After the fire at Coulibri, Antoinette endures a rough time in her life, for her mother rejects her and Pierre dies. Antoinette’s mind is full of fear, sadness and instability. This trauma is clearly shown in the convent that she attends for the remainder of her adolescence. Upon entry, Antoinette takes immediate note and puts extra emphasis on describing the stones in the school. Taking note of the “cool stoneflagged room” (Rhys, 28) and providing this as the initial description suggests that she is at first uncomfortable. Having just been aggressively confronted by two residents of the island Antoinette is shaken (Rhys, 27). In order to further convey Antoinette’s distrustful mind, Rhys describes the uninviting and cold stones of the convent thus allowing the reader to more deeply …show more content…
understand how Antoinette is feeling. It is clear this is not where Antoinette wants to be. As Antoinette learns to love life at the convent, she becomes used to the practices and takes comfort in being a part of the school. Jean Rhys shows this through a second more pleasant description: “The long brown room was full of gold sunlight and shadows of trees moving quietly.” (Rhys, 31). Here Antoinette is no longer in a state of misery but is rather at ease and in a peaceful state of mind. From the vivid scenery to the “cheerful faces” (Rhys, 34), what was once cold and uncomfortable for Antoinette is now pleasing and intimate. The convent itself has not changed, however, Antoinette’s description of it has. The change in the way she describes the convent corresponds to her change emotions and psyche as she shifts from being distressed to untroubled. Setting is not only used to portray the feelings of Antoinette but also the feelings of Rochester.
In first arriving to the island Rochester’s description of his new bride shows the reader that he does not truly love her and in fact is afraid of her. Calling her eyes dark and alien (Rhys, 36) suggest that he dislikes her appearance. By ignoring his wife and turning his focus to Amélie, Rhys suggest that Rochester is unhappy with Antoinette as his …show more content…
wife. Upon meeting some local men Rochester is immediately intimidated (Rhys, 38). These men present themselves as much stronger and larger than Rochester, thus making him feel insecure about himself. Out of jealousy Rochester states , “Everything is too much… Too much blue, too much purple, too much green” (Rhys, 39) suggesting to himself that he is normal while the island is the irregular and abominable. While he thinks this, the audience can actually see jealousy and intimidation in his description. At first glance this harmless description appears to be solely to describing the scenery, however it actually provides an inside look into Rochester’s mind. Rochester’s feelings later turn to fear as his stay on the island goes by: “I was lost and afraid among these enemy trees.” (Rhys, 64). In saying, “enemy trees” (Rhys, 64) Rochester explains that in his mind he is at war. At war with his surroundings and all that is new to him. This impossible description of mere trees shows the beginning of Rochester’s madness. While physical setting plays a major role, temporal setting also has a crucial role in this story. The plot takes place shortly after the implication of the emancipation act which in 1833, abolished slavery in all British colonies including Jamaica. Antoinette’s family being slave owners would have been greatly affected by this. When the slaves were freed they hated their former owners and saw them as, “convenient symbols of evil” (Ciolkowski, 342). Facing much hate as a child, Antoinette grows up to be very weary and frightened of the people of colour inhabiting the island: “I never looked at any strange negro. They hated us. They called us white cockroaches.” (Rhys, 7) It is not only Antoinette who fears the coloured people of the island. Her mother too fears them. Annette says, “they can be dangerous and cruel for reasons you wouldn’t understand.” (Rhys, 14) after Mr. Mason dismisses that the people are, “too damn lazy to be dangerous.” (Rhys, 14) From this carefully chosen time frame the book offers explanations for the fears of Antoinette and her mother as well as the anger in the former slaves of the island.. In this manner Rhys renders real historic emotions through temporal setting, bringing realism to her tale and binding it to history. Throughout the novel Rhys is able to depict fear, happiness, anger, intimidation and even madness without explicitly having characters describe them.
In order to maintain a realistic feel as a first person narrative Jean Rhys turns to setting, both physical and temporal, to describe the way the character sees the world and from here allow emotions, psyches and moods to be drawn from this description. The imagery in each setting provides the reader with more than just a mental image. Rhys makes use of every detail to convey emotion. When reading the Wide Sargasso Sea one sees the world through the eyes of another. It is important the one pays attention to the fine details as they are describing more than just the
surroundings.
The last years of Marie Antoinette’s life was written as a tragedy. She was taken as a
In Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, the reader is constantly reminded of the natural beauty of the Caribbean through the novel’s multiple narrators; I’d like to focus on Antoinette’s husbands’ (who I’ll refer to as Rochester for the sake of this paper) ideas about the island’s beauty, and the immediate effect is has on him when he arrives. Rochester states that he didn’t have “much time to notice anything. I was married after I arrived in Jamaica and for nearly three weeks of that time I was in bed with fever” (Rhys, 67). While it’s commonplace for a tourist in a very different environment than is normal to become sick, Rochester hints that this was not a coincidental sickness: “The road climbed upward. On one side the wall of green, on the other a steep drop to the ravine below. We pulled up and looked at the hills, the mountains and the blue...
Already full of self-criticism and self-loathing (Grigg 140), Antoinette begins feeling an “unconscious sense of guilt,” the result of an identification with someone to whom the person has been erotically attached; and it is “often the sole remaining trace of the abandoned love –relation” (Grigg 141). While Rochester is determined not to love her, he cannot help but feel responsible for her, after all part of the exile, and therefore her undoing is attributed to him. Unable to walk away from the marriage, he sets out to make the best of it the only way he knows how, by locking her away, exiling her
Indeed, keeping with the gothic theme of the novel Edward Rochester is a dark, mysterious, blunt man whose confidence can often be mistaken for arrogance. Rochester’s traits award him Byronic status. Merja Makien confirms this point by saying, “in appearance, Rochester is a typical gothic hero, dark and brooding with ‘granite-hewn features’ and ‘great, dark eyes’’’. Furthermore, “you think me handsome” and “retain my hand” does not only show that Rochester wants Jane’s approval but displays an intimate and flirtatious relationship between them. Likewise, the Master of Bly in the Turn of the Screw is a distant and mysterious man who is attractive to the governess. We begin to understand the governess’ intentions when she describes the situation at Bly as a “magnificent opportunity” to impress the master. Moreover, Rochester appears to Jane, the reader and himself as a pillar of physical power and makes no apologies for the way he is; “I cannot alter my habits”. Not only does this confession have undertones of self loathing but it is almost a cry of help aimed at Jane to cure his metaphorical illness. Like all great Byronic figures in literature Rochester needs to go on a road to redemption. We begin to see this path form when both Jane and the reader’s feeling of pathos for Rochester is heightened when they find out about his past “family troubles” as well as the fact that he “lost his elder brother”. Both Jane and the ...
The sense of fear attributed to the setting in 'Wide Sargasso Sea' may have been influenced by Rhys' own experiences as a creole woman growing up in the Caribbean. Rhys' great-grandfather's house was burned down by members of the local black community in an act of revenge, as he was a slave-owner. This event is often considered to have inspired Rhys to write about the arson of Coulibri. This supports the idea that Rhys was influenced by her own feelings of fear in her own home, which indicates that fear is a vital part of the setting in the
... and an indication of Antoinette's fate. The most destructive fire in Wide Sargasso Sea comes at the end of the novella, when Antoinette burns Thornfield Hall down to the ground. While this action serves as an escape and an act of defiance, it is also destructive, as Bertha takes her own life in the process of taking power from her husband: "Then I turned around and saw the sky. It was red and all my life was in it... I saw the orchids and the stephanotis and the jasmine and the tree of life in flames" (170). Antoinette's ultimate act of rebellion will, of course, lead to her ultimate destruction--- the life that she sees in the burning sky will be extinguished when she comes crashing to the ground. Rhys' use of fire in moments that show or foreshadow physical and emotional devastation reflects the role of fire as a symbol of destruction in Wide Sargasso Sea.
Geoffrey Chaucer has successfully developed several themes which are seen throughout his works. Although the literary techniques that Chaucer uses are not his own, these themes which reoccur are in the one of a kind style which defines Chaucer's works.
A couple of years later Antionette is arranged to marry Rochester. They move to the Winward Islands. Rochester doesn’t remember much about the wedding. He doesn’t feel any loves towards her. He feels that his father and brother tricked him into marrying a lunatic.
Schapiro, Barbara Ann. "Boundaries and Betrayal in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea." Literature and the Relational Self. Ed. Jeffrey Berman. New York: New York University Press, 1994.
Sarvan, Charles. ¡§Flight, Entrapment, and Madness in Jean Rhys¡¦ Wide Sargasso Sea.¡¨ The International Fiction Review. Vol 26.1&2:1999:82-96.
Antoinette is born into a life of isolation. In her early life, her mother mentally isolates her. Antoinette’s mother paid little to no attention to her because of Antoinette’s sickly little brother Pierre. This lack of attention leads to Antoinette’s isolation from her family. Antoinette herself states, “She wanted to sit with Pierre/ I was old enough to look after myself.”(Rhys,7). Since her mother focused solely on Pierre, Antoinette learns that she needs to be independent. She knows that her mother will not help her, which indicates that she is isolated only to her own thoughts because she did not really have anyone else to socialize
Rhys, Jean, and Judith L. Raiskin. "Wide Sargasso Sea." Wide Saragossa Sea: Backgrounds, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998. 3-112. Print.
Racial tension is a major theme in “Wide Sargasso Sea”, with the mix of whites and blacks and white/blacks in the novel creating a cut-throat atmosphere which creates a hazardous place for Jamaica’s denizens. Many racial situations occur between whites and blacks, which Americans are use to due to the dangerous troubles between blacks and whites in the 1950s with a clear enemy: the whites. But Rhys tackles a more important point: an overall racial hostility between everybody living in Jamaica during the novels time period with no one to blame. Instead of using only racism, Rhys uses situations her readers could easily relate to such as: betrayal, adultery, and feeling of not belonging. Through her use of alternating points of views, Rhys uses racism shared by both characters and their actions/faults and thoughts to meld and to show the blame cannot be placed onto one person.
Therefore, Antoinette's fabrication of identities and Rochester's later manipulation leads Antoinette to have no identity, causing her to slip into madness. Rhys exploration of the key theme of identity through the character of Antoinette shows the reader the dangers of not being true to your own roots but having them forced upon you.
Rochester is a mimic of the occident despite being a member of the society. He is ‘almost the same’ but patriarchal structures meant that the younger son would not gain as much as the first born, and so he is victimized by his difference, just as Antoinette is. Sylvie Maurel believes that by ‘marrying Antoinette, Rochester is by no means creating his own story. As a penniless younger son, he is pressurized by his family into an arranged marriage with a presumably wealthy creole.’ Unlike Annette’s second husband, Mr. Mason, Rochester does not travel to Jamaica in order to ‘make money [off old estates] as they all do’ (p. 13), he does so to please his father.