Cruelty and Insanity in Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Essay

In this interpretation of Simone de Beauvoir 's mother 's horrible decent to death, Beauvoir finds out her Maman is taken to the hospital for a broken bone after a fall, instead the fact that her mother has intestinal cancer is revealed. After many surgeries, her mother’s suffering is only drawn out. The author ponders on the virtue of doing so, in conflict with condescending doctors while empathizing with overburdened nurses. Simone de Beauvoir gives us a reflective and somewhat detached depiction of the final days in the life of her declining mother. Interwoven throughout the novel is the escalating succession of the authors mother dying of cancer, there are also recollections of the relationships of younger years among herself, sister, and parents.

After they had talked about her past, she began to go crazy and started drinking rum like an alcoholic. Since he didn’t love Antoinette he tried to break her up by calling her Marionette and Bertha and then sleeping with Amelie for Antoinette to hear. Christophine says that he tried to break her up because he is jealous that she is better than him because doesn’t care all about money. He is unhappy with her but is still determined to stay because he is afraid of scandal. He does not want people making fun of him and laughing for marrying her in the first place even though everyone already is. He also is afraid of what people will say about him if they find out they separate. Antoinette and her husband leave Jamaica. When they get to their destination, her husband pays Grace not to gossip about anything and locks Antoinette in a room with Grace with the purpose that no one will know their business. He doesn’t want scandal and he is now a wealthy man so he got what he wanted in the end. Her husband took full advantage of her weaknesses to gain control and

for; we are introduced to her from when she is young so we know and

“A Sorrowful Woman” features a superficially simple narration style. “Now the days were too short. She was always busy,” Stylistically clipped, with a clear passive, detached, voice the narration style seems to be a banal, unimportant feature of the text. Yet the exact mendacity that prompts this description actually serves as a prerequisite to developing an understanding for the principal character’s mindset, and consequently the theme of the text. The last passage contains numerous examples of detached narration but the clearest occurs when “She was always busy. She woke with the first bird. Worked till the sun set. No time for hair brushing. Her fingers raced the hours.” The concise, third person narration in this segment allows the reader to experience the slightly off viewpoint of ‘the mother.’ Specifically, given the lack of motivation present through the text coupled with the concluding suicide it becomes evident in the text that ‘the mother’ is suffering from depression. Given the societal stigma surrounding mental illness authors generally face an uphill

She does not inquiry Antoine on where he is going, who he is with, nor why he decides to ditch school. Surprisingly, she chooses to completely neglect Antoine. She calls her husband, lies to him about her whereabouts so she can leave him with the full responsibilities of caring for Antoine. Her lack of good judgment sparks an argument between her and her husband. She clearly does not show him, nor Antoine any type of remorse for her behavior.

This shows how Jeannette has this life living in poverty, sometimes without food to eat, and shows how she becomes successful and escapes the impoverished life.

Fraser starts the biography off with the birth of Marie Antoinette. Fraser is very kind towards the young duchess, and also describes her mother. Antoinette’s mother, Maria Teresa, was a powerful Empress of Austria. She gave birth to Marie while doing paper work, as she did not believe in wasting any time, and would be viewed as a strong influence in her daughter’s life. Fraser is very soft with Marie’s personality and with her history. She flows through the writing, giving endless detail on how the monarchy worked and how everything was handled. Fraser’s detail throughout the entire biography is handled with elegance and precision, as she never left out a single moment of detail. She kept the story in chronological order, except for small moments where information must be spread further. It started from her Majesties birth, to her arranged marriage, to her crowning, and to her downfall, then death. Fraser was immensely helpful to her readers, as she would help create an understanding as to why things were the way they were in the 1700s. She gave carful depictions of how the

The main reason to her mental deterioration is her coming to terms with the female oppressing society that she is living

When Antoinette’s husband takes her to England, he locks her up in the attic and leaves her without a sense of self. Antoinette says that "There is no looking-glass here and I don’t know what I am like now…. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?" (107). Without being able to see herself through a looking-glass, Antoinette doesn’t understand who she or what her purpose is, which is very upsetting for her. This loss of self- identity causes Antoinette to act out and worsens her mental health issues. When Antoinette sneaks out of the attic and sees herself in the looking-glass, she says she sees “the ghost, the man with the streaming hair” (???). After being locked away, she is unable to recognize her own physical appearance. Through this description, Rhys is showing that Antoinette’s identity has been completely taken away from her and recognizing the importance of knowing who we are. As, without an identity, Antoinette no longer has a purpose for

Anna Dufresne lives in a factory that eats children. If the brutal machines don't kill Anna, her guardians' neglect and abuse surely will. The only thing this abandoned teen wants is out. But the factory is inside a stone fortress, on an island, where people are sent to be forgotten. It serves as a dumping ground -- both for orphans who are not welcome at finer institutions, and for nuns who have disgraced the Church. The walls of Saint Frances du Chantal's Orphan Asylum hum with secrets and buried scandal.

Marie was really bad at reading. Writing for her took too much time so her mother had to hire a tutor, she disliked it. She had an extravagant lifestyle, she loved to party. She loved to dance. She performed at her older brother's wedding, when she was younger.

During the story I have come to understand the mother best. She becomes too afraid to take a stand against her husband's tyrannical outburst's, she's happy and content with so little to say and nothing of meager value to prove to her children. The mother has been ravaged by her husband's constant complaining about the smallest of burdens for years, she has adapted to his behavior and has allowed her children to become victims of the insanity.

An example of this is when Mr. Rochester cheated on her and slept with Amélie. Antoinette went into a depression-like state and Bertha is the one who attacked and bit Mr. Rochester. This is another thing that leads to the idea that Antoinette has DID as in cases such as this the stronger personality (Bertha) takes over in an attempt to protect and shield the weaker one(s) (Antoinette). In a situation where Antoinette is in danger or deemed as needing to be protected Bertha takes over and attempts to do so by whatever means necessary.

In Wide Sargasso Sea, much of Antoinette Cosway 's life is concerned with her isolation and oppression. She is isolated and oppressed from her society, her mother, and,

“This is the worst book I’ve ever read”, “Why do we have to read this?”, “The school making us read this is basically child cruelty”. Okay maybe that last judgement was a tad dramatic but I will NOT say it is completely wrong. These were just a few comments thrown around the Bishop Tyrrell English classroom when the students were forced told to read the Novella called The Old Man and the Sea. Ernest Hemingway was an American Novelist, short story writer and journalist. No one liked his work before he wrote The Old Man and the Sea, and frankly I think it should have stayed that way. Hemingway tried to mix up the traditional style of writing when creating the novella that went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature.