husband's, and Grace Poole's) to tell the story, and intertwines her novel's plot with that of 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 rejection shown to be critical to Antoinette's descent into madness). The novel is also considered a feminist
work, as it deals with unequal power between men and women, particularly in marriage.

Race
Antoinette and her family had been slave owners up until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 and subsequently lost their wealth. They
are called "white nigger" by the Island's negroes because of their poverty and are openly despised. Rochester, as an Englishman,
looks down on Antoinette because she is a Creole. Antoinette is not English and yet her family history privilege her as a white
woman. Lee Erwin describes this paradox through the scene in which Antoinette's first house is burned down and she runs to Tia,
a black girl her own age, to "be like her". Antoinette is rebuffed by violence from Tia leading to her seeing Tia "as if I saw myself.
Like in a looking glass". Erwin argues that "even as she claims to be seeing "herself," she is simultaneously seeing the other, that
which only defines the self by its separation from it, in this case literally by means of a cut. History here, in the person of a former
slave's daughter, is figured as refusing Antoinette", the daughter of a slave owner.[4]

Colonialism
In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys draws attention to colonialism and the slave trade by which Antoinette ancestors had made
their fortune. The novel does not shy away from uncomfortable truths about British history that had been neglected in Bronte's
narrative. Trevor Hope remarks that the "triumphant conflagration of Thornfield Hall in Wide Sargasso Sea may at one level
mark a vengeful attack upon the earlier textual structure". The destruction of Thornfield Hall occurs in both novels; however,
Rhys epitomises the fire as a liberating experience for Antoinette. If, then, Thornfield Hall represents domestic ideas of
Britishness, then Hope suggests Wide Sargasso Sea is "taking residence inside the textual domicile of empire in order to bring
about its disintegration or even, indeed, its conflagration."[5]

Awards and nominations

◾ Winner of the WH Smith Literary Award in 1967, which brought Rhys to public attention after decades of obscurity.
◾ Named by Time as one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.[6]
◾ Rated number 94 on the list of Modern Library's 100 Best Novels
◾ Winner of Cheltenham Booker Prize 2006 for year 1966.

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.
◾ 2004: Wide Sargasso Sea, BBC Radio 4 10-part adaptation by Margaret Busby, read by Adjoa Andoh (repeated 2012,
2014).
◾ 2006: Wide Sargasso Sea, TV adaptation directed by Brendan Maher and starring Rebecca Hall and Rafe Spall.
◾ 2011: "Wide Sargasso Sea", song written by rock 'n' roll singer Stevie Nicks about the novel and film; it appears on her 2011
album In Your Dreams.

See also
◾ Sargasso Sea

References
1. "Emancipation" (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/emancipation.htm), The Black Presence,
National Archive.
2. "Wide Sargasso Sea at The Penguin Readers' Group"
(https://web.archive.org/web/20070928031021/http://readers.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141185422,00.html).
Readers.penguin.co.uk. 3 August 2000. Archived from the original
(http://readers.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141185422,00.html) on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 2 January
2011.
3. "The Empire Writes Back: Jane Eyre"
(https://web.archive.org/web/20101216091547/http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/colonial3c.html). Faculty.pittstate.edu.
Archived from the original (http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/colonial3c.html) on 16 December 2010. Retrieved 2 January
2011.
4. Erwin, Lee (1989). " 'Like in a Looking-Glass': History and Narrative in Wide Sargasso Sea". Novel: A Forum on Fiction.
5. Hope, Trevor (2012). "Revisiting the Imperial Archive: Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, and the Decomposition of
Englishness". College Literature.
6. Lacayo, Richard (16 October 2005). "Time magazine list of All-Time 100 Novels"
(http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/0,24459,wide_sargasso_sea,00.html). Time. Retrieved 2 January 2011.

External links
◾ "Wide Sargasso Sea, Bertha and Jane Eyre" (http://themagpiepoet.deviantart.com/art/Essay-Wide-Sargasso-Sea-Bertha-
and-Jane-Eyre-378946743), The Magpie Poet blog
◾ Wide Sargasso Sea (http://www.shmoop.com/wide-sargasso-sea/), study guide, themes, quotes, & teacher resources
◾ Review (http://janeeyre.net/Wide-Sargasso-Sea-book-&-films.html) JaneEyre.net
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wide_Sargasso_Sea&oldid=856930076"

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