Thinking activity: Wide Sargasso Sea

                Introduction 

Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 novel by Dominican-British author Jean Rhys. The novel serves as a postcolonial and feminist prequel to Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, describing the background to Mr. Rochester's marriage from the point-of-view of his wife Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress. Wide Sargasso Sea, novel by Jean Rhys, published in 1966. A well-received work of fiction, it takes its theme and main character from the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. The book details the life of Antoinette Mason (known in Jane Eyre as Bertha), a West Indian who marries an unnamed man in Jamaica and returns with him to his home in England. Locked in a loveless marriage and settled in an inhospitable climate, Antoinette goes mad and is frequently violent. Her husband confines her to the attic of his house at Thornfield. Only he and Grace Poole, the attendant he has hired to care for her, know of Antoinette’s existence. The reader gradually learns that Antoinette’s unnamed husband is Mr. Rochester, later to become the beloved of Jane Eyre.

 In the novel Jane Eyre, Brontë reveals a firm stance on feminism by critiquing the assumptions about social class and gender. She also places the context within the postcolonialism era during the Victorian society age. Throughout the novel, Jane is subjected to some kind of oppression, where she has no financial or social freedom. The challenges she faced existed during the Victorian era, whereby women were considered powerless and as objects to serve their families and society. Jane fights gender hierarchies and class to ensure a status quo.

Jane is the epitome of femininity, the first instance where Jane starts to reveal feminism is when she fights with her cousin, blamed even if she was not the one at fault, and locked up for a night. She says to Mrs. Reed.The Wide Sargasso Sea novel also portrays irony as the author tries to describe the idea of postcolonialism. Rhys wants readers to realize that being a casted woman is demanding. Therefore, with Antoinette’s Creole character, individuals have to understand that they cannot change their inevitable, and thus they should accept event.

“I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets of whatever colour, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty which 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.”

― Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

“You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone. We are alone in the most beautiful place in the world...”

― Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

“Justice. I've heard that word. I tried it out. I wrote it down. I wrote it down several times and it always looked like a damn cold lie to me. There is no justice.”

― Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

The postcolonialism era, men considered women   to be their appendages. Men would work, own business, and remain in public. However, only family life and marriage belonged to women. They had to depend on men spiritually, financially, and physically. For example, Adele and her mother demonstrate this idea, whereby they depend on Mr. Rochester for everything. Their dependence is further despised by the British people like Jane and Mr. Rochester consider them sensual and materialistic, characteristics associated with foreign women at the time.

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