Wide Sargasso Sea

It was an eye opener to compare a person from reserved and upper class English man with a young lady who was born and lived in the Caribbean all her life

Truth can lie between two different realities.In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester’s plans to marry Jane are frustrated by the revelation that the long-suffering man is already married and in fact, his mad wife is locked in the attic. But what is her story? And if she is ‘mad’, how did she get that way?The wife is Antoinette Bertha Mason Rochester, nee Cosway; she prefers Antoinette. Rhys is masterful showing the descent of Antionette’s life and mind as well as the gradual rise of Rochester’s contempt and control of her. The evolution of Antoinette’s voice from clarity to ‘madness’ is exquisite and sad.Like Rhys herself, Antoinette is of Creole descent. We meet her growing up in Dominica with her widowed mother and disabled brother. From the beginning, Antoinette is unsure of who she is. As white Creoles, they are rejected by both the English and the Blacks, who call them “white cockroaches.” As women, they lack status or agency. After the Emancipation Act frees the slaves, Antoinette’s slaveholding family, once wealthy, becomes destitute.Antoinette’s mother pursues the only option she believes is open to her, and marries a rich white carpetbagger, Mr. Mason. Mason decides to replace the family’s remaining servants with Eastern coolie workers. The staff overhears, however, and they set fire to the home, Coulibri, resulting in the death of Antoinette’s brother and leading to her mother’s emotional devastation.Mr. Mason abandons his mad wife to abusive caretakers and sends Antoinette to convent school. It is his responsibility to identify a husband for her, however, and he does. It’s an unnamed English gentleman, though readers of Jane Eyre will recognize him as Mr. Rochester.As a second son, Rochester needs the money bequeathed to Antoinette by her stepfather. They wed, and at first the match seems successful. Rochester breaks down Antoinette’s reserve through affection and physical passion. Antoinette responds, opening herself to experience a happiness her childhood had trained her to never expect.Yet Rochester has a nagging distrust of his exotic Creole wife, and antipathy for Dominica.Geography becomes a proxy for the perceptions and misperceptions of the spouses. Neither view the home of the other as “real.” Antoinette sees England as cold and dark; in her eyes Dominica is lush, beautiful and fragrant. Rochester views the technicolor Dominica as ominous and threatening, as if he were about to be devoured by a giant Venus flytrap.And then there is the Sargasso Sea, a dead-calm oceanic mire that Dominica borders upon. For Antoinette, it’s a metaphor for her deepest fears. For Rochester, it is a physical barrier between himself and his beloved England.Rochester receives a letter received from a man who may or may not be Antoinette’s brother by her father and one of his slaves. The letter warns Rochester he was tricked into marrying a degenerate girl with a family history of madness. These allegations prey on Rochester’s insecurities and cause him to abruptly reject Antoinette. Her fragile sense of identity shaken and desperate to win back her husband’s affection, Antoinette resorts to means which unintentionally goad Rochester into acting on his worst impulses. The rift between them devolves into a chasm leading to her own undoing.Rochester drags his broken wife to cold and dark England, where he confines her to the attic, under the care of servants paid for their discretion.The Wide Sargasso Sea is a stunning work of understanding and empathy for all characters in this book – and the next.

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys is a free NetGalley ebook that I read in late May while on vacation in Telluride, Colorado.Once I was aware that this book was a prequel to Jane Eyre about the mad, passionate first wife of Mr Rochester, nothing would keep me from it - outside of a penny-priced copy of it being available on Amazon and it spending months & months stowed away in my bookshelf. So, after much ado, I dove in. It's a little disorienting to read between its dual narration and Antoinette's aggressive, spiteful prose, but it also reminds me of Alice Hoffman's A Marriage of Opposites headstrong heroine and her plight to know herself and who to trust in an almost anti-paradise.

The expression 'Short and Sweet' sprang to mind immediately after I raced to the last sentence of the voluminous 120 page account of Bertha Mason, Mr Rochester's wife in the renowned "Jane Eyre". I found myself needing to re-read the last chapter furiously because I was, at that point, hungry for more.Before launching into it, I had misgivings about a very thin bit of literature that purported to illuminate the life of a tragic and obscure character, threatening the secure opinions of known figures in a widely enjoyed story. After all, this is a classic we're tampering with. With several false starts, a little research about the author and fanning through passionate love/hate reviews, I decided to abandon all my ideas about the preceding novel and not be an annoying purist.The author Jean Rhys, made a controversial move in shifting the Victorian timeline of the tale to that of the Emancipation period and in doing so, wove a complicated and poetic tapestry of a fractured Jamaican society fraught with themes of financial insecurity, elitism, imperialism, and existentialism; a showcase of human frailty with no one innocent, only varying degrees of vulnerability.As you might have gathered, it is not a light headed fable with hopping bunnies and tweeting birds that encircle a handsome prince and his radiant bride - the egg in this Easter hunt is rotten and the Mad Hatter is serving you arsenic. Do people actually lose their minds or do they simply create their own reality because the one they are presented with is unacceptable? Can external circumstances drive you to extreme decisions? Are you crazy for making them?I will admit to having been momentarily confused with several parts because the author allowed different characters to elaborate on their thoughts and events as opposed to a consistent point of view throughout. Consequently, I was invited to a more intimate seat with the personalities, some more repulsive than others. Having said that, I recognise the reason for the negativity towards the book. If you lionised the characters and their society in Jane Eyre, this poignant chronicle becomes a damning affront to your sacred cows.Reading it for what it is, I found myself hurled into a whirlwind of innocence, betrayal, abandonment, deceit, and cruelty, wrapped up in sad ribbons of dreams that reference lyrically across the tumultuous lives featured. If The Wide Sargasso Sea was a song, it would be a haunting elegy to real lives that have been and that are still trapped in dark webs of humanity.

It's a great book - very descriptive, poetic in places.It's one of those books that takes you into another world, a very special place. The book lives with you long after you have finished reading it.I want now to read all her other work.

PiccoloLeggeroBellissima storiaSpecialmente se uno ha letto Jane Eyre

Although I was reluctant ordering the piece as few said the packaging is bad , the pages are torn. Well for a reader torn pages are nightmare , but made the order as Amazon has been an anwesome place and I trust their services. The novel is a work which surely Jane should have read , being a voracious reader. Knowing the story of Bertha , she would never have hallucinated Mr.Rochestor's voice . A novel much needed to make sure you understand the true situations. A gem. 💮 Thank you Amazon and Jean Rhyss.

Livro sensacional.

N'ayant pas lu Jane Eyre (puisque Jean Rhys a écrit Wide Sargasso Sea pour redonner une voix, un background et une identité à Bertha Mason), je n'ai pas les références ou comparaisons avec le livre de Charlotte Brontë. Mais cela tombe bien, elles ne sont pas nécessaire, et ce livre fonctionne très bien par lui-même.Le personnage d'Antoinette est terriblement attachant : névrosée, la jeune fille passe sa vie au coeur d'un tourbillon de trahison, de désillusion et de désenchantement. En ce qui concerne le mari (M. Rochester, qui n'est jamais nommé ici), si ce roman ne justifie pas son comportement, il a au moins le mérite de l'expliquer dans une certaine mesure - il n'en reste pas moins légèrement détestable.Quand au reste, l'écriture est incroyablement fluide, la VO est très abordable et Rhys nous embarque totalement dans son récit, éveillant en nous compassion et empathie pour ces personnages trahis, abandonnés, abusés et détruits.Je le recommande grandement : comme pièce complémentaire à la lecture de Jane Eyre, ou comme pièce unique et indépendante. Vous ne le regretterez pas !