After reading the story, I found that the narrative sstructure of “Wide Sargasso Sea” is much more complex than that of , Jane Eyre. Rhys takes some autonomy with the original and her novel is considered as a written with a change. Rhys relies upon a selection of alternatives narrative most importantly multiple points of view. Although the characters and settings are certainly recognizable from the original from which it is derived, Rhys has written a new narration on history and the effects of both isolation and colonization. When Rhys tells the story of Antoinette (Bertha in Jane Eyre) and her husband (Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre), she highlights the negative impact and also takes the terrible but antagonistic figure of Antoinette from Jane Eyre and turns her into a sensitive victim due to the isolation and confusion caused directly by British colonization. Her isolation was due to her ethnicity, her class, and the white men oppression in her life. She says ” The blacks hated us, they called us white cockroaches “. Antoinette is rejected because her father was once a slave owner. This makes her unperson among the blacks and her family poverty makes her undesirable to the whites. Antoinette and her mother suffer torments at the hands of the white men their lives. These things create in her a sense of isolation. Rhys also takes Antoinette the helpless victim of her oppressive and heartless husband in Jane Eyre, and turns her into a quite powerful heroine who does what she can to take control of her life in the face of all oppression. Antoinette and her husband see the world in distinctly different ways, and those perspectives will do nothing but create division between them.

In conclusion, Rhys wants the readers to have more imagination about the story. And to know and understand that Bertha’s struggles in life are due to the effects of colonization and bad luck as she was isolated because of her ethnicity and class but also because of the lack of love from her husband.

Aminata Toure