Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

16 reviews

c_dmckinney's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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

3.5

This book is a prequel to Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. It is an exploration and fleshing out of Rochester's first wife before he changed her name and condemned her to the attic for "madness". 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Grief, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Colonisation, and Classism

jessthanthree's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Drug use, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Dementia, and Gaslighting

lola_milk's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Child death and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Incest and Colonisation

patterson_cj's review

challenging dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting

cammiem8's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting

caribbeangirlreading's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Child death, Death, Suicide, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Infidelity, Sexual content, and Colonisation