The Wide Sargasso Sea

The characters of Wide Sargasso Sea can broadly be divided into two groups: those native to England, and those native to the West Indies. One the major themes that results from this is the nigh-insurmountable divide that exists between the two. Antoinette and Rochester are two characters who attempt to cross this Wide Sargasso Sea.

The West Indies and England are depicted as being near-literally separate worlds. Those in one world find it hard to comprehend the reality of the other. Sometimes it's simple things, like how Rochester feels that the West Indies are too brightly colored, the hills and mountains are too big, how nature itself seems to hold hidden menace. In contrast, Antoinette thinks England must be impossibly dull and gray, and is only vaguely familiar with seasons from the books she reads (and many other facts that have no real meaning to her). Rochester and Antoinette both think the other's world to be surreal, like a dream. Rochester thinks the environment of the West Indies is like a fevered dream, Antoinette cannot conceive the reality of a city like London. 

The other aspect of the Wide Sargasso Sea is the fact that even if someone successfully makes the physical journey, the gulf is also something mental and cultural. This is evidenced by the two journeys we know about: Rochester and Antoinette. Rochester never makes any mention or description of his voyage. Furthermore, he immediately falls into a fever for several weeks, making his journey seem itself like a fever dream, not a real thing. For Antoinette, we never see the packing, or the harbor, or embarking, or the final goodbye. We jump immediately onto the ship, but Antoinette remembers very little of the voyage due to being asleep/unconscious/drugged? and she thinks that (somehow) the ship never made it to England, got sidetracked or lost. Neither Rochester nor Antoinette fit into the other's world, as well. Rochester is an outsider, paranoid about the secret known to everyone excluding him, distrustful of the locals, few connections even to the other white people of the setting. Antoinette is locked in the attic, a different name forced upon her, who does not even think she is in England.

Perhaps there was potential for Antoinette and Rochester to reach across the Wide Sargasso Sea with their marriage, and we do see potential for this when they honestly and plainly talk to each other, but I think they were doomed from the start. Even excluding the forgone conclusion imposed by Jane Eyre, both Antoinette (her Coulibri past) and Rochester (his pride and his complexes regarding his father and brother) are obstacles that would likely be too much for the two to overcome, leaving the Wide Sargasso Sea wider than before.

Comments

  1. AlexNovember 17, 2018 at 8:21 PM

    I have to disagree with you're opinion that the unfavorable outcome for Rochester and Antoinette was a forgone conclusion. I think that they had so much in common and at times seemed warm enough to each-other that under slightly different circumstances things could have worked out. I think perhaps that if Rochester had not received the letters cautioning him of ANtoinette's madness, there marriage could have been at least moderately successful.

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  2. MaddieNovember 18, 2018 at 7:28 AM

    At first, I thought that Rochester and Antoinette were going to be okay, since they seemed to get along well. But, as the novel progressed, I saw that Rochester wasn’t who I thought he was, which made me feel really bad for Antoinette. I had hope for them even though I knew what would happen since I have read Jane Eyre

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  3. Sarah H.December 7, 2018 at 8:28 PM

    I do wonder if their marriage was ever fated to fail, because during the beginning of the marriage I felt somewhat hopeful as Rochester seem to be somewhat sympathetic to Antoinette's plight. However, I think if Rochester represented England and Antoinette the colonies, their marriage was fated to be a failure as they were representing dynamics that were larger than them and had historically always destroyed people.

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