Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

Abstract

Wide Sargasso Sea is divided into three parts. Although other secondary narrators appear, the first part is narrated by Antoinette Cosway, the second by an unnamed man whom she marries, and the third by Antoinette again. It soon becomes clear to the reader that these two narrators will be more familiar to anyone who has read Jane Eyre as Rochester and Bertha Mason, his first ‘mad’ wife. Rhys’s novel has therefore been called a ‘prequel’ to Jane Eyre but this should not be taken literally as there are differences, not least of chronology, between them that mean the characters in the two novels cannot be simply equated. Most of Jane Eyre takes place in the first decade of the century but Wide Sargasso Sea crucially begins with the end of slavery: ‘Still waiting for this compensation the English promised when the Emancipation Act was passed’ (ll.12–14), which was in 1833. Slavery was legally abolished on 1 August 1834, the year that Antoinette’s father dies. In many history books this legislation is portrayed as a great humanitarian move on the part of the British, in contrast with the rest of Europe, but fear of rebellion was a major factor. The Jamaican uprising of 1831–2 was perhaps decisive at a time when widespread unrest across the West Indies was feared and so Wide Sargasso Sea ’s opening on Jamaica is partly important precisely because it was the site of intensive black resistance. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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