The beginning of the Wide Sargasso Sea, which plunges the reader into the hostile landscape of Jamaica after the Emancipation Act, gives an account of a young Creole girl commenting from the outside. ‘They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks…’ these simple yet powerful sentences introduce the reader into the world of the young Antoinette, who is considered an interloper, not only to those considered ‘they’, but also to herself. Rhys explains through Antoinette that the Emancipation Act that granted so much freedom to black slaves and was considered so miraculous and wonderful by those who designed also crippled blacks out of work and homes, and condemned slave owners to poverty and has ‘another side’ not anticipated. This idea of being an outsider is adopted from Jane Eyre, both Jane and Antoinette consider themselves as an 'interloper and an alien', both are separated from their parents either physically or emotionally which draws a similarity between the lives of nineteenth century women at this time.
One of the featured themes and important aspects of Wide Sargasso Sea is the complete misunderstanding of two very different cultures; English and Jamaican. The very characteristic that created Wide Sargasso Sea was the English’s indifference to acknowledging and expressing emotion passionately the way the other cultures do. This is what Jean Rhys acknowledges as one of Rochester’s traits in Jane Eyre, she incorporates this ‘Englishness’ into her novel Wide Sargasso Sea (shown by Rochester’s ‘How old was I when I learned to hide what I felt?’ suggesting that this became second nature and built into his character). Rhys uses this to explain how Rochester manages to become both repulsed by and to desire Antoinette so deeply –‘… I hated its indifference and the cruelty which was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness.’ His hatred for the landscape, the culture and Antoinette stem from his inability to communicate with it and above all not wanting to be drawn into something he truly fears- ‘She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.’ This raises connotations of Obeah and witchcraft and the notion that English women were never like this, that they would be quiet and docile and the mere notion that women would ever find sex appealing or enjoyable was completely unfounded in English culture, nevermind Rochester’s inexperience with women in general. This idea would have been truly terrifying in nineteenth Century England.
Furthermore there is a tangled relationship between dreams and reality. Antoinette feels that England must be a ‘cold dark dream’ that the West Indies is the only place she knows. This is informative of the ‘other side’ because Rochester feels very much the same ‘dream-like reality’ of the West Indies and so far not considered Antoinette’s view of England.
The arrival of Daniel Cosway’s letter, does nothing other than make Rochester’s anxieties on the island worse, by confirming ideas that Antoinette must be mad or unstable for being able to draw such roughness and rapacious thirst from him. Rochester then uses the letter to fuel his fears of Antoinette and to later draw away from her. Antoinette herself quotes 'There is always the other side, always’ but thus ignored by Rochester. However, by doing this Rhys creates the awareness in the reader of marginalised voices experienced not only by her own characters but also by herself who recognises and sympathises with other voices like hers; distant and unrecognised for a very long time, until it was too late.
Throughout the novel, there is an underlying murmur of malignant gossip. Thus, Rhys gives us the effects of gossip on the receiving side and shows us how gossip has plagued Antoinette’s (and her mother’s) life. A lot of the gossip comes from the servants who in a striking contrast to English servants, quite freely say what they want and are considered brash and rude. Amélie represents a lot of the freedom, unrestrained speaking and behaviour of Jamaican servants in a Creole household, quite freely criticising Rochester and Antoinette ‘the white cockroach she marry…’ suggesting that these ‘white cockroaches’ ought to be ‘gotten rid of’.
The times of day affect the characters’ behaviour significantly; during daylight hours Antoinette is happy and content (singing Christophine’s songs for example) but by night her behaviour is transformed into something darker and more savage-‘shall I wake her up and listen to the things she says, whispers in the darkness. Not by day.,’ At night there is a certain loss of control, and emotions are set higher and more freely expressed than during daylight hours ( I see you were very rough with her eh?). Both characters acquire a rapacious sexual appetite-‘she was as eager for what’s called loving as I was-more lost and drowned afterwards.’ This suggests the kind of need that the couple are looking for as a means to release, be distracted with or forget. ‘I watched her die many times’ suggests that ‘the other side’ may refer to a ‘half-awakened’ state, or even death itself and the use of sex as a tool to reach this state of ‘le petit mort’-‘the little death’ as a temporary state.
Overall, Rhys’s decision to revive and reform the character of ‘Bertha Mason’ –a character once so two-dimensional and hard to sympathise with in Jane Eyre, in place creates a deeper and meaningful female character with significant traits and background. Rhys breaks ‘Bertha’ out of the confines of the attic and develops her character to create a more meaningful and just version of ‘Bertha Mason’s life’ so that she can then be a more significant and organic character sacrifice and equally celebrates her, rather than a symbol of dissipation she was depicted in Jane Eyre. Rochester is also revised and depicted as a more vulnerable and naïve younger man than his ‘larger than life’ romantic hero persona in Jane Eyre; making it easier for readers to believe and understand his character but also easier to sympathise with him; his relations with his father and brother and his position as a younger son and his feelings of betrayal all amount to the cruel yet justified act of containing a ‘loose Caribbean woman’ in a secluded English manor house.
Footnotes:
1 Michael Thorpe, “The Other Side: Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre”-Norton Critical Anthology, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, ed by Judith Raiskin, WW Norton & Company, New York 1999, Page 173
2Letter from Jean Rhys to Francis Wyndham, Norton Anthology Page 139
3Letter from Jean Rhys to Diana Athill, Norton Anthology Page 144
4Letters from Jean Rhys to Maryvonne Moerman November 1949 Norton Anthology Page 131
