Analysis Of The Novel ' Wide Sargasso Sea '

To set the stage in “Jane Eyre” our Protagonist, Jane Eyre is deceived by Mr.Rochester, one of the antagonists in order to “protect” his love, Jane. Mr. Rochester’s deception begins

“Jane’s relationship with Rochester in the early part of the novel is based not on love but control, manipulation and secrecy. She does well to escape”

In this passage from Jean Rhys' novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette and her newlywed, Rochester, travel to their honeymoon estate, Granbois. The two are relatively unfamiliar with each other, so the excerpt features Rochester's initial perceptions of Antoinette, the woman with whom he would spend the rest of his life. In surveying the land around him, Rhys connects the wilderness of the Caribbean island to the girl riding alongside the Englishman; in Rochester's mind, Antoinette becomes part of the nature surrounding him. Rhys suggests through the connection of nature imagery to Antoinette that the disparity between the two characters of opposite backgrounds will eventually result in a breakdown of their relationship.

This imagery is overtly sadomasochistic, and one that both feel describe their desires for each other accurately. Jane, therefore, is truly a free human being, as she knows that she can leave Rochester at any time, and a sexual being, whom finds pleasure in the overbearing desires of her master. She more overtly expresses her own interest in such masochistic desires after she has agreed with Mrs. Fairfax to keep Rochester at bay physically: “For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a pinch on the arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the ear, It was all right; at present I decidedly preferred these fierce favors to anything more tender” (295). This quote demonstrates that Jane prefers painful pleasure over gentle caresses, at least at this time, and Rochester is not simply a master, but rather “her master,” as belonging to her in mutually pleasurable relationship.

In Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea, whether Antoinette Cosway really goes mad in the end is debatable. Nevertheless, it is clear that her life is tragic. The tragedy comes from her numerous pursuits for love and a sense of belonging, and her failure at each and every one of these attempts.

In the marriage of Mr. Rochester and Antoinette, Mr. Rochester is as an oppressive force, a husband who wants to dominate his wife. We see Mr.Rochester’s dominance in how he treats his wife as an object and ultimately muddles her identity. His initial dominance is economic; upon their marriage, he owns all of her wealth and we see the consequence of this dynamic when Antoinette asks Christophine for help in improving her marriage. Christophine advises her to just "pack up and go" to which Antoinette tells her that Rochester "will not come after [her]" because she has "no money of [her] own..everything [she] had belongs to him" under English law (69). Clearly economically powerless, Antoinette is dependant on her husband and unable to escape a loveless marriage and start over. Mr. Rochester 's economic stability grants him power, leaving Antionette as the woman in the marriage, oppressed because

In the novel Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, Antoinette Mason’s identity is frequently discussed. Antoinette, the daughter of ex-slave owners and a woman whose life is dictated by mental illness, grows up in the Caribbean as a Creole during the nineteenth century. As a young adult, she is forced into a marriage with a white man from England, an event that ultimately leads Antoinette to her downfall. At the start of the novel, Antoinette and the characters around her are optimistic about their identity and future. As the plot progresses, Antoinette increasingly struggles to understand who she is and what her future entails. Ultimately, Antoinette loses her identity and her purpose. Throughout the text there are many reoccurring motifs. A motif

In the essay, “From the red room to Rochester's haircut: mind control in Jane Eyre,”

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys shows the delicate balance between madness and sanity. Throughout both novels there is a lot of unusual behavior to say the least from Antoinette. There are many factors that can have a detrimental effect on one’s mental stability which is shown blatantly through the relationship between Antoinette and Bertha. This shows the relationship and balance between inherited factors and environmental influences such as other people and events that are happening around the person.

Once Rochester is on the island he instantly hates his surroundings. He is used to Great Britain and everything on the island is an assault on his senses. "Everything is too much, I felt as I rode wearily after her. Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The flowers too red, the mountain too high, the hills too near. And the woman is a stranger." He sees Antoinette as a wild Creole girl who is not like English girls. She is wild just like the place

Despite all his faults in Jane Eyre, the one virtue he maintains in that story is sorely lacking in the Wide Sargasso Sea, his personal integrity. “Nor was I anxious to know what was happening behind the thin partition which divided us from my wife’s bedroom” (Rhys 140). “You bring that worthless girl to play with next door and you talk and laugh and love so that she hear everything. You meant her to hear.’ ‘Yes that didn’t just happen. I meant it’” (Rhys 154). A man who is capable of treating Antoinette in such a way, of purposefully “breaking her up” as Christophine would say, makes one wonder if he is even capable of redemption in Jane Eyre. His little encounter with Amélie could be ascribed to his intoxication on the voodoo love potion, though by the time he sleeps with Amélie many hours have passed including a trip to the ruined house and a nap in its eerie surroundings. Furthermore, Rochester’s actions are inherently selfish. Motivated solely by greed, he seems to be unwilling to let Antoinette have even a small portion of happiness. He had the option to leave with at least half the dowry and let her move on with her life, but chooses instead to keep both her money and mind locked away in the attic of a cold, colorless castle. Regardless of whether this depiction of our Mr. Rochester is canon or not, Jean Rhys effectively makes us despise the new Rochester all by solely changing the

On the example of Jane she demonstrates that women were objects of sexual desire and that they had to be pure and innocent, because it was what the society expected from them. Moreover, Jane’s one and only goal in the story, is to become Rochester’s wife and this alone degrades women to the status of unambitious creatures who are dependent on males in order to survive and fulfill their life’s dreams. Rochester, on the other hand, can be compared to the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. However, this beast, even though not very handsome and clever, is allowed to treat women like his possessions without ever being punished. Moreover, even though he does so many evil things, he is still praised by Jane as a figure that every woman could dream of.

Colonialism in the 19th century was a scramble for land in which the various European powers competed for untouched land that was thought to be full of precious metals and natural resources. Brontë strongly condemned the actions of the colonizers through her usage of symbolism and allusion to imperialist figures in Jane Eyre. Edward Rochester is shown to be one of the figures who act not only as supporting characters in the story, but also serve to relay a deeper message about the inherent evils of imperialistic practices. Rochester is portrayed to be similar to the imperialist figures present in the Old Testament (Tracy). Rochester is at first representative of these empires of heathens through his manipulative actions, but was later “saved from destruction by a cleansing fire”, and is restored to be Jane’s husband after this redeeming event (Tracy). Most notably, Rochester is compared to

this is a dangerous place for them to be in, and that, like Eden, the

Through the Victorian Age, male dominance deprived women from a certain freedom. In Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre repeatedly struggles to become an independent young lady due to the troublesome men in the story. John Reed controls Jane, Mr. Brocklehurst humiliates Jane, and Mr. Rochester sees women, in general, as objects. The author manages to depict patriarchal dominance through the characterization of John Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester.