Wide Sargasso Sea
THEMES
1.
Slavery, Oppression and Entrapment

Blacks emancipated; not compensation – become hostile

Enslavement – Annette in Coulibri Estate (marooned)

Antoinette in marriage
 Women’s dependence on fathers and husbands – seen in Antoinette who is a metaphor for ultimate captivity
2.
Complexity of Racial Identity

Whites from Europe versus white creoles

Blacks segregated by origin Christophine stands apart – Martinique not
West Indies

Illegitimate children – Daniel, Sandy
3.
Enslavement of Women

Gradual intro to Antoinette – convent

Legal and financial dependence on men (Annette marries 2 nd
time for this)

Men marry for money – i.e. Rochester

Antoinette, Annette both fall prey to men
MOTIFS
Repetitions of…
1.
Madness

Antoinette – mad father, mad mother, Annette, non-conducive for happiness
2.
Disease and Decline

Sickness reflects suppression of blacks by whites

Antoinette wants to escape to England

Disease seems to be a curse due to family past – rape, alcohol, etc
3.
Death
 Antoinette’s childhood memory – dead horse poisoned – lying in heat – flies swarming

Foreshadowing – Pierre’s death, Annette, Aunt Cora, Mr. Mason,
Antoinette’s own violent death

Reference to ghosts – eerie mood

Closeness to death
4.
Magic & Incantation

Granbois – home to magical practices - ‘obeah’ - Christophine

Reading of signs and symbols in the natural world by Antoinette ie. Antoinette saw the parrot burned alive – bad lick to watch a parrot die


Knowledge of magic – Antoinette’s source of power
5.
Fire

Destruction, damnation, smouldering passions

Coulibri Estate – Annette’s collapse and madness

Rochester mentions burning of candles – moths dying

Parrot burning

Her own end
SYMBOLS
1.
Birds

Coco – Annette’s pet parrot – clipped wings by Mr. Mason
 Cock crows along Christophine’s house – a symbol of betrayal
2.
Forests and Trees
 Antoinette’s dream of forest, tall trees, following sinister faceless man – future captivity in England

Rochester loses himself in a forest – ruined house – foreshadow of English house which will be burnt
3.
The Garden

Coulibri Estate: Garden = Garden of Eden

Gone wild

Sensual with brilliant colors

Lost innocence

Tangling overgrowth

Orchids – shabby looking

Biblical fall – Mom’s decline into greed & sensuality – same thing happened to Adam & Eve

Leading Questions:
Part I: The influence of Race and Gender inequalities on family/racial relationships
How do these racial problems influence Annette and Antoinette?
1. Annette--What does she want? Why is the horse so important to her? Why is she aloof from Antoinette? Why does she turn silent after the doctor's visit of Pierre?
2. Antoinette -- How is she different from her mother? How does she survive? What do her dreams mean?
Clues:
Female Creole Identities
Annette
(Antoinette's explanation: "How could she not try for all the things that had gone so suddenly, so without warning"
(18)
 the Cosways/Masons vs. the others: the others in
 the party p. 28, hated more by the blacks 34,
 the horse; p. 18/10
her son; p. 19/11


her views of Godfry and Sass p. 22/12
 gay and a good dancer 29;
Annette vs. Mr. Mason -- p. 32/19; p. 35/20
 Coco p. 41/22
 What happened to her afterwards? Antoinette's account: p. 130- 134/78
Antoinette
 the garden 19/ 10
 her reaction to the death of the horse: pretends that it
 does not happen. need of her mother p. 22/; rejection by her p. 26;
27; -pushing the daughter away pp. 20; 47 o the daughter's gradual losing of the mother p.
22; 26-27;
 loneliness; isolation from Jamaican society: e.g. the way to the convent pp. 48
 find refuge in nature without moving p. 23/13;
 solitude 28 /16 shingle 37, be contented
her dreams p. 26/15; pp. 59-60 --1st dream: sense of overall antagonism;
2nd dream: fear for the future and possibility of
 marriage and being confined.
the second refuge in the convent p. 53; 55; 57 (its simplistic eductaion of the world, nations seen in color p. 55; its lack of mirror, values and order, its

standard of beauty Helene's coiffure p. 54-56)
 death impulse p. 92
Racial Relationships: Antoinette and Christophine Christophine is practically Antoinette's caretaker, but is Antoinette intimate with
Christophine?

Clues:
 Part I:
Christophine pp. 20-21-- only one friend; quiet voice and quiet laugh; Antoinette's fear of the things hidden in Christophine's room 31
 Part II: p. 112/ 67-- after Christophine says she does not know England, Antoinette thinks: "but how can she know the best thing for me to do, this ignorant, obstinate old negro woman. . ."
Are the conflicts between Antoinette and Tia inevitable? What is the significance of their switching clothes in one scene and looking at each other as if they're looking at a mirror in another?
 their playing together p. 23
 their betting p. 24
 the black's invasion p. 45
Racial relationship: Tia and Antoinette
Kamau Brathwaite-"No matter what J Rhys might have made Antoinette think, Tia was historically separated from her by the ideological barriers embedded in the colonialist discourses of white supremacy" treatments of blacks
An unidentified black is a source of menace and a threat to
Antoinette.. . .in much of Rhys's writing there exists only the
Manichaean division of "good blacks"--those who serve--and
"bad blacks"--those who are hostile, threatening, unknown. . .. the relationship [between Tia and Antoinette] is based on the production of difference through the racialist stereotypes of the hardy, physically superior, animallike, lazy negro. . .[lazy black--sleep after eating] and the sensitive whilet child, on the other hand, contemplates nature, seduced by the "reve exotique." p. 89 The "narrative function" enacts a sentimental fiction of friendship between the black and white girls even as the

o o
"textual function" demystified and undercuts it.
The death of her planter father and the ending of slavery reduce Antoinette and her family to penury, from white to black. "Real white people" have money.The racial superiority depneds upon the economic ascendancy achieved by unpaid black labor. Without money, Antoinette's family become niggers, isolated from the rest of white society.
Fanon-"In the colonies the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich." three pennies--from Christophine to Antoinette to Tia the presentation of the black mob: 42, 38
"The most seriously wrong thing with Part II is that I've made the obeah woman the nurse, too articlulate.," Rhys.
1.
2.
3.
There are more than one An
Why is the marriage between Rochester and Bertha unhappy?
1. (Race) Cultural differences
-- her limited understanding of the world --
-- p. 42 "Oh England, England",”
-- p. 47 her Paris; "Is it true,' she said, `that England is like a dream?"
-- his illness and discomfort: p. 40, 41, blanks in his mind 45; p. 55 insecure
(Race) Rochester's prejudice and racial superiority; his cultural position as a colonizer
-- p. 39; p. 43
-- the priest's ruined house--Pere Lilievre--Pere Labat pp.
62-63; 83
Antoinette/Rhys's sense of doom --
-- p.67 her premonition--having to go to England to fulfill her dream
-- p. 88 "You ruined the place for me"
-- p. 89 "red-eyed, wild-haired"
-- p. 96 Rochester's being blinded
-- p. 111 "something I[A] must do."

4.
5.
6.
Rochester's lack of love, hypocrisy and selfish motivation
-- Agreed to everything 39; "not yet";
--not love her; perform and hide things p. 45, 61
--p. 55 watch her die many times
-- response to Christophine's plea for love p. 99
Rochester's position in a patriarchal soceity
Rochester's Marriage and Inheritance: p. 41; 69; his letter to the "Father" e.g. 38, 45, 97
Rochester's self-centeredness and possessiveness
-- e.g. the turning point in his conversation with C 95;
-- confusing the causes of his misery 97
-- Turning Antoinette into Bertha pp. 68, 81, and then to
Marionette
-- his self-pity and possessiveness (my lunatic), p. 99;
R's hatred of everything 102-103 o Why is Bertha mad? =Beast (in Jane Eyre), madness in the family (social criticism), driven mad (Antoinette's explanation of
Annette), or not really mad?
References to madness:
1.
Daniel's letter: madness in the family p. 57, 58
(shifted from Mr. Cosway, to Annette)
2.
Antoinette's explanation p. 78, 81 She is lonely and
3.
4.
5.
desperate. Madness associated with her need of a horse.
Christophine's explanation 94 --"They tell her she is mad. . . "
Rochester's use of the word "mad" to talk about
Christophine: 97
Christophine's care-taking p. 93
The crowing of the cock: pp. 40
-- betrayal of Judas; "Who is the traitor?" 71
-- changes of weather 97-98

http://www.literature-study-online.com/essays/bronte_rhys.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23598128/Wide-Sargasso-Sea
Sample Questions:
 As a child, Antoinette Cosway wonders why the nuns at the convent do not pray for happiness. When Antoinette and Mr. Rochester arrive at their house after their wedding and journey, they drink a toast with two tumblers of rum punch. Antoinette says, “to happiness.” Whey does happiness elude her?
When is she happy and what happens to those moments of happiness?
 Antoinette’s childhood is heavily overcast by threat. What are the threats from outside her household? What are the threats from within? To whom and to what does she turn for protection?

What is the racial situation as Antoinette is growing up? What does it mean that she gets called “white cockroach” and “white nigger”? How well do
Antoinette and her mother understand the mindset of recently liberated slaves?
What about the outsiders like Mr. Mason and Mr. Rochester?
 How does Antoinette experience of her mothers’ rejection shape her life? Is
Antoinette like her mother? Could she have escaped her inherited madness? At what point is it too late? Is she really mad?

Mr. Rochester seems to marry Antoinette for money, or perhaps for lust, or perhaps for power. Mr. Rochester makes love to Antoinette in part ot gain power over her. Antoinette persuades Christophone to use of the powers of her obeah to entice Mr. R to her bed. What are the relationships between money, lust, sex and power in the novel?

Perspective switches two times in the novel. What is the effect of reading the same story from different people’s different points of view? Which narrative voice do you trust more? Why?

For Antoinette, England is a dream; For Mr. R, the Caribbean is a dream. How do these perceptions keep them from understanding each other? How does it protect each of them to remain distant?

Many of the characters are mad and many are drunk. How do madness and drunkenness serve the characters? Do they give the characters freedom?
Protection? The ability to see the truth? The ability to hide from it?