The Sargasso Sea as an Underlying Metaphor in Wide Sargasso Sea Why did Jean Rhys name her novel about the Creole madwoman in the attic from Jane Eyre after a mysterious body of water in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? As there is no mention made of the Sargasso Sea in the novel itself, one might wonder why she chose to title her novel after it. In a 1958 letter to a friend and colleague, she describes her changing titles for the novel: “I have no title yet. ‘The First Mrs. Rochester’ is not right
Wide Sargasso Sea Places take on a symbolic significance in Wide Sargasso Sea. Discuss the way in which Jean Rhys uses different locations in the narrative. Place in 'Wide Sargasso Sea' seems to be used to convey Antoinette's frame of mind at different times in her life. Wally Look Lai believes that "The West Indian setting...is central to the novel...(and) the theme of rejected womanhood is utilized symbolically in order to make an artistic statement about West Indian society and about
In jean Rhys “wide Sargasso Sea examine” the themes of race and gender in the 'othering ' of Antoinette. While exploring the concept the ‘Other’ In Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea we can begin to untangle the complexity of the forms of isolation and alienation that becomes to be considered the key characteristic of ‘the other’ and clearly represented in our protagonist Antoinette, who is perceived by her Jamaican society as not belonging. The complexities of Antoinette character comes from a culturally
Jean Rhys’ novella Wide Sargasso Sea, which was intended to be a prequel to Jane Eyre, follows the story of Antoinette Cosway. Set in a post-colonial Caribbean and later England, this work addresses many of the issues associated with colonialism. One such issue is the oppressive patriarchal structure of colonial societies. This novella reflects on the experiences of women in these patriarchal societies of the era, working to show how this system oppresses women. This aspect of Rhys’ story can
Wide Sargasso Sea The Creoles in Wide Sargasso Sea are outcasts. They live with a divided identity and distance from the world. After the death of Antoinette’s father their behavior nearly causes their entire world to crumble. The family suffers greatly due to their distance from the rest of the world. The purpose of this paper is to show you the family’s divided identities and how it effects their everyday life, along with the consequences that follow. Antoinette, the main character and the
Racial tension is a major theme in “Wide Sargasso Sea”, with the mix of whites and blacks and white/blacks in the novel creating a cut-throat atmosphere which creates a hazardous place for Jamaica’s denizens. Many racial situations occur between whites and blacks, which Americans are use to due to the dangerous troubles between blacks and whites in the 1950s with a clear enemy: the whites. But Rhys tackles a more important point: an overall racial hostility between everybody living in Jamaica during
have also learned to cope with it one way or another. Antoinette’s character in “Wide Sargasso Sea” and Celie’s character in “The Color Purple” have both experienced problems with depression, loneliness, violence, inferiority, racism, and self-identity. It is important for such characters as Antoinette and Celie to express their emotions and have a method of working out there issues. In the novel “Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys, the character Antoinette is left mainly to her own free will as a child
Postcolonial Discourse in Wide Sargasso Sea In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys confronts the possibility of another side to Jane Eyre. The story of Bertha, the first Mrs Rochester, Wide Sargasso Sea is not only a brilliant deconstruction of Brontë's legacy, but is also a damning history of colonialism in the Caribbean. The story is set just after the emancipation of the slaves, in that uneasy time when racial relations in the Caribbean were at their most strained. Antoinette (Rhys renames her
Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea has developed a character for the depth of time. Antoinette's childhood story of outmost unhappiness, contrasted with her attempt at love, and finally the arrival to her concluded state depicts the single condemnation of her soul. Misguided and unloved, Antoinette is forced to raise herself in a world of fear and hatred. As a young woman, her only happiness is found with nature, her place of peace in the world. Yet when her chance at love arises, Antoinette challenges
Authors, Jean Rhys and Charlotte Bronte constructed their novels in completely different time periods and came from different influences in writing. Jean Rhys’s fiction book, Wide Sargasso Sea is an interesting relation to Jane Eyre. The female character of Jane Eyre forms into a furiously, passionate, independent young woman. The female character of Jean Rhys’s illustration is a character that Jane will know further on as Rochester’s crazy wife who is bolted in an attic. Jean Rhys further studies
In both ‘Eve Green’ and ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, the protagonists experience fear in many guises. Although traumatic events in both Eve and Antoinette’s lives do lead to moments of sudden, striking fear, fear is also presented as having the potential to be subtle and muted, and therefore, “haunting”. Fletcher and Rhys seem to suggest that this form of fear is more damaging to the psyche than fear in its more conspicuous manifestations, as it is more deeply intertwined with the characterisations of the
colonialism, and that his characterization of Christophine is his definition of true Caribbean beauty and identity. I will attempt to explain how this is significant to our understanding of these works, and the Caribbean in general. In Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, the reader is constantly reminded of the natural beauty of the Caribbean through the novel’s multiple narrators; I’d like to focus on Antoinette’s husbands’ (who I’ll refer to as Rochester for the sake of this paper) ideas about the island’s beauty
Comparing Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys obviously had Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre in mind while writing Wide Sargasso Sea. Each novel contains events that echo other events or themes in the other. The destruction of Coulibri at the beginning of Wide Sargasso Sea reminds the reader of the fire at Thornfield towards the end of Jane Eyre. While each scene refers to events in its own book and clarifies events in its companion, one cannot conclude that Rhys simply reconstructed Thornfield's
Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea tells the story of Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester’s mad Creole wife from Jane Eyre. Bertha is a dehumanized character in Jane Eyre who Bronte describes only through the character of Rochester. Both Jane and the reader must rely on his explanations of his wife. However, in Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys recreates the character of Bertha, so that she may have a story of her own to tell. Even though Jane Eyre clearly influences her work, Rhys is critiquing the narration in Charlotte
In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys deals with identity through two major characters: Antoinette and her husband, Rochester. The novel deals with both the English and Caribbean Identities and explores the effect of conflicting identities within these various characters. Through this exploration, Rhys explores the idea that identity is both something that is inherited and acquired. Rhys also highlights an important issue to the reader, which is that you shouldn’t have your identity forced upon you but
The Tragedy of Wide Sargasso Sea In Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea, whether Antoinette Cosway really goes mad in the end is debatable. Nevertheless, it is clear that her life is tragic. The tragedy comes from her numerous pursuits for love and a sense of belonging, and her failure at each and every one of these attempts. As a child Antoinette, is deprived of parental love. Her father is a drunkard and has many mistresses and illegitimate children. According to Daniel Cosway's account
Love in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea In the passages presented below, both narrators are soliciting affection and love. For Jane, in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, her mother figure, Aunt Reed, shows absolutely no affection towards her niece. Coldly, Ms. Reed regards Jane only as a bothersome child she was left to raise. Similarly, Antoinette, in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, is raised disregarded and unloved by her mother Annette. Although shunned, Jane and Antoinette both have the passion
Cruelty and Insanity in Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea provides unique insight into the gradual deterioration of the human mind and spirit. On examining Antoinette and her mother Annette, the reader gains a new perspective of insanity. One realizes that these two women are mentally perturbed as a result of numerous external factors that are beyond their control. The cruelty of life and people drive Annette and her daughter to lunacy. Neither mother nor daughter have a
Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) presents some of the complicated issues of postcolonial Caribbean society. Rhys’ protagonist, Antoinette Cosway, a white Creole in Jamaica, suffers racial antagonism, sexual exploitation and male suppression. She is a victim of a system, which not only dispossessed her from her class but also deprived her as an individual of any means of meaningful, independent survival and significance. Postcolonial Caribbean society is not able to address and enhance the expectations
Gender Differences in in Medea versus Wide Sargasso Sea Stereotypical attributes traditionally associated with women, such as having a propensity to madness, or being irrational, frivolous, dependent, decorative, subordinate, scheming, manipulative, weak, jealous, gossiping, vulnerable and deceitful were common in the times relevant to both works, i.e. Ancient Greece and in the 19th and early 20th Century. Masculine attributes in Euripides' time were more along the lines of being valiant, heroic