The culture of death and magic was widespread in the history of Jamaica and can be further shown in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea. In many parts of the novel, the concept of death is shown with people who act like zombies, who are alive and dead, and ghosts, who are neither alive nor dead. The novel touches upon the idea of being physically alive but emotionally dead at the same time. Death is portrayed throughout numerous parts of the book, such as in Antoinette’s life. She has a firsthand experience with death; one memory she has from her early years is when her mother’s horse died from poison. Death may be physical, but can also represent the insanity that occurred within the characters – death in a person’s mind that causes instability. Antoinette’s psychological instability may be caused by the traumatic experiences she went through.

The concept of magic is referred to many times and is shown through the unique powers Christophine holds; she is an important symbol of magic. She has an obsession with supernatural and superstitious beliefs, has an expertise in Obeah practices, and knows how to cast spells. Christophine draws her supernatural stories from voodoo legends, which Antoinette is assimilated with. Antoinette believes her mother has become a zombie – a body without a soul. The magic in the novel are mostly signs of bad luck, for example when the Coulibri Estate is burned down and the parrot goes into flames, Antoinette believed it was bad luck to kill a parrot or witness its death.

The topic of culture of death and magic in Jamaica can also be closely shown in Vincent Brown’s “Icons, Shamans, and Martyrs” from The Reaper’s Garden in that it describes the significance of the way the slaveowners treated their slaves. Slave masters went out of their way to try to achieve fear in order to maintain control over the enslaved by using physical force. They also “terrorized the spiritual imaginations of the enslaved.” They harassed slaves by giving them “unbearable workloads, physical punishment, and incessant hunger” which caused the Africans to commit suicide.

Slaves were basically dead and made to walk and act as if they were alive. Slaves were made to work and endure harsh circumstances. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette is left to her own devices after the deaths of her mother Annette, Pierre, Aunt Cora, and Mr. Mason. However, Antoinette believes her mother has returned as a zombie, which spirals back to death and magic. The correlation between zombies and slaves is that they are both lifeless beings; slaves were subjected to their masters’ rules and did not have much of a say in their own lives.