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Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

14 reviews

malloryfitz's review against another edition

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2.0

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caribbeangirlreading's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

You have most probably read the coming-of-age story about the second Mrs. Rochester, Jane Eyre. But have you ever stopped to think about the first Mrs. Rochester? Who was she? What is her story? And, more importantly, was she really mad? In the original 19th century classic, Bertha Mason, the mad woman in the attic, was just a plot device. In Wide Sargasso Sea, however, Jean Rhys gives her life in this short but powerful novella that acts as a prequel, and post-colonial response, to Jane Eyre.

Bertha Mason (nee Antoinette Cosway) was born in Jamaica to a British father and a Creole mother of French descent. The novel opens with Antoinette describing her childhood, and the social and political reality of Jamaica at the time – the racial violence following emancipation, the disgust bordering on hatred that the British-born society had toward whites born in the Caribbean, the trauma she endured as a child following her father’s death. We then meet the young man to whom Antoinette is married off. (We assume he is Mr. Rochester, but he is never named.) We see the demise of an arranged marriage that barely took flight, and the decline of Antoinette’s mental health. And in between, we are treated to descriptions of the lush tropical setting by an author, who unlike Mr. Rochester, loved the Caribbean.

For a book that is only 177 pages long, WSS packs quite a punch. It tackles, among other themes, post-colonialism and British Victorian attitudes towards women and mental illness. As soon as I finished WSS, I ran to re-read the passages in Jane Eyre in which Jane and Mr. Rochester describe Bertha Mason and I will never again look at Jane Eyre as a strictly coming-of-age Victorian feminist novel. There is so much I didn’t see that I now do, which is exactly what Jean Rhys wanted us to do.

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ejb44's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Wide Sargossa Sea by Jean Rhys is an adaption of Charlotte Bronte’s infamous Jane Eyre, cantering itself on the ‘mad wife’ of Rochester. Through the little information readers were given regarding this character, Rhys managed to extrapolate it and create a backstory for this character, adding a postcolonial and feminist feel to the somewhat outdated narrative that is Jane Eyre.

As a feminist and colonial historian, I was dying to read this book. I think the way Bronte dealt with mental illness in the book was expected for the time but obviously slightly negative and victim-blaming, again, understandably. The thought that Rhys might be able to spin the narrative on its head and give the ‘mad wife’, named Antoinette (and Bertha) in Rhys’ adaption, the perspective and respect she deserved. Sadly, I think the book failed to deliver exactly what the book aimed for.

Firstly, the writing style is rather jarring, and I can’t seem to pinpoint why – it’s not colloquial, but its also not a smooth reading experience. It was often really difficult to figure out what was being said, and in the first 20 to 30% there was a multitude of characters introduced which confused me even more. It’s a shame because I think this is one of the main failings of the book as it feels like there’s a wall between the authors intentions and the reader.

To add to this, the book didn’t deliver in what it said it would be – a postcolonial and feminist adaption. Perhaps because Rhys had to have her ending tied to what happens in Jane Eyre, it still didn’t feel like the mental health aspect was fully explored – we find out her mum was driven to madness because of the loss of her land and her son and then Antoinette seems to go mad within a matter of pages towards the end. This was a huge let down for me because I don’t think Antoinette ever really gains the appreciation she should.

Following on from this, the way Rochester is written allows for more sympathy towards his character, which isn’t necessarily a bad point, but when paired with the fact that Antoinette’s mental healthy is never really fully fleshed out and explored in a way that makes the reader figure out what has happened to her rapidly declining mental health, the readers might find themselves sympathising with Rochester instead of Antoinette, whom in my eyes is the main orchestrator of her madness. Ultimately, because Rochester agrees to return to England with Antoinette, which by this point he is repeatedly calling her Bertha, her dead mothers name, we see him as not that bad of a guy because he would rather, she come back with him then leave her with an obeah, someone who engages in spiritual practice, either for evil or good. This just reinforces our idea that he isn’t too bad of a person. Also, when Rhys hints that he cheated on Rochester during her marriage, it all feels like an amalgamation to reduce Antoinette reliability as a character.

The one thing I did love about the book was the Rashomon Effect, or the questioning of reliability amongst the characters. The fact that we hear from both Rochester’s and Antoinette perspective allows the reader to come to their own conclusions, even though it feels like Rhys has a strong hand in our views of the characters. This ‘unreliable narrator’ aspect was by far the most intriguing aspect of the book because it covered the span of the book and was actually fully formed.

Overall, I think if you read Jane Eyre this might be an interesting short read just to see how culturally impactful the book is 200 years later, and the ever-growing shift in the importance of discussing mental health and marrying someone of a different country and culture to you. However, I think the writing let the book down massively, and the ending that I didn’t feel too comfortable with damped the overall experience.

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ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

“She seemed such a poor ghost, I thought I’d like to write her life.” — Jean Rhys on why she wrote Bertha’s story in Wide Sargasso Sea

TITLE—Wide Sargasso Sea

AUTHOR—Jean Rhys

PUBLISHED—1966

GENRE—literary fiction; retelling

SETTING—Jamaica, Dominica, England in early/mid 1800s

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—colonialism, slavery, mental illness, Caribbean identity, women’s history, literary history, literary revisionism

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️—one of the most beautifully written books that I have ever read.

CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️

PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

BONUS ELEMENT/S—Absolutely recommend reading the Norton Critical edition of this book as the supplemental contexts and criticisms helped me get SO much more out of this novel than I would have otherwise.

PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Do you think that too,” she said, “that I have slept too long in the moonlight?”

If nothing else this book demonstrates how complex the human condition is and how the perspective and experience of any one individual is too vast to be categorized by simple sociopolitical or economic or cultural or historical labels. Rather than get into all the complicated thoughts this book (and the accompanying essays in the Norton Crit edition) made me think, however, let me just say that there is SO much to unpack with this book, so many great themes and interpretations to discuss, but I want to just mention a couple…

The reason I was so interested in reading this book was because on my initial reading of Jane Eyre, I was really turned off from the book because of the depiction of and discussion surrounding the character of Bertha Mason and especially Mr. R’s treatment of her. Even though I would have loved to read a story that gave Antoinette/Bertha a happier ending, I appreciate what Rhys accomplished with this novel and especially love how much she makes the reader think about so many preconceptions and expectations they have when coming to a book like this one that deals with so many important and difficult subjects and themes.

This quote, from Caroline Rody’s essay, “Burning Down the House”, best encapsulates why I loved this book so much: “…although the text that opens a space for Antoinette/Bertha in literary history does not save her from her plot’s trajectory downward to madness and death, the novel’s trajectory is upward, toward liberation.” She ends the novel in the same place as in the original, but in a way that is “doomed but triumphant” (Rody). It reminded me a lot in this sense of Helen Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl which is one of my alltime favorite novels.

The book on its own however, still has a lot to say in regards to issues of feminism, Caribbean identity, colonialism, racism, mental illness, and identity. It is also incredibly beautifully written—one of *the* most beautiful books I have ever read. Though it is incredibly sad—there’s a real, honest purpose to that sadness, and that Rhys didn’t shy away from expressing the “truth” behind that, turned out to be more important to me in the end than giving Antoinette/Bertha a different story—she deserved to have the truth behind her “real” story told in its full, brutal, and unshadowed truth—as painful as it is.

“Now there was no time left so we kissed each other in that stupid room… We had often kissed before but not like that. That was the life and death kiss and you only know a long time afterwards what it is, the life and death kiss. The white ship whistled three times, once gaily, once calling, once to say good-bye.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ .25

TW // slavery, racism (the n-word is used a lot), colonialism, white supremacy, mental illness, death of a child, bullying, confinement, infidelity, violence

Further Reading—

Within These Wicked Walls, by Lauren Blackwood
The Icarus Girl, by Helen Oyeyemi
I, Tituba, by Maryse Condé
White is for Witching, by Helen Oyeyemi
The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

Favorite Quotes…

from the Preface, by Judith L. Raiskin:

“…feminist critics have been challenged by a novel that rewrites an English classic long touted for its feminist vision.”

from the Text:

“I lay thinking, ‘I am safe. There is the corner of the bedroom door and the friendly furniture. There is the tree of life in the garden and the wall green with moss. The barrier of the cliffs and the high mountains. And the barrier of the sea. I am safe. I am safe from strangers.’ The light of the candle in Pierre’s room was still there when I slept again. I woke next morning knowing that nothing would be the same. It would change and go on changing.”

“I took another road, past the old sugar works and the water wheel that had not turned for years. I went to parts of Coulibri that I had not seen, where there was no road, no path, no track. And if the razor grass cut my legs and arms I would think ‘It’s better than people.’ Black ants or red ones, tall nests swarming with white ants, rain that soaked me to the skin—once I saw a snake. All better than people. Better. Better, better than people.”

“This convent was my refuge, a place of sunshine and of death…”

“I found it very comforting to know exactly what must be done. All the same, I did not pray so often after that and soon, hardly at all. I felt bolder, happier, more free. But not so safe.”

“Do you think that too,” she said, “that I have slept too long in the moonlight?”

“Have all beautiful things sad destinies?”

“I am not used to happiness,” she said. “It makes me afraid.”

“So between you and I, I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all.”

‘ “A zombi can also be the spirit of a place, usually malignant but sometimes to be propitiated with sacrifices or offerings of flowers and fruit.” ‘ I thought at once of the bunches of flowers at the priest’s ruined house. ‘ “They cry out in the wind that is their voice, they rage int eh sea that is their anger.” ’

“I have been too unhappy, I thought, it cannot last, being so unhappy, it would kill you. I will be a different person when I live in England and different things will happen to me…”

“…and I have slept there many times before, long ago. How long ago? In that bed I will dream the end of my dream.”

“And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?”

“[This place] is not for you and not for me. It has nothing to do with either of us. That is why you are afraid of it, because it is something else. I found that out long ago when I was a child. I loved it because I had nothing else to love, but it is as indifferent as this God you all on so often.”

“I used to think that every time she looked in the glass she must have hoped and pretended. I pretended too. Different things of course. You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone. We were alone in the most beautiful place in the world, it is not possible that there can be anywhere else so beautiful as Coulibri.”

“Many died in those days, both white and black, especially the older people, but no one speaks of those days now. They are forgotten, except the lies. Lies are never forgotten, they go on and they grow.”

“Justice,” she said. “I’ve heard that word. It’s a cold word. I tried it out,” she said, still speaking in a low voice. “I wrote it down. I wrote it down several times and always it looked like a damn cold lie to me. There is no justice.”

“I thought that when I saw him and spoke to him I would be wise as serpents, harmless as doves.”

“If you are buried under a flamboyant tree,” I said, “your soul is lifted up when it flowers. Everyone wants that.”

“Now there was no time left so we kissed each other in that stupid room… We had often kissed before but not like that. That was the life and death kiss and you only know a long time afterwards what it is, the life and death kiss. The white ship whistled three times, once gaily, once calling, once to say good-bye.”

“…to light me along the dark passage.”

from Modernist Crosscurrents, by Mary Lou Emery:

“…identity depends upon place even as it questions the identity of that place…”

“…her divided identity within the cultural and historical context of its division…”

“The novel seems to have found two communities of readers, those who take a feminist approach and those who take a West Indian approach, and the two groups rarely converse with one another.”

“In Wide Sargasso Sea, the madwoman silence in Jane Eyre speaks, and her voice exposes and turns upside down the values, patriarchal and colonialist, upon which the plot and characters of Brontë’s novel depend.”

from “The Other Side”: Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre, by Michael Thorpe:

“…the coarse assumptions about madness, mingled with the racial prejudice inherent in the insistent suggestion that “the fiery West Indian” place of Bertha’s upbringing (Ch. XXVII) and her Creole blood are the essence of her lunacy…”

“Both heroines [Jane Eyre and Antoinette] seek imaginative space, know terrors beyond the common, endure the encroachment of meanace that threatens the very soul, and reach out for a seemingly impossible happiness.”

from Burning Down the House: The Revisionary Paradigm of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, by Caroline Rody:

“And of course, we can never think of Bertha Mason in the same way, having read of her lonely youth and spurned love, and remembering most of all the way she stands at the end of Rhys’s narrative, doomed but triumphant, torch in hand, about to fall once again to the death literature originally gave her—but not just yet.”

“Discrediting the father, Rhys recuperates the mother, who, mentioned in Jane Eyre only to suggest a genetic source of Bertha’s madness, is shown here to have been driven mad, like Antoinette, and under similar circumstances of loss, violence, and exploitation in marriage.”

“Rhys’s acceptance of Bertha’s martyrdom seems an acknowledgement of the tragic nature of literary history…”

“…the oppressions involved in the inheritance of a tradition…”

“…although the text that opens a space for Antoinette/Bertha in literary history does not save her from her plot’s trajectory downward to madness and death, the novel’s trajectory is upward, toward liberation.”

“Rhys forces history—that is, Charlotte Brontë—to bear the responsibility of killing Bertha…”

from Unquiet Ghosts, by Mona Farad:

“For, as Mary Daly points out, there is no state of innocence for woman in the patriarchal “Hall of Mirrors” (Beyond God 195): “The term innocence is derived from the Latin in, meaning not, and nocere, meaning hurt, injure. We do not begin in innocence. We begin life in patriarchy, from the very beginning, in an injured state” (Gyn/Ecology 413).”

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