I thought the novel Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys was really interesting because the novel tells and illustrates the life of a character that is only shown as crazy and insane named Bertha. In Jane Eyre, Bertha who is also known as Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea is only shown from the perspectives of Jane but mostly from the perspective of Rochester. In Jane Eyre, Bertha is a character who is hidden from everyone. But when Jane Eyre finds about Bertha, Jane and others only see her as crazy and a threat. In Wide Sargasso Sea, the authors show the readers how difficult Antoinette’s life really was. Antoinette was a Creole girl in the estates of Jamaica but throughout the book, she has neither been accepted in the Whites nor the blacks. She was neglected by her own mother who was known as a lunatic by others. The only friend Antoinette made named Tia betrayed her for the pennies that Antoinette received from her nurse. When Antoinette finally liked her school, her stepfather decides to use her for profit. She gets married to Rochester who only married her for the real estate she obtained from her other. Rochester started to see that Antoinette by the day is happy and enjoying her surrounding but by night she shares her fears and nightmares she has when she sleeps. Instead of understanding Rochester only uses her for his own sexual pleasure. I think it is very unfair of the way Antoinette is shown in Jane Eyre. She has been through so much in life since she was a young girl. Instead of being kind and helping her, almost everyone used her and never shown compassion towards her. Yes later she gets worse, but anyone would go crazy after going through Antoinette has gone through.

The essays provided in the book are helpful when reading the novel, “Wide Sargasso Sea” for the reader to understand the character well known as Bertha Mason. Who was first introduced in the novel “ Jane Eyre”. Bertha is portrayed as mysterious and mentally unstable person in “Jane Eyre”. However the essays provide clarity to her condition and how she ended up in England as Mr. Rochester’s hidden wife who he locked away and forgot. Before she was known as Bertha Mason, she was Antoinette Cosway born to French creole parents who lived and owned land/plantation in Jamaica. Her family was white and had ownership over many African Americans before the freedom of  slaves in 1833. Therefore she faced racism and violence as a child, along with isolation and family loss. Bertha/ Antoinette is no longer just Mr. Rochester’s mentally insane wife to the reader but a victim of the Victorian era. Being born and raised in Jamaica allowed her to identify with the culture of the land. Instead of the post English colonial culture she belonged. Bertha/Antoinette unfortunately faces exclusion throughout her childhood from her parents, peers, and servants and it continues with Mr. Rochester as her husband. This book is an inside description on the economical, emotional, sexist treatment women endured from society and love ones during the 1800’s.

The novel Wide Sargasso Sea isn’t just a prequel to Jane Eyre, but rather a significant re-writing of the classic Victorian age writings. This time around Antoinette (Bertha) Mason, a young Creole girl living in the British Colony of Jamaica, and Rochester’s marriage is no longer a harsh sub-story. It is actually the main story in which the genders battle over emotional, resistance and economical control. However, race and racial difference are complicated categories in this novel, just after the emancipation of slavery in the British Colonies. Antoinette Cosway, others wise known as Bertha Mason, is called at one point a “Black nigger.” Similarly, the servant Mannie is called a “black Englishman.” Held up as opposites, pairing the categories of “White” with “nigger” and “black” with “Englishman” seems to be contradictory.

However, Antoinette’s story tells how and why she had come to feel alienated and insecure at her home. Her story is different from Jane Eyre story. After her father’s death. She did not identify with the white people In Jamaica who were mostly British colonials. The Jamaicans did not accept her family either, and without her father, Antoinette and her mother had no financial security and few if any friend. I think Antoinette’s main desire in this novel is to belong whether with her mother, with her friend Tia, or with her husband Edward Rochester. She is, in turn, rejected by each one. Time and again this rejection is coded as a rejection based on racial difference.

After I read the book. I know that “wide sargasso sea” is like the pre-article of “Jane Eyre” . It is the classic masterpiece as a negative character of Bertha’s interpretation and rewriting, Jean Ryhs reveals the imperialism and its patriarchal class through the description of the hero’s unfortunate encounter, and cultural oppression is the culprit of destroying happiness and destroying love and trust. Her story is different to Jane Eyre, Antoinette’s  childhood was living in contradictions, confused, she lacks of Jane Eyre’s unique independence, resistance consciousness. Jane Eyre has no money, but she pursues spiritual independence to obtain equality of social status. Antoinette is very rich, but she “often can not figure out who she is, where was her country, where is the attribution, why she was born,” Antoinette’s character formed with the environment she lived. She lacks a sense of belonging, so lack of self-confidence, feel lonely, helpless. Because there is no clear self, lack of security, she will only escape the reality, to seek the dream of the home, she must be recognized by others to confirm the existence of self, let alone the spirit of independence. So we can see that she was trying to find an ideal home in the whole story after she lost the first home. However, her last ideal home is in the marriage with Rochester, this time under the oppression of imperialism and masculinity, she completely lost herself, freedom and light, and her dream of her home was completely lost with her self Shattered. Antoinette’s fate became a tragedy is created by the imperialism.

Erwin Lee in “History and Narrative in Wide Sargasso Sea” explains where did Jean Rhys took the idea to write “Wide Sargasso Sea.” Lee explains that the idea came as a nationalistic approach. Rhys, who lived in England and wrote the novel post WWII, felt uncomfortable in how people saw Bertha from “Jane Eyre,” and decides to write a novel about Bertha/Antoinette. Wide Sargasso Sea makes one realize that Bertha is no longer the “Poor Ghost” from “Jane Eyre”, but a person with a background and history, a human being, a Heroin. Furthermore, this helps one question whether Antoinette AKA Bertha was the villain in Jane Eyre. Hence, the inevitable realization from “Wide Sargasso Sea” is that Bertha was the savior in Jane Eyre, and tried to help Jane from the bad person, Mr. Rochester.

In Addition, Lee also mentions that we must look at the book as a whole and understand that Rhys writes a two points of view on purpose. Not only to authenticate the validity of Antoinette’s information, but also to show her blindness to her surroundings. Mr. Rochester’s points of view prove that he was true misogynist as well as racist. When Mr. Rochester said “for a moment she looked much like Amelie” he makes one realize that he cannot distinguish between different people, and only because they have a dark skin it does not mean that they are the same, that they are “family.” Lee’s significant analysis on the latter assists one understand that it is not Antoinette’s fault for all that is happened to her, and that true responsible for the Antoinette’s destiny is the colonialism that took everything away from her, or more specifically Mr. Rochester who was the last straw for her to commit suicide.

-Ilya Ratner

Durning Down the House: The revisionary Paradigm of Jean Rhys’s

“Whether I have any right to do it is a question which I’ll face later.”

After I read this chapter and look at the critical on the book. I find out Rhys’s revision career the critical readers. Also it is target at feminist marker. This is complete different as the marker value at that time. However, different people always have different way to think and their point view are totally different. Just like Rhys use the novels three sections to move the read go in deep and deep to Rochester’s first wife Bertha’s world. She is a unlunck women. When we think we will think Jane Eyre is more and more lunck than Antoinette. To be honest, I think Jane Eyre and Antoinette have a lot same place. Even auther change her to Bertha Antoinette Mason creates a new person to make this lie more look like true. As the author describes whether we can have the right to face all of these lies. To be honest, it let me remember when Jane Eyre was litter she is also very extreme. But during the after life she met the right person so she have the different opinion of Bertha. And at the end Jane and Rochester live together happily. But Antoinette put herself in fire and burn it down. It full performance for each approach the things differently. I think this also is the part make reader interest and think more about the things happen in the story.

“Wide Sargasso Sea” tells a tragedy about Antoinette. “Two Native Voices in Wide Sargasso Sea” by Benita Parry helps me to understand “feminist individualism during the age of imperialism”. As Benita Parry states, “the native female, who was positioned on the boundary between human and animal as the object of imperialism’s social mission or soul-making.” Antoinette is in this position. Her life is tough and unfortunate. In “Jane Eyre” by Bronte, we do not see a lot descriptions about Antoinette, but Jean Rhys uses her point of view to tell a story of Antoinette and recover the imperialism.  Same as Jane Eyre, Antoinette resists all the time. When Rochester threatens Antoinette, she states, “This is free country and I am free woman.” Both Jane and Antoinette have spirit of resistance and pursue freedom and feminist. Benita Parry also mentions that “the nexus of intimacy and hatred between white settler and black servant is written into the text in the mirror imagery of Antoinette and Tia.” Rhys emphasizes the contradictions and barriers between people under different social backgrounds. Indeed, different cultures obstruct communication between people, destroy the real status of love and trust, racial background, and cultural oppression. The endings of Jane and Antoinette are different. Jane finally live a happy life with Rochester, but Antoinette sets herself in the sea of fire and is burned. I think Antoinette’s death is the highlight of the text, and it emphasizes Antoinette’s spirit of resistance. It also gives readers more space for imagination.

The artist Cinthia Marcelle was born in Brazil and one of her installations named Project 105 brought my attention during my visit in MOMA . The work was filled with bricks and chalks, which conduct two sides of walls. Gaps between bricks are filled with white chalks and are in different shapes; some of them are even broken.

I saw the connection between this piece of art and human relations in modern society. Each individual represents pieces of bricks in the wall; white chalks are their connections or relationships among people. Both bricks and chalks are essential for the installation. The fragility and importance of chalks also reflected human relationships. The entire society consists different people as represented by unique shapes of bricks. In order to build a firm and stable wall, bricks have to stay together, which demonstrates that It is difficult to achieve success without cooperating with other people.

In addition, some human relations are based on mutual benefits and unstable when they do not need each other. People might think broken chalks look abrupt for a perfect installation; I think it is a different type of beauty. We can not require everyone in the world remain their innocence and have the kindest heart towards other people. There are bad sides of human beings and this wall reflects characteristics of human relations in the society.

7. Perspective switches two times in the novel…

I think that it’s highly important that we read the same story from different people’s point of view. By reading what each character is feeling at a specific moment, it allows you to psychoanalyze each character and their situation without being biased in any way. If the story was told through Antoinette’s point of view the entire time then I’d probably have a different opinion as to how I feel about it at the end. These characters are very flawed and it’s important that we get “the full story”, so to speak.
This reminds me of the last book we read, “Mrs. Dalloway”. In that book the person who was telling the story kept jumping back and forth. There was no way I would have completely understood a certain character’s depression if it was told by an observing character. Similarly here, there was no way I was going to be able to fully understand how exactly Antoinette “transformed” into Bertha if the story was solely told through Rochester’s perspective.
To be honest, I trust Rochester more. Even though I don’t trust his judgement or reasons for wanting to do certain things such as marrying Antoinette for the money, he’s “sane”. Antoinette’s increasing difficulty to be able to grasp reality later in the book, even though it’s solely not her fault, makes her unreliable. Although, I do feel bad for what eventually became of Antoinette, even if I did see it coming of course.

Carlos Montoya