Wide Sargasso Sea: A Novel

I have been hearing about this book for years, as something unique and transformative. It was a brilliant idea of Rhys, certainly, to imagine the life of the first Mrs. Rochester, the madwoman in the attic of JANE EYRE. Antoinette Cosway (the birth name of Bertha Mason in the book), is a Creole like the author herself, born of white parents in the Caribbean. Rhys suffuses the book with remembered beauty: the lush profusion of the Cosway estate at Coulibri, between the river and the sea, shaded by royal palms, scented with frangipani.

But it is a faded beauty. The Cosways were slave owners. Since Emancipation in 1833, Antoinette's father has lost their money and is now dead, the lovely house is in disrepair, and Antoinette's lovely mother is jeered at as a "white cockroach" and worse. Antoinette herself has some friends among the black children, but they too fall away. Although things will look up again both for her and her mother, the original sin of slavery leaves a legacy of hatred that will ultimately destroy her.

Like Charlotte Brontë before her, Jean Rhys spends a good deal of time on her protagonist's childhood, including a rather touching interlude at a convent school. But Antoinette is no longer poor. Her mother, "the most beautiful dancer in the Caribbean," has married again, and her new husband is generous. His early death leaves Antoinette rich enough to attract a suitor, but also without the guidance that might have prevented her from making an unwise marriage, to a man who is far from the romantic figure of Charlotte Brontë's novel.

For Antoinette's marriage, which began in love, founders on three things, Which in turn make her husband appear first credulous, then culpable, then cold. There is a series of letters alluding, falsely, to her past. There are their sexual relations, which Rochester enjoys on his own terms, but later sees as signs of degeneracy. And there is the suspicion that makes everything about the tropics seem ungoverned and alien to the cold-blooded Englishman. It is impossible to read Antoinette's tragedy without losing all respect for Mr. Rochester. WIDE SARGASSO SEA serves as an illuminating prequel to JANE EYRE, but it quite destroys the role of the original as one of literature's great romances.

Deliberately so, surely. For Rhys' novel is a powerful feminist tract, deconstructing both the male-dominated society of 19th-century Britain and the colonial ethos on which it -- and its literature -- was founded. But Brontë was not the only author I felt lurking in these pages; the other is more surprising: William Faulkner. Most obviously for his moral theme, of slavery as the sin whose wages are visited upon each succeeding generation. But also for his technique of using shifting and overlapping narrators. The first part of the novel, a richly colored exposition, is narrated by the child Antoinette. Later, as a child of a totally different sort, she returns to narrate the chilling conclusion, in the attic at Thornfield Hall. The middle section, though, where Antoinette's transformation takes place, is a tropical nightmare, narrated by Rochester but with unheralded shifts back to her voice. Definitely Faulknerian, and appropriately so. But I wish Rhys had been able to do it without resorting to such extreme characters; both Rochester's chauvinism and Antoinette's instability show the novelist being subverted by the polemicist, which Faulkner never was. [4.5 stars, rounded up.]

I confess: I never read Jane Eyre, and normally, I loathe stories like this. I hate a distortion. But I loved this book. And maybe because I never read Jane Eyre, I never felt this book was blasphemy or offended that Charlotte Bronte’s original vision was thwarted. I appreciated the work for itself.

The writing is smoky, dark, and seductive. Such lush descriptions and elegant writing. Every word perfect.

Beautiful Annette Cosway has two children, and marries the ignorant but wealthy Mr. Mason, whose underestimation of the political climate leads to her ruin. Annette Cosway has two children: Antoinette and Pierre. Mr. Mason thinks the locals docile and dumb, and one day, the house is set on fire, which kills Pierre.

Antoinette first stays an aunt, then is sent off to a convent. She marries Rochester, the second son, who came for a dowry. First there is love. Rochester dislikes Christophine, one of the servants, but he initially does love Antoinette. But he is persuaded to mistrust his wife, because of a letter he receives.

Antoinette wants to keep her husband, so she goes to Christophine for a love potion, and Rochester gets sick. Rochester claims that he would have loved Antoinette if only she did not poison him. He sleeps with servant Amelia, who says she feels sorry for him, who leaves after he gives her money.

The story is ultimately of tragedy, which Rochester wants to forget. You understand why Rochester wanted to lock Antoinette away, and why he chose a plain girl to wed. It all makes perfect sense.

This is a beautiful novel. More than a prequel or fan fiction. Rhys seeks to undo the colonial gaze imposed on people of the "West Indies" for generations after invasion. As a woman of mixed Creole and British descent from the "West Indies" herself, it's clear why the largely neglected character of Bertha Antoinette Mason-Rochester is where Rhys' focused her effort. Both Rhys and her protagonist are outsider's outsiders, driven into isolation by being of two races but accepted by neither.

Jane Eyre devotees will not find the kind of fan fiction they'd like here, nor does Rhys make any effort to write in Bronte's style. Its clear from reading reviews that many reader's get lost in this offering because they believe they know the point of it before they start, ie - it's fan fiction, it's a prequel, it's a proto feminist colonial and racial critique of Jane Eyre, etc,. And it can be classified and labeled into any of those boxes - but first and foremost, it's a story, just a plain old-fashioned yarn in its own right. You can and should grapple with the larger ideas presented in the novel, but only after you allow yourself the pleasure of steeping in the wide sea of Rhys' mystical prose.

Without the trappings of eye dialect, Rhys successfully captures the grammar of the local dialect without beating the reader over the head in a Hurston kind of way. Rhys excels in creating setting with locales so exotic even the locals are in awe of the land's mystery. And most poignantly of all, she breathes life into a character that, in Bronte's hands, was abandoned as a flat caricatured trope that equated ethnicity with insanity.

At first I didn't care for the 1st person shifts between Antoinette and Rochester. They were disorientating and I felt strongly, at first, that I just wanted Antoinette's perspective. As "Bertha" Mason, in Jane Eyre, was a listless enough character to be picked up for this treatment, similar to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. However, Rochester was a thoroughly established character to me already, but when I reflected more on it, I came to understand that in Jane Eyre, Rochester is only known through Jane's eyes and perceptions - I think that the term unreliable narrator is overused in all discussions of fiction and I don't think Jane deserves that stringent of a label, but she's not impartial about Rochester, that's for sure. Rhys' reflections through the 1st person perspective of Rochester are some of the most profound in the novel, in any novel, that I've ever read. His self-induced process of submitting to and even craving the gossip to use as a reason to distance himself from Antoinette are superbly written. He plays a game of make-believe with himself until he believes the story he tells himself as a means of justifying what he does. It could have been all too easy for Rhys to write him in more a vilified mono chromatic, white-colonial-jerk trope kind of way, but she really stepped up to the plate and made him an incredibly complex character whose process of self-deception is incremental and nuanced till it culminates into the horror that awaits Antoinette in England.

Rhys' deft ability to capture character allowed me to happily surrendered to the story and left me eager to explore the rest of her catalog.

Highly Recommended!

Jean Rhys' masterpiece has become a "school assignment book" which seems to ensure numerous one and two star reviews by those forced to read it. In addition, almost all reviewers seem to focus, quite heavily even, on its connection with a famous English novel which I will not mention until the end of my review, since that is where the connection is readily apparent in this novel. If for no other reason that it is the "path less traveled," I'd propose a strong connection with Caryl Phillips The Atlantic Sound. Phillips, like Rhys, was born in the Caribbean. Both would go to England in their youth. And both their works concern the terrible legacy of slavery, in particular, the "Middle Passage," the forcible transfer of black slaves from Africa across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, and such American cities as Charleston, SC.

The novel commences on the island of Jamaica, shortly after slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834. The first part of the novel is narrated by a young white girl, Antoinette Bertha Cosway, daughter of a slave owner and his wife. Their estate is called Coulibri; Rhys never says it means "hummingbird" in English. The father dies, and therefore his wife struggles to manage, in poverty, with her two children, the narrator, and her brother. The wages of sin, the sin of slavery, are literally death in some cases, but the core theme that Rhys examines is the insanity of both the mother and the daughter. She also explores the inevitable interracial sexual relations, and the children of such relationships. Also there are the terribly distorted economic and social relations, post-slavery, between the races. Can whites ever feel safe in their own beds without barring the bedroom door, given the legacy of injustice? William Faulkner depicted similar scenes of the revolt of slaves in these islands in his classic Absalom, Absalom! (Modern Library).

Rather inexplicably, Antoinette's mother is rescued from the poverty, but not the insanity, by marriage to an apparently wealthy Mr. Mason. Due to her mother's deteriorating mental state Antoinette is sent off to the proverbial nunnery. Her step-father saves her from that, with an arranged marriage to an English "fortune seeker," who acquires a sizable dowry in the process. But is it worth it? He narrates much of the second portion of the novel, and that is the central question as he must deal with not only his wife's dysfunctional behavior, but that of society at large, including, in particular, the servants. Christophine, whose origins are in Martinique, and who raised Antoinette, is a deeply threatening presence to Antoinette's husband. And throughout this action, Rhys paints a deeply vivid picture of the natural world of Jamaica, particularly in the isolated, central mountainous region. Due to societal evils, past and present, there is an edgy "Gothic" tone to novel.

The last part of the novel, only 10 pages, is set in England. And that is the connection with JANE EYRE, the "madwoman" in the attic. As a couple of other reviewers have said, Rhys novel is a sort of "prequel" to (Jane Eyre). And it is, in its way, truly, in that she provides all the motivation, squared even, necessary to indicate why someone "chooses," if that really is what happens, a personal insanity instead of living in a society which itself is "insane." This was the first novel of Rhys that I've read. It won't be the last. She packed a tremendous amount in, most skillfully, in 190 pages. 5-stars, plus.

In case the reader has not heard, Wide Sargasso Sea is the imagined backstory of the mad woman in Jane Eyre, the implacable enemy of the peace and happiness of her husband, Mr. Rochester, a man who bears as much responsibility for her madness as anyone. Set in a post-slavery Jamaica in the 1840s, the novel tells how Antoinette Mason comes to be the first Mrs. Rochester, and why that marriage was probably doomed from the start. Told with superb skill, it is a beautiful and deeply sad tale that meditates on the interconnections of innocence and knowledge, truth and illusion, memory and identity, love and sex, and trust and betrayal. The author, Jean Rhys, has done justice to that poor woman in the attic of the Rochester mansion, who is mad only because the world is mad. It is one of the finest novels I have read, as haunting as Wuthering Heights. Highly recommended whether you have read Jane Eyre or not.

Wide Sargasso Sea is the story that Charlotte Bronte did not tell - and Jean Rhys's masterful job in doing so. I had first heard about this book in an introduction to literature class I took Fall of '11, but although my interest was caught, I was floundering under the heavy weight of homework and recovering from a car accident, so the title got pushed to the back of my mind.

Then, Spring '12, in my British Lit class, once again the title came up. We had been discussing Jane Eyre and Bertha - the mad woman in the attic, and batting around various theories. One of the theories that caught my interest was how Bertha was the parts of Jane that she had suppressed through years of practice. This was brought to mind especially with the similarities between the two characters. But then, once again, the title of Wide Sargasso Sea was put onto the board and I remembered that this was one I wanted to read.

Then, fairly recently, an article was posted to Twitter of "modern literary adaptations" of classics that should be read. Once again, there was Jean Rhys's book .. so excuses aside, off to the library I went.

Wide Sargasso Sea is a short, but meaty read. I actually read the book twice - two afternoons in a row. The story is one of Antoinette (known later as Bertha) and the path that led to her madness. Jean Rhys gives a powerful voice to the mad woman in the attic and, as expected, the story behind Bertha was a tragic one which parts a very unflattering picture of Mr. Rochester.

If you would like to keep a romantic ideal of Mr. Rochester, I'd recommend steering clear of this title - however if you, like me, love Jane Eyre and would like to see Bertha given a voice (because, really people, she was LOCKED away in an attic), then I recommend picking this book up and letting it blow your mind a little.

After years of reading and re-reading JANE EYRE in high school and college, I discovered
that there was a companion novel of sorts--WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys. Born on a Caribbean
island, Jean Rhys emerged from years of isolation as a writer with this stunningly beautiful,
well-crafted, and haunting novel.

WIDE SARGASSO SEA is the mesmerizing story of a young mixed-up Creole woman named
Antoinette. From childhood, she is surrounded by a voodoo priestess, spirits,
and political upheaval. That's enough to disorient anyone. She meets Rochester, a man
she believes she loves. She tries everything to gain and hold onto his love. 21st
Century women have the opportunities of going to college or pursuing a career.
For a 19th Century woman like Antoinette, she must marry or be doomed. In Antoinette's
case, she's doomed anyway. Once she marries, Rochester has complete control of her
money and convinces everyone that she is crazy.

As I read WSS, I kept thinking, She's not crazy. I'm convinced Rochester was not
the Romantic hero Charlotte Bronte portrayed him to be. He was a money-grubbing cad.
(Today Antoinette would have gotten a pre-nup.)

Thanks to Jean Rhys for giving us this perceptive novel and letting us decide
for ourselves. WIDE SARGASSO SEA is, in my opinion, Jean Rhys' best novel.

--Yolanda A. Reid

Author of Porridge & Cucu: My Childhood

PORRIDGE & CUCU: MY CHILDHOOD

Here is the haunting story of Antoinette Cosway, a young girl growing up in post-slavery Jamaica, whose late father had been a slave owner.
Jamaica is lush, beautiful, and roiled by racial tension. Author Jean Rhys, herself a native of Dominica, captures its brooding allure with prose that is as vivid as it is spare. Antoinette's widowed mother, isolated and fragile, can do little for her daughter. Antoinette's few real advocates include a biracial cousin who is in love with her, and a wise family servant who turns to Obeah when her stern practicality fails her. Neither can protect Antoinette from English society in Jamaica, when she graduates from convent school and her stepfather marries her off to the kind of ne'er-do-well Englishman who was then sent to the Caribbean to find his fortune with a Creole heiress. Antoinette will be a pawn in a world in which race and gender are powerful forces that determine destiny.
The terrible mismatch is told from both points of view: the fearful, sensual, vulnerable young Antoinette, and her suspicious, austere, destructive husband. In the end Antoinette becomes the famous character from Jane Eyre; the mad wife Rochester keeps locked in the attic--a character Jean Rhys evidently sympathized with. Her desire to tell her story produced a canonic work that is an astounding, intriguing odyssey that I have read again and again for years.

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Originally published 1966
110 pages
Feminist; Classic
4/5 stars

Source: Library

Summary: A postcolonial and feminist novel exploring the life of "Bertha Rochester," immortalized as the madwoman in the attic, the wife of Jane Eyre's love Rochester. But was she a madwoman? Where did she come from? How did she come to such an end?

Thoughts: Somehow I thought this was part of my FITG challenge which is why I picked it up. But apparently my memory fails because it is not. Still I wanted to read this response to Jane Eyre; I'm not a big fan of the Brontës as I think I've made clear but I still keep trying to force myself to like them.

I really liked it. I wasn't sure what to expect and it was confusing at first as I tried to understand the social position of the Cosways. They are a former slave owning family, surrounded by former slaves who loathe them. Yet they are not rich and are not fully European. They are caught between two worlds and this is particularly important to understanding Antoinette (Bertha).

It alternates between Antoinette and Rochester's point of view (although I'm not sure he was ever named). She narrates her childhood. Then he comes. He is slime; sent there by his family to marry wealth, he grows to despise her. He takes her money, has a sexual encounter with a servant right next to her room, and hates her. She wants his love desperately and he refuses. In the end, he takes her to England where she eventually starts the fire that takes her own life. She feels it's better that way...and I don't think she's wrong.

The importance of names and their power is seen here. Originally she is born Antoinette Cosway; then her mother remarries and her last name becomes Mason; then she marries and is known as Antoinette Rochester; then he renames her Bertha. He ******* RENAMES her because he doesn't like her original name! I'm so angry about that.

As a next step, I would like to read literary criticism of it because I think that will help me get more out of it. Although I am not the best reader of classics, I am trying to read more in order to become a more well-read person. There are probably a lot of things I missed, although I still enjoyed the book.

Overall: I would recommend this to people who've read Jane Eyre with the caveat that the style is very different.

This is a deceptive book--at first glance it appears much shorter and more accessible that its putative motivator and predecessor, Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre." But the novel is fragmented, impressionistic, a pastiche of dreams and shifting viewpoints from inscrutable narrators. It's not at all an easy story to grab on to, yet it contains passages of undeniable evocative power, ranging from the Dionysian seductiveness of the tropics to the hysteria of a land in oppression and revolt.

The reader who stays with the story--not once but two or three times--will be amply rewarded by an author capable of suggesting so much more than what appears on the surface. Rhys conveys the island culture, exposes its people and classes, but she also penetrates the psyche of a proud and brutal British colonist as well as the inner realm of fear and desire belonging to his prey: a woman and a culture in flux, both more wronged against than the other way around.

The reader looking for a sequel to "Jane Eyre" is bound to be initially disappointed. Bronte establishes a style that, among its excellences, comes to represent an authoritative narrator and a decidedly confident Western point of view (albeit from a woman's angle of vision rather than a man's). By contrast, Rhys' style is so different as to strike the first-time reader as that of someone speaking, writing, and thinking in a language other than English--a language that the reader only gradually recognizes as his own.

But that's much the novel's point--the strangeness and disorientation resulting from the invasion of a defenseless island by a stable, civilized, patriarchal society frustrated by its inability to assert its customary order and, above all, control. The Bertha Mason the reader meets in this story may be disappointing, unrecognizable, a construction as far removed from Bronte's and the reader's experience as a character from a completely different world. But that's who Bertha Mason is, the "real" Bertha Mason--and her difference should in no way exclude her from the reader's sympathy, curiosity, and desire to know more about her. Unlike the unnamed Rochester (who is certainly no less a stranger, especially to himself, than Bertha), the challenge for the reader (and all of us) is to learn from her and through her--the better to know ourselves.

Though we may find the nightly television images from Haiti disturbing, we cannot afford to avert our eyes, to close our pocketbooks, to dissociate ourselves from the people of Haiti even as they die festering in the streets awaiting the bulldozers to plough them under. Bronte had some vague notion of the painful consequences of depriving others of their freedom, running heedlessly over their identities, and finally simply hiding them in some dark attic and throwing away the key. Paradoxical as it may seem, this latest catastrophe may be a first step toward unlocking the door. Contrary to Robertson, Limbaugh, and some of the other false prophets who purport to have access to higher wisdom, Haiti may not be God's punishment but our opportunity. The punishment could come should we fail to act to right a situation that next time could be much worse--and closer to our own shores.

[Note: Despite the store's reference to the edition (above), this is the novel by Jean Rhys.]

Fine book, in an excellent Norton Critical Edition which provides a wide selection of the letters and essays of Jean Rhys, ed. Judith L Raiskin; this edition gives the feminist context within which Rhys is probably best understood. I take the editor's point that it is a re-focus on Bertha, the "madwoman in the attic" of Jane Eyre's *Charlotte Bronte,* and is central for colonial studies, Caribbean culture, and feimnist writing: I think it should be required reading in women's studies programs, but what do I know, as a man? This Norton Critical Edition provides lots of helpful material, from Rhys' correspondence during the novel's lengthy gestation, material on the author's growing up in Jamaica as a Ceole woman, and "Backgrounds" introduction to the rich criticism inspired by his excellent novel. Also included is a Chronology of the author's life, and Selected Bibliography.

Rhys wrote this as a response to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, in order to reposition the character of Mrs Rochester, the "mad woman in the attic", placing her center stage here rather than being voiceless and without any expressed identity of her own, as in Charlotte Bronte's story.

Rhys does this by setting her story prior to the events in Jane Eyre; effectively the novella is a prequel to the latter.

Most importantly, she prioritises the white Creole, Antoinette - her original name: in Jane Eyre we know her only as the mysterious madwoman in the attic, until later, she is explained as being Bertha, the first Mrs Rochester.

As a result, her character in 'Sargasso', being placed front and centre, creates an entirely different set of interpretations and emphases, not least that Antoinette achieves her own identity and humanity here, rather than being relegated into a prison space of madness and silence, for which Mr Rochester himself is responsible.

This is a powerful, deeply haunting and hallucinatory, deeply poeticised novella (the style, in this regard, is reminiscent of Toni Morrison's Beloved. It is an original and heartbreaking of love unrequited, leading to madness.

The story is split into three parts, the first set in Jamaica, from the viewpoint of Antoinette as a child and in her youth, living on her plantation; the second section in Dominica, regarding the marriage and written both from Mr Rochester's imperialist viewpoint and sense (he only marries her as an arrangement established by his father to gain Antoinette's sizeable dowry and land), and Antoinette's increasingly troubled self (she knows that Rochester has had a sexual relationship with one of the female servants, while being with her); all the while you experience Rochester's own confusion and increasing disgust with the local people and the way of living, the heat and the tropical intensity of the place, so alien to him from his English, cold viewpoint.

And, the third and most dramatic part, in which we once again return to "Antoinette", now Bertha, not only abandoned, but left imprisoned - the original "madwoman in the attic" - in Rochester's house in England; a world she neither understands nor values, and in which there is no love for her, no interest; she is effectively made persona non grata for all the years she is locked up there.

Throughout the story, you experience the intensity of all those involved, the stifling physical environment, you feel the insecurity and uncertainty of the prescribed gender roles between Antoinette and Mr Rochester, and the locals, including servants.

There is no ultimate exit or freedom for the female; for the male, there is simply the repetition of the male-dominated power structure, such that it deprives the male of any real identity, beyond that of his family's expectations and a prescribed role for his own masculinity and authority.

Sargasso is a powerful read, troubling and passionate, and a unique and profound creative take on issues of identity (especially including Colonial, slave, and the power dynamic between England and the Caribbean), sexuality and madness. It is a fascinating, moving and clever re-interpretation of the story told in Jane Eyre, and is highly recommended.

PS - NOTE FOR STUDENTS (who may be obliged to study this novella): This is a genuinely worthwhile and helpful edition for students. Hilary Jenkins, who has written the editorial material, has done a good job. She provides not only a clear introduction, highlighting the distinctive qualities and structure of the story, but also a brief chronology of the author's life, very helpful notes on Creole language and phrasing, as well as historical points, exam- and essay-related questions you'd expect to have to answer as a student, as well as a separate section on the story's geographical and cultural, historical setting/context. Importantly, Jenkins concludes with Critical Responses to the novella, as well as suggested further critical/academic reading.

"Wide Sargasso Sea" was initially published by Jean Rhys in 1966. The novel functions, brilliantly, as a prequel of sorts to famed British 19th century novelist Charlotte Bronte's book Jane Eyre. However, Rhys has shifted the action of her book from the 1810s, in which Bronte's was set, to the 1830s, shortly after the emancipation of the slaves in Great Britain and the British Empire. "Sargasso" tells the unhappy backstory of West Indian heiress Bertha Mason, as she was to be known in her later life; she was to be the first Mrs. Rochester, the madwoman in the attic whom Jane Eyre must defeat in order to become the second Mrs. Rochester.

Surely, in the history of Western literature, there can have been few more inspired ideas than that of Rhys's: to develop the tragic kernel at the heart of "Jane Eyre;" and few writers better equipped to do so. For Rhys was the daughter of a Welsh doctor who'd gone to the West Indies, and a third-generation Creole woman of Scottish descent. The author was born Ella Gwendolin Rees Williams, in 1890, in Roseau, Domenica, British West Indies. Rhys knew her homeland well; its snobbish, repressive, patriarchal culture; and the uneasy social position of the Creole woman, who was generally understood to be not necessarily entirely of white ancestry, but was merely accepted as such as a matter of social necessity. (The expression "West Indian white," also meaning one who was not necessarily quite white, was also current at the time.) These women, as you can imagine, had an uneasy relationship with the blacks of the Islands; several of whom find a chance to tell Mr. Rochester that all Creole women are crazy. (And, at one point in the story, a servant calls Mason a "white cockroach," a slur that I understand was frequently directed at Rhys herself in her early life.) This dichotomy will, of course, create tensions that will be difficult for such women to handle, and can be seen as a major cause of Mason's later madness; in addition to the fact that she has been taken away from her homeland to England, as she thought she wished. And she hates the cold grayness of that country, and fails to understand Rochester, or the English, properly.

"Sargasso" runs less than 200 pages, and has not an extra word in it. Part I opens in the Caribbean, with Antoinette Cosway, the sensual young woman who is to be sold into marriage with Rochester. The author's descriptive writing here, on the flora and fauna, the social and economic lives of the Islands, is simply outstanding, passionate and powerful, almost hallucinatory. Part II gives us Rochester in the Caribbean: at one point, he says he has come to hate the Islands so much that he "would give [his] eyes never to have seen this abominable place." (And those of us familiar with "Jane Eyre" will know that the first Mrs. Rochester will, indeed, cost him his eyes.) In Part III we see the unhappy Bertha Rochester, as she is now known, become the madwoman in the attic of his English home.

Rhys is widely esteemed as a feminist author these days, as are all her works, but most particularly "Sargasso," and its heart-wrenching tale of a woman at sea in an alien, hostile culture. As a writer, Rhys had fallen silent for many years, mid-career,until publishing "Sargasso." The novel won the prestigious W.H.Smith Literary Award, also the Royal Society Literary Award. She said about it all:"It has come too late." She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1966, and a Commander of the British Empire in 1978, a year before her death.

Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea is a dreamlike feverish novel awash in passion and trauma. Forget for a moment that it's a prequel to "Jane Eyre" or that it is a seminal text in Feminism and Colonialist studies. Simply as a story of trauma and madness executed in a modern stream of consciousness style it is brilliant. Disorienting, agonizing, nightmarish yet stunningly beautiful; I was forced to read it in dribs and drabs - as the knife edge of Rhys' vision would compel me to come up, panting for air. This book is powerful and unforgivingly dark. But, of course, it is much more - it's a modernist masterpiece which brilliantly critiques the human costs of crimes of patriarchy, colonialism, slavery and subjugation. It is a searing indictment at the same time it is a haunting work of art.

Antoinette grows up poor and isolated at her family's plantation. Her companions are the black laborers and their children who simmer with resentment at the legacy of slavery. Slavery may have been abolished but has been replaced with economic and social subjugation and the resentment is palpable. Mr. Mason, her father, disregards his wife's warnings with sexist and colonialist (i.e. racist) arrogance - an act which destroys their lives (no spoilers - thus I'm being vague). Her mother's anger at Mr. Mason leads to her imprisonment as a mad woman. Women are not permitted to express rage against their husbands - it is seen as irrational. Patriarchy is a central theme here because Antoinette/Bertha, too, is chattel. Her marriage to Rochester is effected because she owns land - it's an economic arrangement to gain property for Rochester. Once married, Antoinette/Bertha is stripped of all her claim to property (and even her name) and is completely under her husband's authority. Their marriage is marked by passion but it becomes apparent how culturally Caribbean (black) she is, tainted with scandal. Their relationship flames out spectacularly with infidelity and rage. When he decides he can't deal with her and chooses to abandon her to be locked as "the madwoman in the attic" she is reduced to, essentially, a prisoner. A woman, in that society, can literally be the prisoner of her husband. Both Antoinette and her mother, Bertha are confined as mad - but their pathologies are the simple act of blaming their spouses and acting out their anger. Rebellion is seen as madness - both in the context of rebellion against slavery and rebellion against patriarchy.

As for the literary context - "Wide Sargasso Sea" as prequel to "Jane Eyre". By situating WSS's story within the classic Victorian novel "Jane Eyre", Rhys sets up a host of powerful resonances. Jane Eyre is a tale of redemption; of love's power to redeem. England's brutal social and economic inequities are hurdles to be overcome - but ultimately love overcomes them all in a healing and redemptive way. The fly in the ointment is Bertha, the mad woman in the attic. Rochester is still married - thus his attempt to marry Jane is revealed as bigamy Bertha's presence complicates the otherwise straightforward romantic narrative and gives it tension and fire. In "Jane Eyre" Rochester is redeemed from bigamy because Bertha is insane - rendering Rochester the victim. By inverting this tale to tell the story of Antoinette/Bertha as a victim of Rochester's racism and notions of patriarchy, Rhys deepens the misery by shattering "Jane Eyre"s redemptive message. In "Wide Sargosso Sea" love is a tragic by-product of the economic abuses of a patriarchal empire. Love has no redemptive power for Antoinette. It's just more salt in the wound. A lot of the negative reviews here center around resentment at Rhys for besmirching their beloved innocent "world of 'Jane Eyre'". They've missed the point. Inverting and besmirching the innocent world of 'Jane Eyre' is exactly the point. Colonialist England's apparent grace is built on the blood and toil of subjugated peoples. The subjugation extends to women as wives as well. You are meant to see that and the experience is not meant to be pleasant.

I can't say enough about this book's importance or the brilliant, polished skill with which it is written. Published in 1966 - at the height of the civil rights movement and free speech movement - WSS's issues were dead on the zeitgeist of the moment. You can imagine how the lush, dark, evil imagery of the jungle and colonialism must have resonated in with an America embroiled in Vietnam and a rising anti-war moment. It's not a pleasant read, however. The messages are hard, dark ones. There are no happy endings here and as the story unfolds the brutal details big and small are as oppressive as the tropical humidity. This is fine literature, indeed - but also a journey into pain, deprivation, madness and tragedy. It's not a journey to be taken lightly.

Jean Rhys captures the feeling of what living in the West Indies is like, the heat, the lushness of colors, the earthiness of the people, both black and white, the social strata surrounding the master/servant relationship as it occurs in the West Indies at the time the book is written, the mid 1800's, and contrasts this with England, portraying England as a cold, hard, cynical place, a place where Antoinette, the West Indian girl is as out of place as Edward, the English gentlemen who marries her for her money, is out of place is the West Indies. Antoinette is looking desperately to Edward to provide her all the love and acceptance she missed out on in her childhood, and although denied this love, Antoinettes understanding of it is in the West Indian way, emotionally, colorful, passionate, even vulgar, but always full of life. Edward is from England his understanding of life and love is English, cold, analytical, proper and reserved. Even without Antoinettes history of emotional/mental illness, the two cultures and two people are so different it is only a short time before they collide, initially to Antoinettes misfortune, but ultimately in a final irony, to Edwards. Very interesting book, contrasting the way the atmosphere of the West Indies, and later on of England influence and explain the inner workings of the characters minds. Antoinette and Edward are not really ever portrayed as either simply mad/crazy in the former case or cold/evil in the later, but as two people with no understanding of the other and no potential for any communication whatsoever, each locked in his or her own world. Ultimately this leads to the destruction of Antoinette, and the revenge this leads her to. Very insightful book, using the characters own words to describe the actions.

Jean Rhys, the troubled author who was far ahead of her time in the 1920's, felt a strange kinship with Antoinette or Bertha Mason, the madwoman locked in the attic in Bronte's "Jane Eyre." From the first time Rhys read "Jane Eyre" she knew she would someday write her story because she felt she'd lived it.
Like Antoinette, Rhys grew up in the Caribbean, a troubled and hermetic world of Creoles, colonists and former slaves. Antoinette is truly a loner--the reversal of family fortunes causes her to be rejected by her own people, and despised by those who previously were on a lower rung of society. Throughout the novel, Antoinette is used, buffeted and never in charge of her own life. She feels that, as a woman, she is an object, not a person. As a woman, she is not in charge of her ultimate destiny, and this provides the conflict for the novel. Her madness is only an extension of this isolation and rejection.
What makes Rhys a masterful novelist is her use of conversation and immediate events to describe the world in which Antoinette lives. There are no long passages of exposition; we see the world only through the eyes of the characters, mostly at the same time that they experience it. However, the immediate events and conversation or narration are so cleverly constructed that the reader sees through the narrator's eyes and can really see and feel the surroundings. This intimate point of view puts the reader in the skin of the character, but can be a bit confusing because we cannot always rely on the veracity of the narration. The point of view itself switches in the novel from first person to third person, in the second part, and back to first in the third and final portion, where Antoinette is locked in the attic.
The novel is in no way a re-write or version of "Jane Eyre." In "Jane Eyre", the madwoman is not really a character--she's a symbol for evil, for carnal and worldly desires yielded to without regard for the soul. "Wide Sargasso Sea" develops the madwoman into a character. Rhys slyly copies the beautiful symmetry of "Jane Eyre", where events occur in a sort of repetition; in "Jane Eyre", the heroine must leave a hostile home and find a haven, which then becomes hostile because it fails to nourish her soul with love (Gateshead, Lowood, Thornfield and then Marsh House. Only when Jane can marry her Mr. Rochester on HER terms, does she find a true home.) In "Wide Sargasso Sea", Antoinette's home burns twice, a similar use of symbolism, here representing rejection by the world.
"Wide Sargasso Sea" is often listed as a "must-read" book --it certainly is a unique book and was far ahead of its time when Rhys wrote it. It's really worth reading.

Antoinette Cosway is a beautiful, exoctic creole. She catches the eye of an Englishman, and their passion for each other is powerful. They need each other for financial reasons as well. She must have a husband to claim her wealth, while he, as the second son, cannot claim his family fortune at all. The erotic feelings that the couple expresses for each other is only fleeting. Antoinette becomes "too much" for the 19th century English gentleman, who has been raised in a society that with holds passion.Eventually, quickly, he becomes disgusted with his young wife's need for exhuberant, physical attention. Anntoinette becomes desperate to experience the passion that her young husband had initially, openly and happily lavished on her. Once an errupting volcano, their relationship becomes implosive. The young man, who becomes intolerant of Anoinette, desperately avoids her. She becomes hysterical because as his wife, she has no control of anything in her life: love, ,sexual attention, money, or home. The English husband learns of an opportunity to return to England, and since Antoinette is his wife, he plans to take her with him. But she would never fit in the oppressive English landscape, so he has her declared insane, and takes her home to Thornfield, realizing he will never marry again as long as she lives. She is locked in a remote wing of his gothic mansion on the moors of England, and is lost to the world until she re-emerges as Bertha Mason in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Beautifully written, Wide Sargasso Sea, was Jean Rhys's answer to a question many Jane Eyre readers have had. Who was the mad woman? Some of the questions I had also were answered. Who else would Mr. Rochester want but a young, pure thing who would adore him and revere him. Jane asked only for his spoken word never any passion. Jane was accustomed to dishonest and confusing relationships while she lived at the orphanage and her aunt's home as a child. When she arrived at Thornfield, Mr. Rochester was exactly what she would fall for: a man who possibly could rescue her, but who also would be dishonest and confusing. Jane Eyre is great literature as is Wide Sargasso Sea, but neither story has characters who are capable of good relationships. The film version is equally well done.

caught between two worlds, Black Jamaican and English, belonging to neither one. Antoinette Cosway was used and abused by people closest to her: Her mother, stepfather, best friend Tia, and, of course, her husband. She was forced in a loveless marriage to Rochester, who made no bones about his contempt for her, Creole culture, and Jamaica and who was only there to help his beleagured family. At first, the marriage seemed loving until an anomynous man came to him with letters disparaging Antoinette and her family and his(Rochester's) unease with living in Jamaica. Things started to go downhill after that, with Antoinette's insanity and eventual lockdown in the attic of the Rochester estate in England.

This book tells where Jane Eyre left off. It's Antoinette's story about how she got to be the madwoman in the attic and the things that shaped her life prior to her coming to England with her estranged husband.

The book is so deep in the matrix of race, gender, class, culture clash, personality, belief systems(Creole, Black, and English), and public and private pain of those involved.

Rhys' novel, the Wide Sargasso Sea is an interesting work, and listed at number 94 on the top 100 fictional works of the last century. In style, this novel is similar to some of Faulkner's work in that much of the text is extremely first-person. That is, Rhys gets so dialed-in to the character that the perception of events and interactions blurs and at times is hard to follow. Also, the first-person perspective shifts subtley from one character to the other. Much like Faulkner, the reader has to glean that the narration is from another character's perspective. As such, this is not a novel to breeze through, but rather one that you have to absorb. The words and the characters seem to sink in over time. It has an ephemeral quality that may have something to do with the Caribbean setting. The literatti love that Rhys took the character from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, the "mad woman in the attic" and brought her to life. I, however, found that the strongest aspect of this work was the Faulkner-esque writing style, which transposed nicely with the Jamaican tropics. Rhys gives you a sense of life in the Caribbean, of its politics, its rhythyms, and its joys and despairs. The disjointed and transposed first-person perspective created an intense sense of the insanity of the woman against a backdrop of politics and socio-economic tension. The descent into madness of the main character, Annette Cosway, was confusing at times, but emblematic of Rhys' effort here. This is especially true at the end of the novel when the setting shifts to England and the once beautiful heiress has been transformed into the mad woman in the attic.

Rarely do authors venture to handle tasks as difficult as what Rhys confronts in this book. Taking a great novel, "Jane Eyre," Rhys seeks to embellish upon it with personal attributes. It still rings of England, but in the 19th century as opposed to Bronte's 18th century. It still has the infamous madwoman, but in this book she is the protagonist who thinks and speaks. The protagonist, we learn, is named Antoinette.

The man of Antoinette's life is anyone's worst nightmare - he exudes wealth for which he lives and marries Antoinette for her money so that he can further feast his insatiable appetite for more wealth. He deems Antoinette's beauty and island's majesty as wicked, and determines that they are something he must destroy. He cannot destroy the island, but he can destroy his wife, whom he refers to as his marionette.

Born rich and beautiful, Antoinette experienced some hard times during her childhood, but always gaily persevered. In her womanhood, her husband proves to be the straw that breaks the proverbial back of her gaiety. His character becomes vile and spiteful. Adultery with the Creole teenage maid or mind games with his loving wife were not enough -- instead he must tease her in a manner which strains her and saps her of energy. He proves to be totally worthless to her as his ambition is to exile her from her West Indies island and thrust her into the small confines of an English manor's attic along with a gin-sipping, distrusting maid. To remove her to the attic's purgatory, he falsely accuses her of insanity; a serious statement which no loving husband would ever wrongly declare about his spouse; a statement which would never be questioned by the other men who adjudicate her insanity. His lies detain her in the attic while he can freely use her money for his whim.

I guess Rhys best exemplified the horror of his character by refusing to don a name for the husband. The Norton Critical Edition mentions that Rhys wrote, "I carefully have not named the man at all."

This book describes how a wealthy woman can be psychologically and emotionally abused by her closest male companion - her husband. This is a feminist critique which touches a subject rarely (or just beginning to be) discussed at the time of the book's first publication [1966] and well after it s first draft.

This is a classic story with modern undertones. It is a great read.

This is an ingenious book by Jean Rhys. Of course, re-writing or "spoofing" an existing book is nothing new and Jean Rhys was not the first person to do it, but Wide Sargasso Sea goes beyond re-writing. It is an original work that integrates seamlessly into the text where it sprouts from -- Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

The book is very well written. The story is told from several different persons' perspectives -- the young Antoinette, Mr. Rochester (although his name is never mentioned), the grown-up Antoinette, Grace Poole, and finally the imprisoned "Bertha Mason". The language has a fine textual to it, the social and racial background of the West Indies is depicted vividly.

In Jane Eyre, "Bertha Mason" is but a symbol, a mad woman, a monster in the attic. But here, in Wide Sargasso Sea, we see a beautiful and sad little girl, isolated from society because of the social situations surrounding her. Jean Rhys really wrote life into this woman. Remarkably also that Rochester is totally believable and consistent with the same character in Jane Eyre -- on that note, I never liked Rochester in Jane Eyre anyhow, he was rude, jealous, ruthless and above all selfish. Here in Wide Sargasso Sea, he is all that and also a hypocrite -- he talks about his Christian beliefs all the time but sleeps with his wife's servant, he marries for money but does not give her any freedom. We see how step by step he has driven Antoinette into Bertha Mason.

There is richness and life in this book. Now you look back at Jane Eyre you see how pale that is (both the book and the girl). Jane Eyre's happiness hinges on the demise of Bertha Mason, and it is only convenient to reduce her to a symbol, to a monster. Jane Eyre -- both the book and the girl -- sees everything from the white Anglo-Saxon's perspective and does not even realize there are the other side of the story (quote from the book "there is always the other side"). But Jean Rhys gave "Bertha Mason" the life and "the other side" of the story that she deserves.

This short and exquisite novel is a study of manners, race and culture. It is not only about the restrictions of marriage and English culture but the wounds and mistrust lingering in the minds of the colonized and the slaveholding classes. Miss Rhys grew up in the West Indies, mother was Creole, her father Welsh, and it is doubtless that she saw and felt these contradictions.
She describes with such poignancy and economy the beauty and newness of the forested island, the always-inhabited shadows of night, the lush and almost hard green of the tropics and the shock that florid life presents to English eyes. The newly-emancipated and dirt-poor blacks who serve the whites and the fearful English 'youngest son' who marries the innocent girl (for a price) confront one another. They are prisoners on this island, having no money, no status, no safety, suspect the others' motives and seem not quite human to each other. The feeling that one can lose one's footing at any moment is skillfully hinted at throughout the story and a fall into madness is possible for every character.

Antoinette has a tough childhood. She is a white child living in Jamaica when the slaves are freed. Her family is ostracized and in danger. Her mother eventually remarries and they leave their family home in flames, burned by the angry and vengeful people of the village.

Years later, Antoinette is married to a man she's never met. On their honeymoon to Dominica, her husband starts to feel uneasy about their marriage. He doesn't like the overgrown environment of Dominica, and he really doesn't like the black servants working for them, especially Christophine, who was a slave of Antoinette's family when Antoinette was a child. He finds out distressing information about his wife's family and blames her for the position in which he feels stuck. As revenge, he withholds all love and affection from his wife, and calls her crazy until she becomes so.

Antoinette is moved into the attic of her husband's home in England, where she lives out her days under guard and slips through the sleeping house at night, thinking of revenge.

This is a devastating story of a woman trapped in her life. Throughout her life she doesn't have any choices, and her attempt to make things better between herself and her husband backfires on her.

The connection to "Jane Eyre" is nice, and it's an ambitious project to attempt to speak for a character who has no voice in that novel. I didn't feel like I had the chance to get to know the characters well enough from this book, though. It was so brief, and told in alternating viewpoints, and I didn't feel like I had a firm grasp on why Antoinette's husband was so awful and how Antoinette spiraled down into madness so quickly. I would have liked more time to get to know these characters, and perhaps gain more insight into their personalities.

In my experience, most of Rhys' books are more than a little depressing and definitely more than a little frustrating. I'm never a fan of her protagonists, because I find myself wanting to just slap some sense into them. This book, however, is an exception.

This is a lovely revamping of Mr. Rochester's crazy wife. It's intelligent, poignant, and just plain beautifully written. Fans of Jane Eyre will enjoy it just for the novelty, but the language and writing style are extremely compelling and worth appreciating for their own sake. It's still sad, but it's also fascinating.

This is an enlightening version of the 'mad woman' locked up in Mr. Rochester's mansion in England. If Jane Eyre was a real person, one might have been tempted to warn her that, save for a few twists in circumstances, she could have been the wife driven crazy.

Despite having a strong mentor in her nanny, Antoinette Cosway doesn't know how to save herself. Society isn't set up to give women of her generation much power or independence. She didn't have much of a father or mother figure, and only Christophene seems willing to truly try to protect her. A childhood filled with violence and fear has created a woman afraid of shadows who lacks self-confidence. She looks towards others to help her feel 'safe', but nearly everyone in her life betrays her in some way.

In Rhy's eloquent style of writing, we are smoothly transported into the atmosphere of Jamaica after the 1830's. Though Antoinette is clearly a victim, I found Christophene's character refreshing and empowered. She's a former slave who is feared because of her knowledge of 'Obeah'. She isn't afraid to stand up to Antoinette's white husband, and comes close to helping the young woman re-gain her freedom. In my opinion, had the story ended with Mr. Rochester allowing his creole wife to remain in Jamaica under Christophene's care, Antoinette's broken heart would have mended and the signs of madness vanished. But because his troubled bride is treated as a 'possession', he takes her away from all that she loves, refuses to return any of her family fortune, and shreds her last piece of identity by calling her Bertha instead of her given name. Is this reader sorry that Thornfield Hall was burned to the ground? Not after digesting the first Mrs. Rochester's version of the story, so masterfully written by Jean Rhys.

Chrissy K. McVay

author of - Souls of the North Wind

The book is split into three parts. The first one is the childhood of future Mad Wife in the Attic from her perspective, the second is from the perspective of a newly-wed Edward Rochester and, in a short and confusing part, by Bertha, and the third one is by Bertha at Thornfield. Why is part two confusing? Because it's all told by Rochester, and then it jumps and you don't immediately realise that the perspective has shifted, and once you're used to it, it switches back to Rochester.

The first time I read this book, I hated it, and was left with a feeling of being annoyed that the author had completely failed to understand Rochester. I even said (aloud!) "Well, I disagree" after I closed it. On a second read, I still can't agree with Jean Rhys, but I enjoyed the book more. Having read a bunch of books about writing now, I can appreciate the book in a sort of aesthetical way. It's well-written, the characters have very distinct voices and the use of senses drags you in and gives such a rich colour and flavour that you partially forget that you're reading a book. Jean Rhys was born in Dominica in 1894 and was half-Welsh and half-Creole, so she knows what she's talking about with regards to the Caribbean, and you can tell. It can only have been written by someone who knows what it's like there. Now, if only the characters weren't supposed to be Charlotte Brontë's ...

That's the biggest problem. She's referred to as Antoinette, not Bertha; even though she's "Bertha Antoinetta Mason" in Charlotte Brontë's original. In the UK, your first name, your given name, is the one that goes first. Hence why "Bertha Antoinetta Mason" logically should be "Bertha Mason", not "Antoinetta Mason". In the book, she's Antoinetta but calls herself Antoinette, because that's what her mother was called. Bertha is a name she doesn't like and that Rochester insists on calling her because umm, IT'S HER NAME?

Richard Mason is only her stepbrother. Her mother was married to a guy called Cosway, who apparently went crazy and died. The mother then remarried Mr. Mason, father of Richard, and she started losing her mind after her son (the "complete dumb idiot" Rochester refers to in the original) died. I think part two even mentions old Mr. Mason having died before the marriage or at least close to it - there is some way that he seems to be removed from the whole set-up. And who did the original say arranged the wedding? Mr. Mason and Richard with old Mr. Rochester and Rowland. The Masons were as in on it as the Rochesters, eager to be rid of her before the Rochesters would realise the mistake they had made.

Then there's a point where young Antoinette is at school, and she is going to embroider "1839" on something. I thought "Jane Eyre" was set around 1838? I'm also left with the impression that she's taken out of school at the age of 17 in order to get married off. Rochester is around 21 or 22 at the time, and Bertha is a good five years his senior (her age being something the Masons had lied to him about before the wedding). Rhys claims Antoinette's mother died the year before the marriage - the original says Rochester first thought the woman was dead but he came to find out that she wasn't, "she was only mad, and shut up in a lunatic asylum."

Also, Brontë is clear to point out that he wasn't allowed to be alone with her before the marriage and they hardly spoke two words to each other. That way, Edward never had a chance to get to know her beforehand, because if he had, he would never have married her. They had nothing in common and he found her a woman with infantile intellect and he couldn't keep a conversation with her even if he tried.

If you're going to write a spin-off of something, at least have the decency to stick to the facts as they've been laid out in the original. Make up things that aren't in the original as much as you want, but the bits that are in the original, please get them right. From what I've gathered, Jean Rhys had a fixation on Mrs. Rochester so trying to apologise for her behaviour by giving her a backstory that doesn't quite add up to Brontë's original is understandable. If the characters hadn't been from "Jane Eyre", the book would've been excellent. As for now, I think it's okay. It's a good book, but she's got the events and main characters wrong.

It's my firm belief that Bertha Mason wasn't half as interesting a person as Jean Rhys makes her out to be. Yes, Bertha is a victim of sorts - being married off to someone who doesn't know the true you just so that your family can breathe a sigh of relief and hope it'll be too late to do anything about it by the time the groom notices something's wrong - but she's not a victim in the way that Rhys wants her to be. Bertha was mentally ill, not just some spirited girl who didn't like the husband she'd been married off to. I don't think she was ever really fully aware of what happened, and while that is sad in itself, I think Rhys just tried a bit too hard to make her sympathetic when she quite clearly never meant to be anything other than a woman whose mental illness was bad to begin with but quickly got worse.

Sargasso is a counterpoint and alternative history to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics). Rhys reframes the story so that the character of Mrs Rochester, the 'mad woman in the attic', is centre-stage, unlike in the original story where she is without voice or an identity of her own.

Rhys does this by setting her story prior to the events in Jane Eyre. Effectively, then, this novella is a prequel to that classic novel. Most importantly, Rhys prioritises the white Creole, Antoinette, which is her original name. In Jane Eyre we know her only as the mysterious madwoman in the attic, until later, she is explained as being Bertha, the first Mrs Rochester.

By placing her character in 'Sargasso' front and centre, Rhys creates an entirely different set of viewpoints, understanding and emphases, not least that Antoinette achieves her own identity and humanity here, rather than being relegated into a prison space of madness and silence, for which Mr Rochester himself was responsible.

This is a powerful, deeply haunting and hallucinatory, deeply poeticised story. The style is reminiscent of Toni Morrison's Beloved (Vintage Classics). It's an original and heartbreaking of love unrequited, leading to madness.

Split into three parts, the story is first set in Jamaica, told from Antoinette's viewpoint as a child and in her youth, living on her plantation.

The second section is in Dominica, focused on her marriage and written within Mr Rochester's domineering viewpoint. We know he has only married her as an arrangement established by his father to gain Antoinette's sizeable dowry and land. His version of events is contrasted dramatically by Antoinette's voice, of her increasingly troubled self. She also that Rochester has had a sexual relationship with one of the female servants, while being with her.

Throughout this impressive section, you experience Rochester's own confusion and disgust with the local people and the way of living, the heat and the tropical intensity of the place, so alien to him from his English, cold viewpoint.

In the third and most dramatic part, we return to Antoinette, now Bertha. She's not only abandoned, but worse, left imprisoned: the original "madwoman in the attic", in Rochester's house in England. She is in a world she neither understands nor values, and in which there is no love for her, nor interest. Silenced, she is made persona non grata for all the years she is locked up there.

Throughout the story, you experience the intensity of all those involved, the stifling physical environment, the insecurity and uncertainty of the prescribed gender roles between Antoinette and Mr Rochester, the suspicions and fears of the locals and the servants.

There is no ultimate exit or freedom for the female; for the male, there is simply the repetition of the male-dominated power structure, such that it deprives the male of any real identity, beyond that of his family's expectations and a prescribed role for his own masculinity and authority. 'Sargasso' is a powerful read, troubling and passionate, and a unique and profound creative take on issues of identity (especially including Colonial, slave, and the power dynamic between England and the Caribbean), sexuality and madness.

It is a fascinating, moving and clever re-interpretation of the story told in Jane Eyre, and is highly recommended.

A note on this edition:

Hilary Jenkins, who has written the editorial material, has done a service for all those who wish formally to study this work as part of their literary education. She provides not only a clear introduction, highlighting the distinctive qualities and structure of the story, but also a brief chronology of the author's life, very helpful notes on Creole language and phrasing, as well as historical points, exam- and essay-related questions you'd expect to have to answer as a student, as well as a separate section on the story's geographical and cultural, historical setting/context. Importantly, Jenkins concludes with Critical Responses to the novella, as well as suggested further critical/academic reading.

This gorgeous novel is about "Mrs. Rochester," the madwoman in the attic in Jane Eyre. I grew up viewing the horrifying images by Fritz Eichenberg in the classic edition of Jane Eyre. Mrs. Rochester hardly appeared to be a woman in that; she looked like Mr. Rochester in a nightgown, with her mad-eyed stare and heavy lips, carrying that candle, setting the world on fire. The book is elegaic, sexy, true, riveting. It's about hunger and madness and subjugation and survival.

Goodness. I just finished reading Rhys' novel and it blew me away. Charlotte Bronte is my favorite author and "Jane Eyre" is my favorite novel. I had high expectations reading this book and they were exceeded. "Wide Sargasso Sea" had the literary quality that JE deserved.

Antoinette's life in the Caribbean, very carefully and vividly constructed, traces in an almost paranormal way the process of A. going mad. Soon I had busted out my pencil and I was jotting away in the margins.

The connections to JE are subtle and eerie, such as the continual mention of the looking-glass (and its final reflection in its "gilded frame" - yikes!) Rochester is treated with complexity in such a way that his character is actually believable as Bronte's Rochester too. A.'s relationship with her mother and Christophine is interesting and nuanced and does interesting things with A's identity and her conceptualization of her self. The final chapter of the novel is worth the crick in my neck I got for reading too long - and then some. The final chapter (back in Bronte's England) had imagery to give Bronte a run for her money.

"Wide Sargasso Sea" is beyond brilliant in it's imagery, characters, complexity, and readability. No reading of Jane Eyre can be considered complete without it. You must, however, read JE first. (And then maybe again after reading Rhys.)

This gorgeous novel is about "Mrs. Rochester," the madwoman in the attic in Jane Eyre. I grew up viewing the horrifying images by Fritz Eichenberg in the classic edition of Jane Eyre. Mrs. Rochester hardly appeared to be a woman in that; she looked like Mr. Rochester in a nightgown, with her mad-eyed stare and heavy lips, carrying that candle, setting the world on fire. The book is elegaic, sexy, true, riveting. It's about hunger and madness and subjugation and survival.

Goodness. I just finished reading Rhys' novel and it blew me away. Charlotte Bronte is my favorite author and "Jane Eyre" is my favorite novel. I had high expectations reading this book and they were exceeded. "Wide Sargasso Sea" had the literary quality that JE deserved.

Antoinette's life in the Caribbean, very carefully and vividly constructed, traces in an almost paranormal way the process of A. going mad. Soon I had busted out my pencil and I was jotting away in the margins.

The connections to JE are subtle and eerie, such as the continual mention of the looking-glass (and its final reflection in its "gilded frame" - yikes!) Rochester is treated with complexity in such a way that his character is actually believable as Bronte's Rochester too. A.'s relationship with her mother and Christophine is interesting and nuanced and does interesting things with A's identity and her conceptualization of her self. The final chapter of the novel is worth the crick in my neck I got for reading too long - and then some. The final chapter (back in Bronte's England) had imagery to give Bronte a run for her money.

"Wide Sargasso Sea" is beyond brilliant in it's imagery, characters, complexity, and readability. No reading of Jane Eyre can be considered complete without it. You must, however, read JE first. (And then maybe again after reading Rhys.)

I loved the idea of this book -- especially being a "Jane Eyre" fan. It is a strange book though and not a happy one. I struggled with it throughout because it challenged my previous conceptions of Mr. Rochester. I admit though that ultimately it did not matter -- my curiosity got the better of me. Who has not wondered about the lunatic wife in "Jane Eyre?!" This book does a fair job at explaining the causes: an other worldly environment, an elusive husband -- both which contribute to Antoinette Cosway's/Berthe's (Mr. Rochester's wife) unraveling.
If you have ever wondered why Mr. Rochester's wife ended up locked away in the attic, then this book is for you.

'Wide Sargasso Sea' is certainly an interesting read. Although a prequel to 'Jane Eyre', it can be read on its own merit. The story is about a rather disturbed young woman in the West Indies and her husband who both tries to understand and escape from her. The author captures the time period (1830s) perfectly and has obviously researched the lifestyle and the language of the local people. She is also a brilliant writer; her prose and characterizations are of a high caliber. Yet since much of the book is written in the first person of a stressed, emotionally unstable woman, I found it sometimes difficult to catch all the subtle nuances. Thankfully there are appendices in the back of the book which proved most helpful.

Bottom line: a very different, at times difficult, but very remarkable piece of literature.

The voice of Christophine, the former slave in the household in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, is able to talk in the voice of both colonial and post-colonial vernacular, "she could speak good English if she wanted to, and French as well as patois." (p 21, Norton 1982) What is far more compelling is that a former slave of indeterminate age becomes a life-giving force. In the beginning of the novel Antoinette's mother says, "we would have died if she'd turned against us." To answer the question of why two generations of Cosways would have perished without Christophine's help is to understand how Christophine and other islanders operate in the present, unhurt, unhurried, and unbowed by the colonialism that wracks most of the islanders in Rhys' novel.

Daniel Cosway, Rochester's erstwhile blackmailer knows that "the English and the French fight like cats and dogs since long time." (p 96) The use of the grammatically incorrect word since with a phrase that stands for extended time passages transmits the past into the present, showing that wars come and go but the island inhabitants remain to carve out their identities. Daniel uses the phrase to considerable effect when confronting Antoinette's husband to imply he has been cuckolded all along, "[Y]our wife know Sandi since long time. Ask her and she tell you. But not everything . . ." (p. 140)

From the first pages to the last, Rhys allows several characters to employ a somewhat innocuous phrase nearly twenty times throughout the novel. "Long time" establishes Christophine's prominence, entreats readers that much of the past is contained in the present as well as the reverse, and literally if not figuratively defines love, "[Y]ou only know a long time afterwards what it is, the life and death kiss." (p. 186)

Christophine chooses to speak in her patois, to practice her obeah, and, in her own unhurried way, to live a life with the Cosways, knowing that one of the cornerstones of story-telling, "A long time ago," means a long time now and forever but especially in the present.

With her vivid imaginative skills, Jean Rhys offers us the tale of "Bertha" Rochester, the madwoman in the attic of "Jane Eyre." The skies of the West Indies are an ever-changing backdrop in this moody novel of fear, memory, and desire. Rhys' style challenges the reader to "fill in the blanks" many times throughout, making necessary intuitive connections to amplify her sometimes sparse prose. What could have been merely a lightweight story of "love and greed in the tropics" turns into an engaging, beautifully unfolding narrative laden with mystery and sadness.

Wide Sargasso Sea points out the need for better communication in relationships and the importance of similar backgrounds or cultures in relationships. The book touches on the themes of love vs. lust and wealth vs. happiness. It is a story of love, lies, confusion, culture, and the aftermath of a badly broken relationship. It was a quick read with a lot of hidden messages. I must say that as I was reading it I wasn't sure that I liked it, but now that I have finished it I have to say I did. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in spirituality, love and gossip when reading a book.

Jean Rhys's novel offers the reader an indepth view into the mindset of Antoinette Cosway. Suddenly, the 'mad' woman in Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" is brought to life. Rhys probes into the conflict between the Creole, Jamaican, and British in the Caribbean. This novel addresses the issue of race and culture, but it also addresses the inner thought processes of a woman confronted with cultural chaos. Jean Rhys has done a superb job in bringing Bronte's "Bertha" to life. I recommend this book to anyone that has an interest in Charlotte Bronte and/or Caribbean literature

The most impressive part of this novel is the beautifuly descriptive detail that Ms. Rhys uses to describe life in the Carribean. The book also deals with two highly charged issues- colonialism and slavery.
Antionette is half creole and half English and never fits in in either society. The whites can not fully accept her because of her color and the natives hate her for being the offspring of a slave owner. Antionette's mother loses her sanity after the natives set fire to the family own and kill Antionette's little brother. These events leave Antionette emotionally sacrred and isolated. Native surspicions and black magic lay in the undercurrent.
Antoinette is eventually driven mad by the will of her controlling husband who has no inkling of the truth behind the stories that have circulated about his wife.

The silly idealism of Jane Eyre is brought harshly down to earth with a work that forces its reader to view the characters as human beings rather than plot devices. It defends the characters Bronte marginalized and attacks those she portrayed as heroes, making the state of the universe more balanced, confused, and real.
This book does not blame Rochester for the failure which takes place; nor does it blame Antoinette; it blames the cultural divide which made the whole conflict inevitable. Its ability to portray a tragedy without guilt dumped on a villain's shoulders is admirable. It is not a comfortable book or an easy read; it turns a fairy tale into a biography, a painting into a photograph.

Jean Rhys has put together a wonderful story of British Colonialism in Jamaica and Dominica set during the period from 1839-1845. In fact, this native of Dominica used this focus on Antoinette Cosway to explain how Bertha in Jane Eyre had become mad and kept locked in the attic. This follows many other novels focusing on the effects of British Imperialism. It depicts a time just after the emancipation of the slaves in Jamaica. A mother (Annette), Son (Pierre), and daughter (Antoinette), living on a plantation estate that is allowed to grow wild and unkept. There were no people to work the land since slavery was abolished. The black natives hated the remaining white colonists and often referred to them as "white cockroaches." The mother had remarried and one night their home is burned down by angry masses of ex-slaves. Pierre is killed in the fire. As they were escaping, Annette tries to run back for her parrot. They would have all possibly been killed by the mob if not for the parrot flying out of the window while on fire. The superstitious natives fled at the sight. Her mother grows insane and is locked up. Antoinette is raised in a convent and later married to a Mr. Rochester. He married her for her money and through some twists and turns they end up in England. He locks her upstairs to forget about her and hires Jane Eyre as nanny to his child. Later he tries to marry her and that is when Bertha's presence is disclosed. She is now quite insane and burns the house down, killing herself in the process. There is a symmetry here in that at the beginning of Wide Sargasso Sea, the Cosway's home is burned down by angry people trying to reclain their identity as humans. Later, Antoinette who later became Bertha when Rochester changed her name to a more English sounding one, burns down his home in trying to recapture her identity as a human being. Why did the mother and daughter become insane? This was not genetic but rather the result of two women being pushed or oppressed in some manner throughout their lives. Annette lived at a time of slavery and was thus remembered as an ex-slave owner. The natives despised her for this and harassed her as when they poisoned one of her horses. Also, the loss of her estate and son helped push her over. Antoinette was also despised for being the daughter of a slave owner. She grew up white with a native culture though and felt divided within her identity. When taken from her island home and deprived of her identity by being locked away all alone for years without even a mirror to see herself, this formed her into an "insane" person. Much symbolism is used within this story to depict division of self. Mirrors and watery reflections are used to show how one gains a self-concept. That is, we derive our sense of self from comparing ourselves with others and our perceptions of how we look to ourself. There is passion of course in the beginning of the marriage between Rochester and Antoinette. He later sleeps with Amelie (servant) and believes himself poisoned by his wife for unknown reasons. Being from England, Rochester is not comfortable in the island atmosphere and takes his wife back to England with him. She is distraught over losing her green, beautiful, lush, tropical eden.

This beautifully written novel is as haunting as they come. It takes time to understand the rhythms of Rhys's prose, but it's worth the effort. Although I firmly believe that the book should be read separately from Jane Eyre (which I equally love), I also think that it adds another layer of depth and richness that Bronte would have appreciated. The idea that Mr. Rochester had a vindictive side in his youth is balanced by the fact that he loses his eyesight in the end of Jane Eyre. Jane's own decision to leave him seems even more justified, and his humbleness upon her return more genuine.
But apart from the Jane Eyre factor, this is a mysterious and exotic novel of passion, fear, and betrayal. I have always wondered why Rochester hated Antoinette so much after he married her, and I have heard that it was because Rhys believed that everyone fears the depth of his/her own passion, and Rochester could not face the passion that Antoinette aroused in him. I think that Rhys explores this controversial theme with amazing finesse. The completeness of Rochester's revenge, as well as Antoinette's powerlessness to protect herself, is both heartbreaking and riveting to the end.

The Book Wide Sargasso Sea is an interesting novel based on the background of the character "Bertha" in the book Jane Erye. It is a romantic tale that intrigues the reader. I thought it was an exotic tale. It was an enjoyable read, but I can't say that I would read it again. There are more enjoyable pleasure novels out there. If you really love Jane Erye and are looking for a free reading book than I would suggest this. If you didn't really enjoy Jane Erye and aren't into exotic books than this isn't the book for you.

Wide Saragasso Sea has tended to receive more attention and praise than Rhys' other books, perhaps because it is a tour de force, and/or because it was this novel that finally brought her recognition at the age of 76 (though she claimed to be only 72!). But for immediacy, power, a worm's-eye view of the ugliness and power politics that underly so many so-called human interactions, and above all prose that reads as though the main character is literally turned inside out -- as though the skin has been burned off and all we get is pure feeling -- I think Rhys' other novels, particularly Good Morning Midnight and Voyage in the Dark and After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie, are actually better.

Well, I just finished reading Wide Sargasso Sea, as an assignment for my I.B. English class. I must say that upon my reading of the story, I came out quite confused as to what I had just read. My greatest difficulties in reading the book was trying to keep up with the everchanging plot, as well as trying to determine what character was speaking at each line. Although the book was confusing to me, this was mainly because I knew nothing about it. However, after doing some outside research and realizing that this book was based on Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, it began to make sense. My first tip to prospective readers is to make sure you know the context of this book before you try and read, otherwise it may become quite unwieldy. The book definitely ended up being a very good read. I immensely enjoyed the use of the vivid imagery that allowed me to smell and taste the Carribean atmosphere. Throughout the story, we see many themes that emerge as the plot unfolds. One of these is that of slavery, and the black/white relationship. We see this in the most dominent front, that being the main characters, the Cosways, are slave owners. The book shows the aversion between blacks and whites created through slavery. However, the book gives a view of both sides to demonstrate that slavery and the hatred involved with this is a double-edged sword. We see the discrimination of the blacks by their white owners. Then we are also shown the contempt that the blacks had for their owners. I found this to be a quite satirical portrayal of slavery, especially when we see the black slaves villifying the Cosways with the expression "white cockaroach". Another theme that is quite prominent in the story is that of the inferiority of women to men. We see how Antoinette is married off to an Englishman as soon as she "comes of age". It is a marriage that lacks happiness, friendship, and love. It is based soley on sex and duty. We see how Antoinette's life is destroyed by Mr. Rochester, who has married for the money, and does not care for Antoinette or her problems. As their lives unfold, Antoinette becomes worse and worse, until Mr. Rochester sleeps with a maid, sending Antoinette of the deep end. After this incident the move to England, and although Antoinette is physically alive, she is truly dead. I found this book to be quite intriguing. It was not overly difficult to read, as long as you are aware of its background and context. Rhys' use excellent literary devices to create a realistic, vivid portrayal of the life of the Creole woman Antoinetted Cosway. I would reccomend this book to anyone you has the time to both read and analyze it.

"They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks."
The sense of alienation that Antoinette Cosway experiences as a child never lets up in this harrowing tale of the first Mrs Rochester.
Whilst Jane Eyre of the original novel manages to leave her painful past behind, Antoinette is unable to fight against the oppression of her surroundings. Her husband, bewildered by her passions, cannot understand her and seeks instead to contain her during her inexorable descent into madness.
In my opinion this book is as worthy of acclaim as the great novel that inspired it. "Wide Sargasso Sea" is in no sense a pastiche of "Jane Eyre". Rhys evokes, in her beautiful, laconic style, the haunting beauty of the Caribbean, the uneasy relations of the islanders after the abolition of slavery,the love Antoinette and her husband initially have for each other, which makes the inevitable end so much more painful.
It is said that it took Jean Rhys nine years to write this slim volume, but the result is an enduring masterpiece of the English language.

This book is supposed to be told in three distinct voices: young Antoinetta, Rochester, and Crazy Antoinetta stuck in the attic. But the narration jumps about and it isn't told in three distinct voices: Antoinetta is in Rochester's section, and the voices are so similar that it is impossible to tell who is speaking. And it is very contrived because you know (or at least those of us who read "Jane Eyre") how it is going to end. It's much ado about something we already know about. I gave it two stars because Rhys can really capture a setting, and the scene that foreshadows the fire at the end of Jane Eyre was wonderfully written. It's an easy read, so if you loved Jane Eyre and want some more of it, go ahead and read it. Just don't expect to be as moved as you were by Bronte.

The book is undoubtedly not for everyman. It may leave you confused and dazed by the disjointed narrative structure, incomplete dialogues and overpowering images and emotions that seemingly arise out of nowhere and for no reason.
For many readers, a pre-requisite to enjoyment may be an acquaintance with Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. My own view is that this is not entirely necessary but helpful to contextualise the novel. Rhys was fascinated with the mysterious madwoman, the first wife of Rochester, perhaps identifying with her to a degree. However, the fascination in exploring this figure lies not simply in the character's exotic background, misunderstood and exploited as she might be, but the pivotal role she plays in creating a moment of moral ambiguity and crisis within Jane Eyre, the character and the novel.
Wide Sargasso Sea itself is a mire of ambiguities and uncertainties, lurching from one crisis to another. It is interesting to note that the title refers to an area in the Caribbean famous for being treacherous. But what makes it rewarding for the reader is the unadulterated subjectivity of the narration, which is finely structured and layered to both highlight the complexities of issues involved such as (post)colonialism, gender politics and subject identification, as well as to immerse the reader in the disparate/desperate and irreconcilable angles of perception that works itself into a seamlessly hallucinatory reality.
If all of the above sounds like a dream, this is the book for you. Otherwise, it is one to stay well clear of. It may also help to dip into her other books which run along similar themes but are not so 'lush'.

As a prequel to the classic, Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea lives up to the expectation of Bronte's novel. Carefully crafted around the most minute details Bronte used, Jean Rhys constructs a novel that is poetic and figurative in its language to describe the life of the woman in the attic. Rhys changes Bertha Mason's name to Antoinette Cosway as the first step in painting the Caribbean landscape which is carried through most of the novel, until the final part where Bronte's work threads through. Giving a voice to this mysterious character that Bronte chose not to detail sheds enormous light on Rochester's future perspective on relationships. Although short and succint, Rhys novel will surely give Jane Eyre readers a new light through which to analyze the time - honored novel.

I reccomend reading Jane Eyre first, even though this is considered the prequel. Understanding Jane Eyre will allow Rhy's work to have more depth, especially at the end.

Antoinette is Rochester's dark side that naive Jane Eyre never thought to explore. The girl just wanted a good husband; she never wanted to hear his horror stories. If you read Jane Eyre in school like I did, you loved Rochester and thought he was fabulous..then as you get older you think, "so why did he lie to Jane about having another wife?" He was imperialistic, deceptive, furtive and a user..Jane just got him at a time in his life when he was older and broken...lucky her!! In WSS, Jean Rhys showed that people aren't always what they seem. Rochester loved Jane's innocence; he didn't know her at all. But Antoinette did. Finally somebody exposed the ugly side of the man who didn't deserve someone as pure as Jane, but got her anyway.
The dialect in some parts may have been difficult for foreign readers.

Wide Sargasso Sea is the prequel to Jane Eyre, following Antoinette Cosway from childhood to her marriage to Rochester. They don't care for each other, but must accept the match, Rochester because he has no other prospects, and Antoinette because her family has a history of madness and Rochester doesn't know the stories.

The book itself is very different from Jane Eyre. It begins from Antoinette's point of view, focusing heavily on Antoinette's mother, a troubled--eventually insane--widow. Then perspective shifts to Rochester and his preoccupied young wife, Antoinette.

Anyone who has read Jane Eyre (and probably many others besides) will know what's coming, and this contributes to the spooky tone of the book. Antoinette from her own perspective feels so justified and normal, but from Rochester's she is oddly detached and her behavior grows to mirror her mother's eerily. The book keeps you thinking long after the ending...it's one of the most amazing things I've ever read. Please, please read it.

As a companion to Charlotte Brontë's JANE EYRE , this book was tedious to follow at times, but well worth the effort. I read this book without reading JEAN EYRE and was engrossed in the author's quirky dynamics and use of multiple points of view. I concluded that Rhys' darker and hard-edged atmosphere creates a well-developed story and creates an entertaining read whether you have read JANE EYRE or not.