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Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys

Start date: May 1, 2015

Finish date: May 15, 2015

Discussion: Classics Corner

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What Members Thought

Apr 19, 2008 Inder rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 1001-books, 20th-century, fiction, women, colonial-postcolonial, summer-reading, read-2008, caribbean

*** This review contains spoilers for the book Jane Eyre, and because Wide Sargasso Sea is based on Jane Eyre, there are some spoilers for this book as well. However, I imagine that most readers, like me, know the basic premise of both books before they start reading. Thus, I am not hiding my review.***

Haunting and lovely and very dark. A troubling book about passion, obsession, lust, and deep loneliness, written by a woman who ought to know. This is "Caribbean gothic," and gorgeously done. Howe *** This review contains spoilers for the book Jane Eyre, and because Wide Sargasso Sea is based on Jane Eyre, there are some spoilers for this book as well. However, I imagine that most readers, like me, know the basic premise of both books before they start reading. Thus, I am not hiding my review.***

Haunting and lovely and very dark. A troubling book about passion, obsession, lust, and deep loneliness, written by a woman who ought to know. This is "Caribbean gothic," and gorgeously done. However (and this may sound cold, but the best part of this book is the intellectual experiment), I was more interested by the political/historical aspect of the novel ...

This should be required reading for anyone who has read (and especially, like me - loved) Jane Eyre. And to a lesser extent, for all lovers of 19th century English literature.

I have read Jane Eyre at least twice, and I have always had mixed feelings about Mr. Rochester and his mad wife in the attic. I could never completely trust Mr. Rochester, who is not only extremely grumpy and authoritarian, but shuts his wife up in the attic while seducing Jane as well as some rich girl, and then knowingly commits bigamy ... Not exactly great husband material, right?

Also, who isn't disturbed by Bronte's easy equation between "creole" and "insane"? Implicitly, the humanity of the mad woman in the attic can be dismissed, because she is alien, uncivilized, and "other." It's downright creepy, even if taken at face value (but especially when read in connection with St. John's missionary zeal).

Jane is such a feminist character, but her choice of husand belies deeply internalized patriarchy - she goes for a man who, at best, is deeply troubled and needs to be taken care of, nurtured, and soothed like a petulant child, and at worst, is an untrustworthy and controlling megalomaniac. The novel's "happy" ending never felt that happy to me. Don't get me wrong - I love the novel all the more for that dark and ambivalent ending. But it's disturbing.

Wide Sargasso Sea attempts to grapple with the questions about colonialism and patriarchy that Jane Eyre never fully addresses, skillfully exposing the dark underbelly of 19th century English prosperity and power. In this way, it is a necessary companion to all my favorite gothic and Victorian British novels, as well as being a beautiful novel in its own right.

Through this novel, the subaltern woman, firmly outside the hegemonic power systems of her day, driven to insanity and reduced to arson and suicide, literally speaks. ...more

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Jun 24, 2011 Melissa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: directed-reading

A fascinating and moving novel that re-imagines the story of the "mad woman in the attic" who haunted Jane Eyre and her Mr. Rochester.

Thick with Caribbean atmosphere and interpersonal drama, this brief book offers an engrossing, poignant, occasionally horrifying, but ultimately satisfying read. Here we have an important political statement about gender, class, and race, beautifully framed as the picture of a troubled marriage of two people from rather different worlds but revealing oddly simila A fascinating and moving novel that re-imagines the story of the "mad woman in the attic" who haunted Jane Eyre and her Mr. Rochester.

Thick with Caribbean atmosphere and interpersonal drama, this brief book offers an engrossing, poignant, occasionally horrifying, but ultimately satisfying read. Here we have an important political statement about gender, class, and race, beautifully framed as the picture of a troubled marriage of two people from rather different worlds but revealing oddly similar character. Alternating between the perspectives of the new wife and husband, we watch a couple with remarkable sexual chemistry fail to overcome their mutual suspicion and preconceptions about his English masculinity and her Creole temperament. A combustible mix of oppression, resentment, and poverty threatens both the newly freed slaves and the European planter families.

The book offers an explanation for the madness of Antoinette Cosway (called Bertha in Brontë's novel) that is compelling yet also heartbreaking. A troubled girlhood, marked by parental rejection and sudden violence, may possibly be forgotten in her marriage to the unnamed Rochester, lured to Jamaica by her reputed beauty and especially the substantial dowry offered by her stepfather. For a brief while we enjoy the couple's honeymoon trip to the lush upland of nearby Dominica, surrounded by mountains, the sea, the strong fragrance of tropical plants and the soon-threatening press of the jungle. Black servants, especially Antoinette's old nurse from French Martinique -- apparently an adept of the local version of Voodoo -- are grudgingly respectful but increasingly sure of their new power in a time of shifting fortunes. Rumors and accusations about his bride, possibly false but probably at least partly true, lead Rochester to withdraw his affections and help send Antoinette further into despair and desperation. Her nightmare of confinement in Thornton Hall and its denouement offer a devastating but fitting conclusion.

...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Mary Ellen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Although I did not find it personally enjoyable, this is a very impressive book. Rhys takes on one of the most famous of English novels and writes a credible and very independent backstory for two of its characters: the taciturn Mr. Rochester and his unfortunate, mad first wife. And this book is all Antoinette's, even though the unnamed Mr. R. narrates the substantial middle section. Antoinette's, and the Caribbean's: lush, hot, haunted, and dangerous - so much danger in those shadows!

Both fever ...more

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Apr 24, 2015 Katy rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

II have not read Jane Eyre and I have never read any of Jean Rhys novels. What a fine writer! Her description of the Caribbean locale seethes with foreboding - the lush landscape, the hot humid climate, and unsavory characters, - all hint at fearful actions to come. There is the tension between the planters and newly freed slaves, as well as religious competition of Catholicism with the practice of voodoo. There is so much fear and insecurity simmering in the mind of Annette following the fire, ...more

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Dec 05, 2007 Laura McDonald rated it really liked it · review of another edition

While doing some research on fan fiction, I came upon a comment that while it is widely derided as non-literary work, there does exist recognized literary writing that is, in essence, fan fiction. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys was one of these examples.

The story is that of Antoinette Cosway, also known as Bertha Mason. If you think you’ve heard that name before, Bertha is the mad wife in the attic from Jane Eyre. Rhys tells Antoinette’s story from her childhood in Jamaica to her hasty marriage ...more

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Dec 17, 2007 Anna rated it liked it · review of another edition

Well, it shows what little I knew about this novella...I thought it was a full-blown novel! Turns out over half the book was criticism and excerpts from Jane Eyre.

The book was good. I definitely would not consider it great or well developed. I wanted to see more into her mind toward the end and I felt as if it just ended.

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