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Kelly Doyle
ENGL 700
Dr. Maxwell
October 23, 2014
Rochester’s Narrative Voice in Wide Sargasso Sea: Jean Rhys Sticking it to The Man
Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea gives the unnamed character of Rochester, from
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, a seemingly unnecessary and perhaps excessive narrative voice.
However, Rhys’s inclusion of Rochester’s voice reveals his ideological control over the Bertha
figure in both of these texts. In Jane Eyre, the lack of Rochester’s internal monologue
contributes to his portrayal as a victim of circumstance in order to make marriage to him
palatable as the ultimate conclusion of what could arguably be called a Victorian rags to riches
fantasy. Alternatively, in Wide Sargasso Sea, the presence of Rochester’s internal monologue
negates his position as a victim in Jane Eyre and asserts his presence as the patriarchal and
colonial voice. The Victorian victim rhetoric Rochester embodies in Jane Eyre is subverted in
Wide Sargasso Sea to depict him as an active and willful architect of the misfortune that occurs
in both texts.
In Wide Sargasso Sea, the unnamed character we know to be Rochester of Jane Eyre
fame, is conscious of his influence over Antoinette and he is fully aware of his ability to enslave
her. Yet this level of manipulation is purposely absent from Bronte’s characterization of
Rochester because he represents the imperial masculine norm that her readership subscribed to.
Ultimately, Rochester’s innocence isn’t entirely questioned within the confines of Jane Eyre
because he has deemed his wife mad. His position as a member of the English patriarchy is
enough to support the veracity of his claim; after all, Bertha isn’t English and thus doesn’t
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deserve English justice. As Rochester alludes to the existence of his Creole wife to Jane, he
reveals his belief that he hasn’t broken the law in his treatment of Bertha but rather has
committed a “capital error”:
suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged
from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you
there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what motives, but one
whose consequences must follow you through life and taint all your existence. Mind, I
don’t say a crime; I am not speaking of shedding blood or any other guilty act, which
might make the perpetrator amendable to the law: my word is error (Bronte 185).
Rochester feels no sense of guilt or culpability but rather shame for marrying a woman of
Bertha’s status. By removing himself from the fate that befalls Bertha, Rochester reveals his
complete lack of empathy for her condition. Rochester makes excuses for his mistake by
asserting he was a “wild boy”, as if it is enough to justify his wrongdoing. While Rochester’s
participation in the marriage to Bertha is implicit his participation in Bertha’s madness and
confinement is decidedly absent. Rather, Rochester’s decision to imprison Bertha is presented as
a natural and obvious solution, perhaps even the most civilized and gracious solution, given her
demeanor, removing Rochester’s involvement with her state entirely. Thus Bertha’s
imprisonment is presented as a salvation and Rochester continues to ‘care’ for Bertha despite her
‘untamed’ condition. As Nicola Nixon notes in her 1994 article “Wide Sargasso Sea and Jean
Rhys’s Interrogation of the ‘Nature Wholly Alien’ in Jane Eyre”, Rochester is able to bring
Bertha’s life to ruin because the blame, in his opinion, lies in what he perceives as her debased
morality and is firmly rooted in her position as an “other”:
Rochester’s transgression of propriety is therefore acceptable and redeemable precisely
because he demonizes Bertha as the inchoate savage unrefined by a superior culture she
actively abuses. Rochester elaborates on Bertha’s fundamental incompatibility with both
him and the culture he represents not only by expounding at length about her deviant
sexuality but also by appealing to the logic of British imperialism (Nixon 273).
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Rochester’s manipulation in Jane Eyre is apparent to the modern reader; however, Victorian
readers would have viewed his seclusion of Bertha as an obvious choice to uphold decorum.
Bertha’s madness is revolting and embarrassing for Rochester. However, he upholds and retains
his gentlemanly reputation precisely because he imprisons her, he dutifully continues to care for
her. The reasoning behind the absence of Rochester’s internal monologue in Jane Eyre is clear,
his voice is simply the voice of the imperial English patriarchy and as such his reasoning can go
unspoken because those reading would subscribe to this same patterned thinking. Rochester
encapsulates the imperial ideal and his imprisonment and rejection of Bertha serves as a stand-in
for slavery and patriarchal values.
Jean Rhys’s appropriation of the imperialist ideal in Wide Sargasso Sea is distinctly
symbolized through her unnamed Rochester. In giving Rochester a narrative voice, Rhys allows
Rochester to condemn himself. Rhys gives Rochester the voice that imperialism never afforded
the colonized and Rochester, in doing so, reveals his culpability in initiating Antoinette’s
madness. Rhys’s commentary on and blame for the condition of the colonized world is made
thusly. Rhys’s Rochester is no victim. Instead, he stands as the catalyst of Antoinette’s continued
invisibility. It is precisely because of this imposed invisibility that Rochester is able to
dehumanize and enslave Antoinette. Through his internal monologue we know this invisibility is
perpetrated through Rochester’s conscious manipulation of Antoinette. One of the first
descriptions Rochester gives of Antoinette, his new bride, depicts his obsession with their
difference, both cultural and racial, “long, sad, dark eyes. Creole of pure English descent she
may be, but they are not English or European either” (Rhys 39). From the beginning of
Rochester’s narrative we understand that his marriage is one of necessity and his affection for
Antoinette is merely an outward construction. He resents having had to marry her for money and
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thus lowering his status and mostly he resents Antoinette’s otherness. Carine Mardorossian
explains in her 1999 article “Double [De]colonization and the Feminist Criticism of Wide
Sargasso Sea”, that Rochester’s ideology never altered, merely his actions and reactions to
Antoinette changed, “In keeping with Victorian racist ideologies, he [Rochester] has already
framed her as a madwoman contaminated by the ex-slave’s blackness” (Mardorossian 82).
Because Antoinette is a burden and not necessarily his choice, Rochester has already allowed
himself to envision her as his captive. We know that Rochester is not genuine in his feelings for
Antoinette, besides needing Antoinette’s dowry to sustain his lifestyle, because he explicitly
states his ability to assume the role of an interested and worthy gentleman to marry Antoinette, “I
played the part I was expected to play…Every movement I made was an effort of will and
sometimes I wondered that no one noticed this. I would listen to my own voice and marvel at it,
calm, correct but toneless, surely. But I must have given a faultless performance” (Rhys 45). The
added dynamic of Rochester’s narrative makes his real identity apparent, though not readily
apparent to Antoinette. Rochester’s transparency is precisely what compels him to make
Antoinette an invisible and ghostly figure, who in turn bears the burden of blame for his
wrongdoing. Because of her difference, Antoinette is shameful and thus must be silenced for
Rochester to return to England an unsullied man with no sense of impropriety done and no
dalliance with impurity, racial or otherwise.
Rochester’s inability to understand or accept Antoinette’s customs, beliefs, and her
ambiguous racial identity elicits a compounding of resentment and hatred that drive the plot of
the novel. We know that Rochester does not love Antoinette and his eventual affair with Amelie
reveals his inability to continue to even view Antoinette as a viable sexual partner, despite his
belief that she is a savage. Antoinette repulses Rochester so completely that he refuses to use her
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as a sexual plaything. Continued intimacy and association with Antoinette will only serve to
transfer her inhumanity to Rochester. From the onset Rochester’s narrative, the reader is
confronted with these lies and troubling assumptions, with what he says versus what he is
thinking. When Antoinette, on their wedding day, appropriately feels the marriage should not go
forward, Rochester convinces her that she is all he wants and that no harm will befall her:
but don’t you remember last night I told you that when you are my wife there would not
be any more reason to be afraid …I’ll trust you if you trust me …You will make me very
unhappy if you send me away without telling me what I have done to displease you. I will
go with a sad heart (Rhys 46).
Antoinette intuitively distrusts Rochester and he convinces her otherwise through his readiness to
lie and manipulate. The loss of Antoinette’s dowry is what will make Rochester “go with a sad
heart”, not losing the affection of Antoinette. As Robert Kendrick notes in his 1994 article,
“Edward Rochester and the Margins of Masculinity in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea”, in
Rochester’s marriage to Antoinette, she will continue to be an outsider:
Initially, she rejects the match because she perceives, quite rightly, that Rochester will
not accept her unconditionally, and will not attempt to see her as a woman who does not
‘lack’ anything … he will force her back into the state of dereliction which has been prescribed for her (Kendrick 240).
Rochester’s obsession with Antoinette’s, and everyone else’s, difference is what allows him to
create her new existence: the mad woman in the attic. Antoinette’s questionable race and her lack
of English decorum controls Rochester’s thoughts and actions and he uses these qualities to
enslave her, just as his English imperialist brethren enslave and control around the world. By
convincing himself that Antoinette is not human, Rochester is thus able to further his exercise in
dehumanizing her because he believes this to be her original and deserved state.
The characterization of Rochester in both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea create a
composite sketch of a man ruled by imperialist ideals. A man that is a virtual stand-in for the
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imperialist agenda and the manipulation that is implicit in this patriarchal construct. Bertha, is
the unnamed and unnamable in Jane Eyre and Rochester is the unnamed and unnamable in Wide
Sargasso Sea. Both represent a secret, something ineffable because of their perceived evil and
capacity to destroy in their respective texts (Maurel 160). However, what remains constant is
Rochester’s culpability. The unnamed, the secret in both texts is Antoinette/Bertha’s
confinement, perpetrated by Rochester in each. In Jane Eyre Rochester creates the secret, the
evil in Bertha and in Wide Sargasso Sea Rochester represents that secret, he carries the
eventuality of the crime he will commit with him throughout the text. Rochester’s position as an
unnamed figure in Wide Sargasso Sea forces the reader to focus on his ideological position and
control throughout the text. It is his ideology that defines Rochester; his name is unnecessary to
place him within an ideological or individual confine. What Rhys subverts in Wide Sargasso Sea
is the concept of a civilizing colonizing mission, the mission that Rochester embarks on when
marrying Antoinette. Rochester’s marriage to Antoinette isn’t an equal bond as I have stated, but
rather a microcosmic example of the colonizer imparting foreign values on the colonized, with
an outcome equating to either assimilation or enslavement. Rhys’s Rochester removes the
victimhood from Bronte’s Rochester and makes him the emblem of legalized enslavement, both
physical and cultural.
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Works Cited
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre: An Authoritative Text, Context, Criticism. Ed. Richard J. Dunn.
New York: Norton, 2001. Print.
Kendrick, Robert. "Edward Rochester and the Margins of Masculinity in Jane Eyre and Wide
Sargasso Sea." Papers on Language and Literature: A Journal for Scholars and Critics
of Language and Literature 30.3 (1994): 235-56. MLA International Bibliography. Web.
18 Oct. 2014.
Mardorossian, Carine Melkom. "Double [De]colonization and the Feminist Criticism of Wide
Sargasso Sea." College Literature 26.2 (1999): 79-95. JSTOR. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
Maurel, Sylvie. "The Other Stage: From Jane Eyre to Wide Sargasso Sea." Bronte Studies 34.2
(2009): 155-61. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
Nixon, Nicola. "Wide Sargasso Sea and Jean Rhys's Interrogation of the 'Nature Wholly Alien' in
Jane Eyre." Essays in Literature 21.2 (1994): 267-84. MLA International Bibliography.
Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Ed. Judith L. Raiskin. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. Print.