So what can you say about this strange and rather disturbingly brilliant novel in your exam? The examiner is looking for your sophisticated and insightful nuggets on form, structure and language, within the 'Literature of Love' topic of study. "What does this novel have to do with love?" you ask. Like many of the extracts you will havc seen, there is less to do with romantic love here than with the many emotions associated with love: desire, lust, trust, some happiness, hate, fear and jealousy. To discuss this, there is no better place to start from than:
Form
Novelist and literary critic, Frances Wyndham, says in the Appendix at the back of your Penguin Modern Classics copy of the novel that: "...the main elements that place Rhys amount the purest writers of her time are her 'passion for stating the case of the underdog ' and her 'singular instinct for form'. For more detail on this, see the Schmoop Study Guide (see below).
1. Narrative
The most obvious point in form is Rhys's use of the narrative point of view. The novel is a patchwork of first-person narratives, told directly to the reader (or to another character in Grace Poole's case).- Part One is narrated by Antoinette, looking back on her troubled childhood home on the Coulibri Estate near Spanish Town on the Caribbean island of Jamaica in the 1830s.
- Part Two is narrated by the (never named) Mr Rochester from the moment he arrives with his new wife, Antoinette, in Granbois, the Cosway estate near Massacre on one of the Windward Islands (probably Dominica), for their honeymoon. It's a diary-like account, referring to 'this morning', then reflecting further and further back on the journey, the wedding ceremony, the days leading up to the wedding, and back to the present and the deterioration of the relationship.
- Part Three begins with narration by Grace Poole telling another servant, Leah, how she has been engaged to care for a woman in a large house in England (which we instantly recognise as Thornfield from 'Jane Eyre'. A page later, Antoinette resumes the narration in the present tense, during her time in the attic.
So what can you say about this when comparing with unseen texts in your exam? Well, the narratives often relate the same events from different perspectives. We never have access to the truth in the form of an omniscient observer, so it's easy to get lost in a spiral of who says what to whom. Each narrator is to some extent 'unreliable'.
2. Symbols, Imagery, Allegory
a) Setting - the land
You could say that the land is itself a character in the novel. The description of the land sets the tone for the whole drama, reflecting the characters' juxtaposition of emotions - lust/innocence; hope/despair; love/fear. The novel opens a few years after Britain's Emancipation Act of 1833 (15 years before the French and 30 before the Americans). Many slaveholders were ruined; former slaves bore a major grudge against their former owners. See above for more on the setting linked to the narrators. For a map and excellent guide to the background to the locations in the novel, see Bookdrum.com.
b) Birds and beasts
These are usually allegories for the struggles of the characters. Coco the parrot reflects Antoinette's own conficted identity when he calls out, "Qui est la?". Cockroaches echo the term "white cockroach" a derogatory epithet (descriptive term of abuse) applied to white Creoles. Fireflies and moths also populate the novel's emotional life.
c. Colour - Antointte's red dress symbolises her femininity and, scented with Caribbean flowers and spices, it also symbolises her Creole identity. Her white dress is associated with male dominance, rather than feminine chastity or wedded bliss - it's the colour Antoinette wears in her nightmare. Also, race is a key theme in the novel, and colour plays a big part in that - Antoinette is caught between the white and black communities as a Creole (white native to Jamaica).You could say that the land is itself a character in the novel. The description of the land sets the tone for the whole drama, reflecting the characters' juxtaposition of emotions - lust/innocence; hope/despair; love/fear. The novel opens a few years after Britain's Emancipation Act of 1833 (15 years before the French and 30 before the Americans). Many slaveholders were ruined; former slaves bore a major grudge against their former owners. See above for more on the setting linked to the narrators. For a map and excellent guide to the background to the locations in the novel, see Bookdrum.com.
b) Birds and beasts
These are usually allegories for the struggles of the characters. Coco the parrot reflects Antoinette's own conficted identity when he calls out, "Qui est la?". Cockroaches echo the term "white cockroach" a derogatory epithet (descriptive term of abuse) applied to white Creoles. Fireflies and moths also populate the novel's emotional life.
d. Fire - associated with rebellion, both political and emotional.
3. Genre
'Wide Sargasso Sea' fits somewhere into all of the following genres; Coming of Age (like 'Jane Eyre'); Historical Fiction; Horror; Gothic Fiction (also like 'Jane Eyre'); Modernism. These can all be explained by the genre 'literary fiction' in that it subverts (or plays with) all these genres. Modernism = highly stylized, innovative, complex.We can do a 'classic' plot analysis with 'Wide Sargasso Sea':
1. Initial situation - Antoinette's unstable childhood
2. Conflict - Antoinette marries Rochester
3. Complication - the letter from Daniel Cosway/Boyd alleging awful things about Antoinette and her family;
4. Climax - Antoinette 'poisons' Rochester to try to win him back;
5. Suspense - Antoinette runs away to Christophine's and quarrels with Rochester on her return;
6. Denouement - Rochester ships Antoinette back to his manor in England;
7. Concusion - Antoinette dreams of setting fire to the house. When she wakes up, she escapes from her attic room and walks down a dark hallway by candlelight...
Love Quotations from 'Wide Sargasso Sea'
- Romantic love - not really an issue for Rochester: for him, both Antoinette and Amelie are objects to be owned and enjoyed sexually.
- Marriage - more of a financial transaction that deprives women of economic and political power.
- Religious love - at the convent, Antoinette is taught that happiness is only possible in the afterlife and that sexual desire can only corrupt and degrade.
- Betrayal - the novel is one long series of betrayals.
- Desire - this is what Rochester experiences rather than love, seeking to own things and then losing interest once he does. "She's mad but mine, mine. What will I care for gods or devils or for Fate itself if she smiles or weeps or both. For me. (II.7.13,17)
- Hate - Antoinette and Rochester never express their love for each other. She says, "I hate [the place] now like I hate you and before I die I will show you how much I hate you." (II.6.6.33). "I hated [the island's] beauty and its magic and the cruelty that was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. 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."(II.8.33-4)
- Death - death becomes a metaphor in the novel for all that can be lost, transformed or destroyed. The novel plays on the literary tradition of equating death with orgasm, suggesting how se can be a form of control rather than pleasure. The novel is also full of people acting like zombies and ghosts.
Further Resources
Click here for a really good map, pictures and guide on the setting of 'Wide Sargasso Sea'.Click here to read the introduction and beginning of the novel at Amazon.
Click here for the enotes.com study guide, including chapter summaries and here for the entertaining and informative Schmoop Study Guide.
Click here for the 2006 TV adaptation and here for the 1993 film information on the Internet Movie Database.
You can also watch the 2006 TV version on YouTube:
You can also listen to an audio review here.version
Meet the Cast - here is the introduction to the character notes from the Schmoop Study Guide. See the guide itself and click on the character box for a more in-depth analysis.
Antoinette Mason Rochester
So…is she or isn't she? Mad, that is. Even though much of the novel is filtered through Antoinette's point of view, it's easy to read the entire novel and still have no idea who this woman is...
So…is she or isn't she? Mad, that is. Even though much of the novel is filtered through Antoinette's point of view, it's easy to read the entire novel and still have no idea who this woman is...
Rochester
(Note: Although the novel leaves Rochester unnamed, it is common critical practice to call the unnamed male narrator Rochester, after the character in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.)It's hard t...
(Note: Although the novel leaves Rochester unnamed, it is common critical practice to call the unnamed male narrator Rochester, after the character in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.)It's hard t...
Christophine
Christophine, Annette's servant and Antoinette's nurse, is one character where a first-person point of view might have helped. (For first person narratives, we get Antoinette, Rochester, and (drum...
Christophine, Annette's servant and Antoinette's nurse, is one character where a first-person point of view might have helped. (For first person narratives, we get Antoinette, Rochester, and (drum...
Annette Cosway Mason
A native of Martinique like Christophine, Annette is Antoinette's mother, and functions in the novel as an awful shadow of what's to come for her daughter. Unlucky in love – check. Discrimina...
A native of Martinique like Christophine, Annette is Antoinette's mother, and functions in the novel as an awful shadow of what's to come for her daughter. Unlucky in love – check. Discrimina...
Mr. Mason
Mr. Mason, a wealthy planter and Annette's second husband, is mainly in the novel to anticipate Rochester. Like Rochester, Mr. Mason doesn't comprehend racial relations on the island, and dismisses...
Mr. Mason, a wealthy planter and Annette's second husband, is mainly in the novel to anticipate Rochester. Like Rochester, Mr. Mason doesn't comprehend racial relations on the island, and dismisses...
Pierre Cosway
Poor Pierre, Antoinette's little brother, doesn't get much play in the novel. He doesn't talk or do anything; his main function in the novel is to get ill and die. Both his illness and his death en...
Poor Pierre, Antoinette's little brother, doesn't get much play in the novel. He doesn't talk or do anything; his main function in the novel is to get ill and die. Both his illness and his death en...
Tia
With friends like Tia, who needs enemies? Antoinette first meets Tia when Tia followed her home, hurling racist insults at her – the basis for a sound friendship, right? Of course not. While...
With friends like Tia, who needs enemies? Antoinette first meets Tia when Tia followed her home, hurling racist insults at her – the basis for a sound friendship, right? Of course not. While...
Sandi Cosway
Sandi Cosway is the son of Alexander Cosway, Antoinette's father's son by another woman. Unlike Daniel Cosway/Boyd, Alexander Cosway and his son are members of colored society who are accepted by s...
Sandi Cosway is the son of Alexander Cosway, Antoinette's father's son by another woman. Unlike Daniel Cosway/Boyd, Alexander Cosway and his son are members of colored society who are accepted by s...
Richard Mason
Richard Mason, Antoinette's stepbrother, helps Mr. Mason fulfill his goal of marrying Antoinette to an Englishman after Mr. Mason dies, and refuses to help Antoinette even when he sees how she is i...
Richard Mason, Antoinette's stepbrother, helps Mr. Mason fulfill his goal of marrying Antoinette to an Englishman after Mr. Mason dies, and refuses to help Antoinette even when he sees how she is i...
Aunt Cora
Antoinette's Aunt Cora appears to be the one person who has Antoinette's best interests at heart. But, because she's a woman, she has only limited resources to draw on to help Antoinette. While she...
Antoinette's Aunt Cora appears to be the one person who has Antoinette's best interests at heart. But, because she's a woman, she has only limited resources to draw on to help Antoinette. While she...
Amélie
Amélie, Antoinette's maid at Granbois, sleeps with Rochester after he is poisoned by Antoinette. But she's not just a saucy vixen. Like Tia, she taunts Antoinette with racist slurs, and Roches...
Amélie, Antoinette's maid at Granbois, sleeps with Rochester after he is poisoned by Antoinette. But she's not just a saucy vixen. Like Tia, she taunts Antoinette with racist slurs, and Roches...
Daniel Cosway/Boyd
Since the novel never tells us who's telling the truth, we're giving Antoinette the benefit of the doubt here and calling this character Daniel Cosway/Boyd. Claiming to be the illegitimate son of M...
Since the novel never tells us who's telling the truth, we're giving Antoinette the benefit of the doubt here and calling this character Daniel Cosway/Boyd. Claiming to be the illegitimate son of M...
Grace Poole
Grace Poole, Antoinette's guard and nurse at Thornfield Hall, gets some brief play at the end of the novel – even a short narrative of her own. Even though it seems kind of random, it does ma...
Grace Poole, Antoinette's guard and nurse at Thornfield Hall, gets some brief play at the end of the novel – even a short narrative of her own. Even though it seems kind of random, it does ma...
Sister Marie Augustine
Sister Marie Augustine is Antoinette's favorite nun at the convent school in Spanish Town, Jamaica. She comforts Antoinette when Antoinette is tormented by religious conundrums and nightmares.
Sister Marie Augustine is Antoinette's favorite nun at the convent school in Spanish Town, Jamaica. She comforts Antoinette when Antoinette is tormented by religious conundrums and nightmares.
Godfrey
Godfrey is one of the Cosway servants who remained with the estate after Mr. Cosway passed away. He's a morose fellow who Annette suspects of knowing how her horse got poisoned.
Godfrey is one of the Cosway servants who remained with the estate after Mr. Cosway passed away. He's a morose fellow who Annette suspects of knowing how her horse got poisoned.
Myra
Myra is a servant who shows up after Mr. Mason and Annette get married. Aunt Cora suspects her of being a spy who tells the former slaves in the area about Mr. Mason's plan to import laborers from...
Myra is a servant who shows up after Mr. Mason and Annette get married. Aunt Cora suspects her of being a spy who tells the former slaves in the area about Mr. Mason's plan to import laborers from...
Baptiste
Baptiste is the head of the servants at Granbois. His respectful treatment of Rochester turns to disdain after Rochester sleeps with Amélie.
Baptiste is the head of the servants at Granbois. His respectful treatment of Rochester turns to disdain after Rochester sleeps with Amélie.
Hilda
Hilda, a servant at Granbois, is a young girl who's a mini-Amélie – all the malicious giggling but without the sex.
Hilda, a servant at Granbois, is a young girl who's a mini-Amélie – all the malicious giggling but without the sex.
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