But he's a reliable narrator, too reliable, there essentially to establish facts. It struck me as a laziness in Rhys that, having changed the beginning, she left what follows untouched. And all the best bits of the husband's narrative are when he sounds exactly like Antoinette. That Rhys eventually dumps him for part three and returns to Antoinette does make you wonder why he was ever there in the first place. She also very clumsily adds a brief third voice in part three which confirmed to me that she gave far more thought to crafting her sentences than she did to structure.
It would have demanded a more refined artistry but my feeling was Rhys could have and should have channelled all the information we learn through the husband through Antoinette. What redeems the architectural flaws is how well Rhys writes and how much of interest she has to say about her subject matter. It's sad if this, as the cover proclaims, is her masterpiece because my feeling is she was more than capable of writing a better novel. The average rating for this is 3.
And I haven't read this three times as this site declares. But I have now read it. Jane Eyre will follow soon. View all 40 comments. Sep 26, Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it Shelves: historical , gothic , british , 20th-century , literature , feminism , fiction , books.
But soon after their marriage, rumors of madness in her family poison his mind against her. He forces Antoinette to conform to his rigid Victorian ideals. Jul 15, Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing. I agree - the entire concept for this book was brilliant- fascinating- and it worked. What an incredible risk, Rhys made!! Truly was amazing. This book, half its length had twice as much lasting power.
The introduction, by Edwidge Danticat put me in the right framework to plow ahead. I became interested with what Danticat was fascinated with. Edwidge Danticat had a Caribbean background, as Rhys did. Rochester—was a Creole, a white person, who was born and raised on a Caribbean island, fascinated me.
I was sad, though, that we readers spent so little time with her, and that when we did see her she was either raging mad or setting things on fire.
There must be something more, I told myself. How did Bertha Mason come to be confined in our old house in England? Was she madly in love or simply mad? Had Mr. Rochester once loved her the way he loves Jane Eyre? Complex race and gender relations revealed themselves right away. This theme continues throughout Rochester re-naming Antoinette, Bertha , madness, and a relationship between money, lust, sex, and power.
Rochester marries Antoinette Antoinette tries to ride out the racial tensions and family struggles. The characters want freedom England a dream for Antoinette Many great reviews already written I completely agree I read it slow - I re-read parts several times. The female characters- Christophine, a former slave, and Antoinette, both will remain in my thoughts in much the same way Jane Eyre has. Loved it and agree with others Once again proving a thin novel of pages can have more power than books twice its length.
View all 35 comments. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest trees, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched. One was snaky looking, another like an octopus with long thin brown tentacles bare of leaves hanging from a twisted root. So I guess this counts as fanfiction? The writing style is of course different from Jane Eyre.
The depictions of the Caribbean are beautiful. Rochester's first wife, Antoinette Cosway, whom he met in Jamaica. The themes explored in the book are very postcolonialism discusses the relationships between former slaves and slaveowners after Emancipation , identity Antoinette is Creole and is therefore not accepted by either the blacks or the whites and madness.
I had no idea that the word "hysteria" was first used to describe a supposed mental ailment that women suffered from all because they had a uterus. I will definitely see him in a less than favourable light when I do re-read Jane Eyre.
View all 58 comments. Forgive me for this rather shocking confession, but I have never read Jane Eyre. It seems to be a rather troubling trend as before this I read J.
So, having never read JE , how can it be that I simply adore this book? In the Forgive me for this rather shocking confession, but I have never read Jane Eyre. Is it possible that I enjoyed it more, having never read JE? I feel better already having gotten this off my chest, but rest assured I will appeal to the Literature Gods for further guidance in this matter. View all 10 comments. Set in Jamaica shortly after the abolition of slavery, the novel follows from birth to death the heroine, a French creole woman of the former planter class who finds herself estranged from white and Black communities alike because of her fraught social identity.
In lush, fragmented prose Rhys begins and ends the story from the perspective of Antoinette, who speaks ellipt Hazy and full of dread, Wide Sargasso Sea fleshes out the character of Antoinette, the first wife of Rochester from Jane Eyre. In lush, fragmented prose Rhys begins and ends the story from the perspective of Antoinette, who speaks elliptically of her traumatic childhood in the colony and her descent into madness in England.
View all 8 comments. Every once in a while, I stop to think about the neglected characters in various novels who exist only as plot devices. What are their stories? If you saw the novel through their eyes, what would it be like? Therefore, ever since I heard the premise of Jean Rhys's novel, I was eager to read it. Bertha, Mr. Rochester's first wife, must have had a life other than as the "madwoman in the attic".
I do not know if Charlotte Bronte ever thought about it, but Ms. Rhys obviously did, and this compellingl Every once in a while, I stop to think about the neglected characters in various novels who exist only as plot devices.
Rhys obviously did, and this compellingly readable novel is the product. The language is beautifully evocative. I could see the West Indies, even though I have never been there. I could see, hear and smell the tropical countryside very much like my homeland , at once breathtakingly beautiful, compellingly seductive and strangely frightening-like Antoinette. Especially to the eyes of an Englishman whose green meadows and rolling fields hold no secrets.
Yes, the countryside is beautiful It may suddenly cloud over and start to rain, and you may find yourself in the burnt-out ruins of a country house populated only by ghosts of dead slaves and murdered slave-owners. The characterisation is perfect. Rhys draws each character, including the minor ones, with a few deft brush strokes. Rochester, for all his faults, comes across as sympathetic, a victim of his times and society: the "evils" he does are part of his social makeup.
And Antoinette is a masterpiece-inseparable from the landscape she inhabits. As we progress through the novel and she slips more and more into madness, the narrative also matches her mental state. In fact, the third part is downright creepy.
However, I am still plagued by a niggling doubt Oh well An epic romance made meek, singular, aromatic, ethereal, surreal. A fresh little nugget of splendor, of much-needed prose perfection. This is gothic romance at its absolute height. It's perhaps the best piece of fan-fiction ever.
But it takes a life of its own Not short of magical, it's baffling how truly impactful these short novels really are. Rhys gives us so much by giving us the absolute least. Leaving the reader naturally to ask for more. There are specks of Graham Greene the impeccable here; as well as Toni Morrison the visionary -- SO the best of the best in the best.
View 1 comment. I think the idea of one author piggy-backing, uninvited, on the characters and plot of another, is decidedly dodgy. With such well-known books, I don't think it's a spoiler to say this imagines the story of the mad first wife in Rochester's attic: from her childhood in Jamaica, through to her marriage to I think the idea of one author piggy-backing, uninvited, on the characters and plot of another, is decidedly dodgy.
With such well-known books, I don't think it's a spoiler to say this imagines the story of the mad first wife in Rochester's attic: from her childhood in Jamaica, through to her marriage to Rochester, and a final epilogue that ties the two novels together, set in her attic at Thorfield.
She travels from privilege to poverty and then to something else altogether. Colour in ever sense , and its contrasts and consequences, is at the heart of the novel, such as when "marooned" is used as a literal description and a metaphor, when Antoinette is looking at her mother. The lush and multitudinous colours of the Carribean ooze from almost every page see quotes at the end , but it's the colour of people that is more problematic.
Antoinette is mixed-race, but mostly accepted as white. Except that "accepted" isn't really true. When her widowed mother marries Mr Mason "we ate English food now" , she notices how English he is, how un-English her mother is, and is less sure about herself. A black person describes her as a "white cockroach" and the English think of her as a "white nigger", but the blacks say that a "black nigger is better than white nigger".
She muses, "I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong". Colour determined the balance of power in colonies like Jamaica. Freeing the slaves changed that, but didn't entirely reverse it. With the story set at this turning point, it's not only Antoinette who is questioning her identity and her place in life, and to some extent, her personal change of circumstances, and Rochester's role in that, echo those of colonial people in general.
The rich colours sometimes have an unreality about them, and that seems prescient when dreams and drugs appear to muddle reality and unreality "Only the magic and the dream are true — all the rest's a lie. But they are transient, I think. What of madness? I was expecting this book to be about what madness means, and the use and abuse of the label especially by men, about women , and perhaps it is. Nevertheless, the overwhelming theme for me was colour.
Later Rochester has a turn, and they swap a couple more times. In narration and dialogue, it wasn't always immediately clear who was talking.
Not a huge problem, but a definite irritation. In fact, Rochester's final passage is more muddled and rambling than any of Antoinette's. Given this, and the way Rochester was tricked into the marriage stated in Jane Eyre, but given detail here and some of what happens in this book view spoiler [rumours and lies to turn him against his wife, black magic, potions hide spoiler ] , one has to ask whether he is as much of a victim as Antoinette is.
Apart from the characters though Rochester is never named , there are echoes of what is to come, perhaps designed to reinforce local ideas of of the power of obeah magic : view spoiler [arson causes the family to flee their home; her mother apparently goes mad from shock and grief ; manic laughter; nightmares; a nearly cancelled wedding hide spoiler ].
The colour red is strong in both, in the literal sense furnishings, flowers, fabrics, sky etc , and perhaps as a foreboding of fire of temper and of flames. A more Biblical omen comes from several mentions of a cock crowing: just before the wedding; when collecting view spoiler [a black-magic potion hide spoiler ] "That is for betrayal, but who is the traitor?
Daniel claims to be one of many illegitimate half-siblings of Antoinette. Her white father was well-known for his philandering ways with local women, but the authenticity of Daniel's personal claim is disputed. Baptiste tells Rochester that Daniel is "a very superior man, always reading the Bible" and, a few sentences later, "Daniel is a bad man and he will come here and make trouble". Is this poor editing, or deliberate and significant? In his house, there is a framed text reading "Vengeance is mine" and Daniel is jealous of Sandi the favoured illegitimate son, who passes as white, and is wealthy.
His feelings about Antoinette are less clear, and his motives for telling Rochester about her mother's madness and other gossip are also uncertain: does he want to protect Antoinette in some way, is he hoping Rochester will be so incensed that he will wreak revenge on the Masons and maybe gratitude on Daniel and why, at the end of the scene, view spoiler [ does he ask Rochester for hush money, when what he's said is apparently common knowledge?
Or maybe I'm reading too much into a minor scene? Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too near. And it kept its secret I want what it hides. But always music, a music I had never heard before. For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness. She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.
View all 41 comments. I want to stress how crucial it is to read Jane Eyre before starting this. There's simply no understanding what happens in Wide Sargasso Sea otherwise. Though perhaps that doesn't matter, because I don't recommend this anyway.
Rhys's basic vision was strong but her execution terrible. To provide some brief background, Rhys imagined Antoinette as a Creole girl in a gorgeously lush Jamaica, with the story opening at the height of political and racial tensions there. This prequel is divided into three parts. A young Antoinette narrates part one; part two is narrated mostly by Mr.
Rochester whom Rhys for no valid reason chose to never name ; and part three is once again narrated by Antoinette, this time as an adult. Part one starts off promisingly enough, but when Rochester materializes in part two, Antoinette is suddenly an adult woman, newly married to him, and the union is a loveless one.
This jump in time is too abrupt to work. The story is most intriguing and moves more quickly when it opens, when young Antoinette is trying to make sense of her relationship with her mother. Another trouble spot concerns Rochester. Rhys didn't flesh out Rochester any more than she fleshed out Antoinette, so significant narrative devoted to him matters little, nor should it change how fans of Jane Eyre feel about Rochester.
His portrayal here is simply too colorless to inspire any strong opinions. I honestly had no idea whatsoever what some of her sentences meant, despite repeated reading.
Rhys lacked a fine-tuned ear for dialogue, and she didn't use dialogue to make her characters distinct. They fell in a day, and looked like snow on the rough grass--snow with a faint sweet scent. Then they were blown away. And it kept its secret. Her sections should be the most significant, most powerful of the entire book, yet she remains almost exactly as she did in Jane Eyre : a shadow of a woman, indistinct, never able to be truly understood or even pictured.
Wide Sargasso Sea is a disappointment all around and a classic I would have been no worse off for skipping. Bertha Mason, it seems, is a character fated to remain a mystery. Maybe one day a really talented writer will take on the challenge of giving her the backstory Rhys failed at miserably. I'll eagerly read it. Shelves: read-in Fear of the fallen myth syndrome is what has prevented me from reading this book for years.
You have to understand, Jane Eyre was my first "adult" novel. I was still a tomboy who had only read Enid Blyton's "The Secret Seven" when one scorching summer day the torn spine of a seemingly ancient book caught my attention among a few volumes sitting on my Godmother's shelves. I remember that summer as one of the best of my life, and while Jane became my personal heroine and I developed a fervent crus Fear of the fallen myth syndrome is what has prevented me from reading this book for years.
I remember that summer as one of the best of my life, and while Jane became my personal heroine and I developed a fervent crush on Mr. Rochester, I discovered an awkward but exhilarating female awareness completely foreign to me. Call me nostalgic, but I didn't want to lose that simple and uncomplicated feelings from my childhood.
I should have known better. Doomed Bertha, from fire you come, consumed in fire you will go. Antoinette Cosway is the scapegoat of a decadent, expatriate and exploited society. She neither belongs with the "whites" nor the "niggers". She is a white cockroach , a white nigger who carries the heavy burden of her slave-owner ancestors during the last remains of the British and French Colonialism in the Caribbean Islands.
A neglected child, she blossoms in isolated existence, nurturing a strange communion with the exotic, humid landscape of her home in Coulibri. Prejudice and superstition ignite her dormant sinister tendencies when her mother's house is set on fire by the locals, killing his half-witted brother Pierre and leaving Mr.
Mason, her mother's second husband, as her sole protector. A young woman who shies from light and longs for the cool shadows of a convent where she recovers from shock. Her beauty thrives attuned to the hostile and oppressing tropical surroundings. One should never leave lonely alone. Rochester , with her sad, dark alien eyes. And her red dress, as blinding as furious flames but in complete harmony with the too much red flowers , closes in on her young husband, choking him, disorienting him.
Impressionable Edward Fairfax Rochester, the typical Victorian gentleman, overwhelmed with the intensity of these somber, bizarre, damp landscapes with its menacing and reproachful people, can't avoid feeling equally appalled and attracted to his new wife. His cold and possessive masculinity keeps him from acting far from virtuously with his young wife, pressing instead of soothing, demanding instead of empathizing, presumptuous instead of trusting.
Clash of cultures, class and race relations, the suffocating subconscious of unknown misdeeds Deranged woman? Or simply a collateral undesired effect of the oppression of colonialism and patriarchal tradition, embodied of course, in Mr. Jean Rhys masters the helplessly biased, non reliable, first person narrative form, alternating the voices of both Antoinette and Edward, smothering the reader with her misleading lush tone, hypnotizing him with her exquisite and deeply disturbing style, which builds up imperceptibly towards a suffocating and unavoidable culmination.
Antoinette says It is always too late for truth. Such an elusive word. We all seek truth. But which truth? I have found my own truth, better said, I have shaken hands with my long time found but not avowed truth.
A truth I already perceived in Mr. Rochester's guilt, in his deceitful ways, in his rough domineering character. He never loved Antoinette, Bertha as he called her in a futile attempt to change her, for she was much of a wild spirit, caught alight, impossible to cage.
She didn't have a place in this world, so Mr. Rochester forced her to create her own. And curiously, this new found truth does nothing but enhance my feelings for my childhood hero, this wounded rogue, shinning with all his flaws, who comes more alive today than ever. Rhys' novel stands on its own and it's her subtle and haunting voice that allows us to listen to those who never dared to speak before. I have listened and understood. Have you? I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain.
I hated the sunsets of whatever colour, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty which was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. View all 43 comments. I don't think I really understood this book at first, but after I finished it, I went looking around online for more info about it and it clicked.
This book is a prequel to Jane Eyre to be read after you read Jane Eyre. Reading it before you read Jane Eyre will probably spoil some of it for you.
Also, as a stand alone book without referrence to Jane Eyre, I don't think it is a particularly interesting book.
The story for me was a bit flat. I didn't fully understand the motivation of the character I don't think I really understood this book at first, but after I finished it, I went looking around online for more info about it and it clicked. I didn't fully understand the motivation of the characters. This is a case of having to know a bit of the background of the world at the time the book was released to really get it.
There are a lot of themes around the treatment of women, race, slavery, imperialism, etc. I know I didn't at first thanks, Wikipedia! The story just was there. View all 13 comments. Using a pencil instead of pen for the ink spills over while I shake. Influence of cheap wine.
Sometimes I get out of control, freaky. My neighbors think I am mad. What do they know of madness? Who knows of madness? People only see what is there before their eyes. Who bothers to think how the despair creeps inside, shutting out the doors to the World permanently? I look at the copy of Jane Eyre kept on the table by my side. I fill with rage. No one th Oct. No one thought of you. No emotion or thoughts expressed, not even fear.
No one thought you had a soul too; a heart that once throbbed to the love of a man. Or that you loved to sing and dance, perhaps. Or that you had a mother, consumed by a raging fire of the memory of your dead brother. That you tried to keep sane in a mad-mad world filled with people who were no better. Why did no one think of you, Bertha?
No, not Bertha. It is how they have known you, till now. Only a madwoman in the attic. I will call you Antoinette, a name your mother may have given you, with love, when you were born. The other side. No more false heavens. No more damned magic. You hate me and I hate you. But first, first I will destroy your hatred. You will have nothing. Wide Sargasso Sea is a tale of passion, and madness. Its a story from a time when slavery was abolished and slave traders were shunned from the community in Jamaica.
A little girl grows up and finds herself alienated from society, growing up away from love, as certain events tear her family apart. A world of superstition and magic, a world of vivid colors is where our story is told. A world of hatred, and madness. With an impending World War and economic crisis from the first still at large, the themes of Good Morning Midnight were deemed too depressing by critics and readers and drove her into isolation from the public eye.
At such a moment, when she had almost given up writing, an advertisement requesting her whereabouts for permission to adapt her then-latest work into a theatrical presentation appeared in the newspaper.
Her friendship with Selma Vaz Dias, the origin of the advertisement, eventually inspired her to begin writing again. In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty. Jean Rhys might have started writing what became Wide Sargasso Sea shortly after her return from Dominica in , the one return visit she made to the island of her birth after leaving it as a teenager in Citation: Hulme, Peter.
The Literary Encyclopedia. If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here. Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea words. Peter Hulme University of Essex. Volume 4. Rochester finds the tropics and the fragility of European imperial enterprise disorienting and threatening.
At 76 and in poor health, Rhys won the W. Smith Award for Writers and the W. She accepted a CBE in At her death Rhys was working on autobiographical vignettes which, edited by Diana Athill, were published in as Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography. Scenes from Wide Sargasso Sea were filmed for Sargasso!
A combination of physical theatre, opera and spoken text, it is based on Part Two of Wide Sargasso Sea. Most recently Willoh S. Portsmouth Climate Festival — Portsmouth, Portsmouth. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in.
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