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Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys

3.59 · Rating details · 69,482 ratings · 5,430 reviews

Wide Sargasso Sea, a masterpiece of modern fiction, was Jean Rhys’s return to the literary center stage. She had a startling early career and was known for her extraordinary prose and haunting women characters. With Wide Sargasso Sea, her last and best-selling novel, she ingeniously brings into light one of fiction’s most fascinating characters: the madwoman in the attic f ...more

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Paperback, 171 pages

Published January 25th 2016 by W. W. Norton Company (first published October 1966)

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Dec 20, 2008 Manny rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts

Reader, I married him first.

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Nov 09, 2016 Sean Barrs rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: those who want the full picture

Shelves: postcolonial, darkness-horror-gothic, love-and-romance, 5-star-reads

Bertha Mason is the madwoman in the attic; she is the raving lunatic that is Rochester’s first wife in Jane Eyre,but have you ever stopped to wonder what her side of the story is? Have you ever considered that she may have a tale to tell?

Jean Rhys has, and she tells it to you in all its traumatic colours. Our crazy lunatic isn’t that far from Jane. Bronte describes her as a semi-human, an animal that growls and raves as she stalks the hall of Thornfield like some unidentifiable spectre. But wha Bertha Mason is the madwoman in the attic; she is the raving lunatic that is Rochester’s first wife in Jane Eyre,but have you ever stopped to wonder what her side of the story is? Have you ever considered that she may have a tale to tell?

Jean Rhys has, and she tells it to you in all its traumatic colours. Our crazy lunatic isn’t that far from Jane. Bronte describes her as a semi-human, an animal that growls and raves as she stalks the hall of Thornfield like some unidentifiable spectre. But what drove her to this state? What made her this way? Well the simple answer is a man named Rochester. As the second son of a rich family, he needed a means of creating his own wealth. What's the answer to his problem? Marry some rich girl and steal all her money and not worry about the consequences, but there more to it than this. Do you remember that scene in Jane Eyre where Rochester tries to dominate Jane and make her into something else by picking out her clothes? Perhaps Bertha had this but on a more intense scale.

Indeed, Bertha isn’t even her real name. Rhys names the character Antoinette, a name Rochester refuses to use when he learns of her past. Antoinette has a family history of insanity on the maternal side, but, again there is more to it than this. What creates this insanity? For Antoinette it is the simple of act of belonging nowhere. She is a hybrid, a figure that walks between cultures. As a white European girl she was raised in Jamaica; thus, she is neither fully Jamaican nor European. This sounds very similar to the role of the governess, a figure that belonged to no particular class structure. Neither culture would accept Antoinette as one of their own, as she herself recognises:

“It was a song about a white cockroach. That’s me. That’s what they call all of us who were here before their own people in Africa sold them to the slave traders. And I’ve heard English woman call us white niggers. So between you I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all.”

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She is stuck in-between with an uncertain identity, so when this Rochester figure comes along proposing love she is swept away. Could she really be this happy? This man offers her hope and a new life, but it is all a lie. When she finds out it breaks her. The last bastion of refuge shatters and she realises her hate for this false man: she finds yet another place she doesn’t belong. Rochester takes his grief stricken wife home, and shoves her in an attic. Then BOOM! He finds himself utterly shocked at the manifestation of her madness. Such a fool.

We cannot blame Bronte for her depiction of Bertha. Bronte wrote during the peak of the British Empire; these ideas were imbedded into her cultural psyche: this is how the Victorians saw the world. Bronte was unconsciously aware of this; she even went as far as to apologise at a later date for her depiction of Bertha. She didn’t fully consider how it would be received. In her fixation with women’s rights in an unjust Western society, she failed to look beyond the realms of the English experience. But that is not to overlook the phenomenal achievements of Jane Eyre. It does wonders for recognising the voice of women; however, Jean Rhys just goes a little bit further.

Facebook| Twitter| Insta| Academia ...more

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Jun 09, 2009 Tatiana rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: those who like books about incoherent lunatics

Shelves: classics, why-the-hype, 1001, 2009

In short - incoherent overpraised rubbish.

I have read my share of classics over the years. Some of them were boring, some outside the area of my interest, but never had I come across one that was so dreadfully bad and at the same time so critically acclaimed.

I simply can't comprehend how this jumble of disjointed sentences can be seriously called a "masterpiece." The story was almost impossible to follow. Had I not read "Jane Eyre," I'd be lost in this book completely. The characters' motivatio ...more

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Aug 19, 2012 Emily May rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommended to Emily May by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Shelves: classics, 2012, clothbound-wishlist

Beware of a few Jane Eyre spoilers if you've managed to live your life so far without a) reading it, or b) knowing what happens.
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One thing that really gets on my nerves is when an author writes a book about another author's story/character/whatever and you cannot understand or appreciate what you are being given unless you read the first author's work. Now, I have read Jan Beware of a few Jane Eyre spoilers if you've managed to live your life so far without a) reading it, or b) knowing what happens.
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One thing that really gets on my nerves is when an author writes a book about another author's story/character/whatever and you cannot understand or appreciate what you are being given unless you read the first author's work. Now, I have read Jane Eyre many times, but If I hadn't I would have been clueless as to what Rhys was babbling on about here. For me, this book really demonstrates that the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list really does not mean "The 1001 Best Books Ever".

And I do appreciate the original idea behind Jean Rhys' novel. The mad woman in Mr Rochester's attic had a story to tell, it has long bothered feminists and other critics how this character was portrayed in Jane Eyre because, at the end of the day, this mad woman was a person with a history - or should have been - not just a little crazy puppet there to pop up and throw a spanner in the works when Jane and Mr Rochester finally got together. Rhys wanted to give her the past that Bronte didn't, and she also wanted to show her decline into madness so the reader could appreciate who she was and where she came from and why she ended up the way she did.

I just don't think it was handled very well and I didn't like the writing style at all. The narrative relies upon dream-like visions, fragmented impressions, incomplete sentences, and multiple first-person voices to create an overall sense of disorientation in the reader... or so is the intention according to my little bit of google research. I'd say "complete bewilderment" is more accurate than "disorientation". I find that I can't appreciate this feeling of being drugged up to my eyeballs when reading a book, though I know many readers look on it favourably. It's more trippy than beautiful to me.

Plus, I think the attempts to show how she became mad were a failure. This book appears on lists like "Novels for Feminists" and "100 Books Every Woman Should Read" - why? When this is a book about a woman who falls into madness because she distrusts her husband and their relationship is falling apart. I appreciate that it isn't feminism if the woman is always strong and never makes mistakes, but she basically crumbles because her husband doesn't give her enough attention. Not very believable, and not very pro-woman either. ...more

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Mar 05, 2019 Violet wells rated it really liked it

I've always been convinced I've read Jane Eyre. I've even rated it here. I also thought I had at some point in my life seen a film adaptation. But the further I ventured into this retelling of Charlotte Bronte's novel the more I found myself doubting the veracity of this assumption. Finally, I had to own up to never having read Jane Eyre. This came as a bit of a shock, as it always does when we discover we have invented a memory. No doubt I once fibbed, not wanting to embarrass myself as being p I've always been convinced I've read Jane Eyre. I've even rated it here. I also thought I had at some point in my life seen a film adaptation. But the further I ventured into this retelling of Charlotte Bronte's novel the more I found myself doubting the veracity of this assumption. Finally, I had to own up to never having read Jane Eyre. This came as a bit of a shock, as it always does when we discover we have invented a memory. No doubt I once fibbed, not wanting to embarrass myself as being poorly read and the fib became a monument, a monument I've even garnished with (four-starred) flowers.

And if you've never read Jane Eyre this novel is sometimes confusing. It may even be confused. It begins with Antoinette, a young Creole girl whose family on her white father's side have a dubious history of slave-holding. Slavery has recently been abolished and there's much anger in the air. The racism theme in this novel is for the most part artfully dramatised, especially perhaps the close bond between racism and misogyny. As if you can't have one without the other. (Women too can be misogynistic, if they've been browbeaten and brainwashed .) Part one, culminating with the eruption of the violence simmering throughout, is all beautifully observed and compelling.

Then we begin part two and I found myself reading three pages which were going completely over my head. I retraced my footsteps and found a footnote. The note at the back of the book informed me the book was now being narrated by Antoinette's new husband. Should a novel need this kind of note? I recently watched a documentary about Rhys' editor and learned that the first part of this book was added afterwards at her suggestion. Which means Rhys composed the novel in a completely different key. And I'm afraid this shows. I kept feeling Rhys didn't have full control over her material. As if the new beginning had skewed and jarred what followed. To my mind, the editor should have gone further and told her to now write the entire novel from Antoinette's point of view. The husband narrative, never entirely convincing - what baddie portrays himself as a baddie? - might have been interesting had Rhys sought to undermine Antoinette's truth with his truth - created a battle of two unreliable narrators. But he's a reliable narrator, too reliable, there essentially to establish facts. It struck me as a laziness in Rhys that, having changed the beginning, she left what follows untouched. And all the best bits of the husband's narrative are when he sounds exactly like Antoinette. That Rhys eventually dumps him for part three and returns to Antoinette does make you wonder why he was ever there in the first place. (She also very clumsily adds a brief third voice in part three which confirmed to me that she gave far more thought to crafting her sentences than she did to structure.) It would have demanded a more refined artistry but my feeling was Rhys could have and should have channelled all the information we learn through the husband through Antoinette.

What redeems the architectural flaws is how well Rhys writes and how much of interest she has to say about her subject matter. It's sad if this, as the cover proclaims, is her masterpiece because my feeling is she was more than capable of writing a better novel. The average rating for this is 3.58 and that's pretty much how I felt. And I haven't read this three times as this site declares. But I have now read it. Jane Eyre will follow soon. ...more

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Jul 27, 2017 Jaidee rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: those that like their literature poetic and nebulous

Recommended to Jaidee by: a beautiful ex girlfriend as fiery as Antoinette herself

Shelves: five-stars-books

5 "erratic, ecstatic and hypnotic" stars !!

4th Favorite Read of 2017 (Tie)

This book is such a wonderful dark counterpoint to Jane Eyre. I was inspired to write a poem rather than a review and I hope you enjoy it

Antoinette

Antoinette by day, Bertha by twilight
The white cockroach of Coulibri
Bold & Beautiful
Mad and Fiery as Hades

Daughter of slaveowner, philanderer, villain
Mired in mayombe and voodoo
and the saints of the dark godesses
on the isle of Jamaica

Nineteen lovers or was it ninety nine
No matt ...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Petra-X Off having adventures rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, reviewed, getting-a-bit-personal-here, 2020-100-reviews, books-read-a-long-time-ago, caribbean

I read this book years ago and loved it as much as Jane Eyre of which this book was the prequel. I also wrote a review years ago but it not only disappeared, the edition was changed. How do these things happen? There is very little about the book in the following. But quite a bit about Dominica and Sargasso and a little of Jean Rhys herself.

Years ago I used to go to Dominica, I stayed in three places. Firstly was an old Great House in Roseau, the capital, Cherry Orchard which wasn't it's origina ...more

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Jul 15, 2019 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

“After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie”, was so terrific that I ordered two more books by Jean Rhys to read.
“Good Morning, Midnight”, - will be next to read...

“Wide Sargasso Sea”, was Rhys most famous book.... quoted as a masterpiece...bringing the fascinating character- Antoinette Cosway- from Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre”, out of the dark attic...and putting her center stage.
I agree - the entire concept for this book was brilliant- fascinating- and it worked.
What an incredible risk, Rhys made!! Truly ...more

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Jun 06, 2013 Rowena rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Probably contains some spoilers

“Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible – the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest trees, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched. One was snaky looking, another like an octopus with long thin brown tentacles bare of leaves hanging from a twisted root. Probably contains some spoilers

“Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible – the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest trees, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched. One was snaky looking, another like an octopus with long thin brown tentacles bare of leaves hanging from a twisted root.” - Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

I was curious to read this book as it was considered a sort of prequel to Jane Eyre. So I guess this counts as fanfiction? At least it’s very well-written fan fiction!

The writing style is of course different from Jane Eyre. The depictions of the Caribbean are beautiful. It’s a relatively short book and it tells the story of Mr. Rochester's first wife, Antoinette Cosway, whom he met in Jamaica. The themes explored in the book are very postcolonialism (discusses the relationships between former slaves and slaveowners after Emancipation), identity (Antoinette is Creole and is therefore not accepted by either the blacks or the whites) and madness.

I’ve just finished reading a book about the Suffragette movement that looked into historical accounts of insanity in women. I had no idea that the word "hysteria" was first used to describe a supposed mental ailment that women suffered from all because they had a uterus. *sigh* Apart from being frustrated by that piece of pseudoscience, what's also frustrating is the fact that historically a lot of people were unaware that the environment one lives in can make one "crazy." Women in particular, who were often reliant on men and didn’t have their own freedom were obviously more likely to suffer from nervous breakdowns.

I’m pretty sure most readers will change their opinion of Rochester after they read this. I will definitely see him in a less than favourable light when I do re-read Jane Eyre. ...more

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Sep 26, 2014 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, 1001-book, dominican-american, gothic, historical, feminism, literature, 20th-century

411. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys (1890 – 1979)
Characters: Antoinette Cosway, Tia, Aunt Cora, Grace Poole, Richard Mason, Annette Cosway, Pierre Cosway, Mr Mason, Christophine, Godfrey, Edward Rochester
Abstract: Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty. But soon after their marriage, rumors of madness in her family poison his mind against her. He forces Antoinette to conform to his 411. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys (1890 – 1979)
Characters: Antoinette Cosway, Tia, Aunt Cora, Grace Poole, Richard Mason, Annette Cosway, Pierre Cosway, Mr Mason, Christophine, Godfrey, Edward Rochester
Abstract: Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty. But soon after their marriage, rumors of madness in her family poison his mind against her. He forces Antoinette to conform to his rigid Victorian ideals.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و ششم ماه سپتامبر سال 1992 میلادی
عنوان: گردابی چنین هایل؛ نوشته: جین ریس؛ مترجم: گلی امامی؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، اسپرک، 1370، در 193 ص، کتابنامه به صورت زیرنویس، موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان انگلیسی - سده 20 م
عنوان: گردابی چنین هایل؛ نوشته: جین ریس؛ مترجم: گلی امامی؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، کتاب پنجره: 1387، در 210 صفحه

رمان «گردابی چنین هایل» پس از سالها دوباره روانه بازار کتاب شد. برگردان همین رمان، نخستین بار توسط نشر «اسپرک» به سال 1370 هجری خورشیدی، منتشر شده بود. مقدمه‌ ی فرانسیس ویندهام، خوانشگر را با زندگی نویسنده، بانو «جین ریس» آشنا می‌کند. نویسنده‌ ی متولد هندغربی، که بیشتر سال‌های کاری خود را در انگلستان گذرانده، در زمانه‌ ی خودش در نیمه‌ ی نخست سده ی بیستم میلادی، شهرتی به سزا داشته اند. سبک نو نوشته‌ های ایشان، خود را، برابر با رمان‌هایی نشان می‌دهند، که در همان سال‌ها، به قلم بانوان نویسنده ی انگلیسی منتشر شده‌ اند، ناقلان آثار و طوطیان شکر شکن شیرین گفتار نیز، چنین آورده اند که: شبا‌هت‌های بسیاری با نوشته‌ های «آندریا لِوِی»، در داستانهای خانوم ریس دیده می‌شود. پایان نقل از طوطیان شکرشکن شیرین گفتار. داستان در نخستین سال‌های سده ی بیستم میلادی ست که آغاز می‌شود. جایی در جامائیکا، زنی تنها با دخترش روزگار می‌گذرانند. آن‌ها روزگاری ثروتمند بوده اند، و از امتیاز زندگی اشرافی خود لذتها برده اند، با لغو برده داری، و درگذشت سرپرست خانواده، در انزوا به سر می‌برند. آن‌ها نه انگلیسی هستند و نه سیاه‌پوست. از سفید‌پوست‌های بومی جزیره هستند. انگلیسی‌ها آن‌ها را کرئول میخوانند، و سیاه‌ها آن‌ها را «سوسک سفید» صدا‌ می‌زنند. دختر روای داستان، روایت را آغاز میکند، تا دنیایی پر از زشتی به تصویر کشد. دنیایی که، زندگی آن‌ها را به آتش کشیده است. در فصل‌های پسین رمان، دختری جوان مقیم صومعه است، سپس ازدواج می‌کند، تا هر دو با هم، رمان را پیش ببرند: باز هم، دنیا پر از سیاهی ست، پر از نفرت است، و پر از جدایی ست. جایی ست که انگار قرار نیست آرامش وجود داشته باشد، تا بتوان لحظه‌ ای آرام بود، و چشم برهم گذاشت. «جین ریس» از رئالیسم شاعرانه‌ ای بهره می‌برند، که هماره خوانشگران علاقه‌ ی ویژه، به نوشته های ایشان نشان می‌دهند. جمله‌ های بلند، و البته پر از صنایع ادبی، که وظیفه‌ ی تصویرسازی را به عهده دارند. اثر همانند نوشته‌ های امروزین، در ذهن راویان اصلی داستان چرخ می‌زند، و مرتب با عوض شدن راوی، ماجرا از چند سو دنبال، و تصاویر به ذهن خوانشگر فرستاده می‌شوند. ا. شربیانی ...more

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Feb 18, 2020 Michael rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020, recs

Hazy and full of dread, Wide Sargasso Sea fleshes out the character of Antoinette, the first wife of Rochester from Jane Eyre. Set in Jamaica shortly after the abolition of slavery, the novel follows from birth to death the heroine, a French creole woman of the former planter class who finds herself estranged from white and Black communities alike because of her fraught social identity. In lush, fragmented prose Rhys begins and ends the story from the perspective of Antoinette, who speaks ellipt ...more

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Sep 19, 2011 Nandakishore Varma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: general-fiction

Every once in a while, I stop to think about the neglected characters in various novels who exist only as plot devices. What are their stories? If you saw the novel through their eyes, what would it be like?

Therefore, ever since I heard the premise of Jean Rhys's novel, I was eager to read it. Bertha, Mr. Rochester's first wife, must have had a life other than as the "madwoman in the attic". I do not know if Charlotte Bronte ever thought about it, but Ms. Rhys obviously did, and this compellingl ...more

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Apr 28, 2019 Jean-Luke rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Forgive me, Dear Reader, for this rather shocking confession, but this Reader has never read Jane Eyre. As a lover of Literature (I guess for the time being I should demote myself to ‘so-called lover of Literature’) I stand before you hanging my head in shame (just ignore the fact that there’s a book laying in my lap). It seems to be a rather troubling trend as before this I read J.M. Coetzee’s Foe, without ever having read Robinson Crusoe..

So, having never read JE, how can it be that I simply ...more

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Sep 05, 2014 Fabian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

An epic romance made meek, singular, aromatic, ethereal, surreal. A fresh little nugget of splendor, of much-needed prose perfection. This is gothic romance at its absolute height. (It's perhaps the best piece of fan-fiction ever.) & I say this as "WSS" is in actuality a side story formulated for the emblematic crazed woman smack in the middle of "Jane Eyre". But it takes a life of its own... merging elements of brutal nature and brutal nurture both, to birth a spectacle like one I've never expe ...more

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Sep 04, 2013 Cecily rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mental-health-victorian-madness, miscellaneous-fiction, race-people-of-colour

I think the idea of one author piggy-backing, uninvited, on the characters and plot of another, is decidedly dodgy. However, this is widely regarded as a classic, and as I've read Jane Eyre many times (review here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...), I thought I should finally try this prequel novella.

With such well-known books, I don't think it's a spoiler to say this imagines the story of the mad first wife in Rochester's attic: from her childhood in Jamaica, through to her marriage to ...more

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May 19, 2013 Dolors rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: lovers of playing with fire

Recommended to Dolors by: the voices

Shelves: read-in-2013

Fear of the fallen myth syndrome is what has prevented me from reading this book for years.
You have to understand, Jane Eyre was my first "adult" novel. I was still a tomboy who had only read Enid Blyton's "The Secret Seven" when one scorching summer day the torn spine of a seemingly ancient book caught my attention among a few volumes sitting on my Godmother's shelves. I remember that summer as one of the best of my life, and while Jane became my personal heroine and I developed a fervent crus ...more

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Aug 09, 2020 leynes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

My crops are flourishing. My skin is clear. My grades are up. I couldn't be happier. Wide Sargasso Sea is the gift that keeps on giving, and I will forever be grateful to Jean Rhys for finally doing what needed to be done. Charlotte Brontë could never.

In case you didn't know, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) is a feminist and anti-colonial response to Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre (1847), describing the background to Mr. Rochester's marriage from the point-of-view of his "mad wife" Antoinette Cosw ...more

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May 21, 2013 Rakhi Dalal rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: haunting

Oct.11,1964

Sitting in bed. Scribbling. Using a pencil instead of pen for the ink spills over while I shake. Influence of cheap wine.

Sometimes I get out of control, freaky. My neighbors think I am mad. Ha! What do they know of madness? Who knows of madness? People only see what is there before their eyes. Who bothers to think how the despair creeps inside, shutting out the doors to the World permanently?

I look at the copy of Jane Eyre kept on the table by my side. I fill with rage.

No one th ...more

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Dec 11, 2017 Matthew rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, completist-book-club, library, 2017

I don't think I really understood this book at first, but after I finished it, I went looking around online for more info about it and it clicked. This book is a prequel to Jane Eyre to be read after you read Jane Eyre. Reading it before you read Jane Eyre will probably spoil some of it for you. Also, as a stand alone book without referrence to Jane Eyre, I don't think it is a particularly interesting book.

The story for me was a bit flat. I didn't fully understand the motivation of the character ...more

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Jun 06, 2020 Mutasim Billah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, west-indies

“If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic. You hate me and I hate you. We’ll see who hates best. But first, first I will destroy your hatred. Now. My hate is colder, stronger, and you’ll have no hate to warm yourself. You will have nothing.”

And that pretty much sums up the story. Wide Sargasso Sea is a tale of passion, and madness. Its a story from a time when slavery was abolished and slave traders were shunned from the community in Jamaica. A little “If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic. You hate me and I hate you. We’ll see who hates best. But first, first I will destroy your hatred. Now. My hate is colder, stronger, and you’ll have no hate to warm yourself. You will have nothing.”

And that pretty much sums up the story. Wide Sargasso Sea is a tale of passion, and madness. Its a story from a time when slavery was abolished and slave traders were shunned from the community in Jamaica. A little girl grows up and finds herself alienated from society, growing up away from love, as certain events tear her family apart. A world of superstition and magic, a world of vivid colors is where our story is told. A world of hatred, and madness.

“And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?”

The story was written during a period of obscurity in Rhys' career between 1939's Good Morning Midnight and 1966 when this book was released. With an impending World War and economic crisis from the first still at large, the themes of Good Morning Midnight were deemed too depressing by critics and readers and drove her into isolation from the public eye. At such a moment, when she had almost given up writing, an advertisement requesting her whereabouts for permission to adapt her then-latest work into a theatrical presentation appeared in the newspaper. Her friendship with Selma Vaz Dias, the origin of the advertisement, eventually inspired her to begin writing again.

“I watched her die many times. In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty. Only the sun was there to keep us company. We shut him out. And why not? Very soon she was as eager for what's called loving as I was - more lost and drowned afterwards.”

Wide Sargasso Sea is written as a feminist, post-colonial prequel to Jane Eyre, one of the two central characters being Antoinette Cosway, shown as a devilish madwoman in the attic in the latter. The central themes are identity politics of the post-Emancipation era, and the story of the women who lived through them, the cultural taboo regarding mental health, and the superstitions of the time, that a slave-trader's daughter's identity is like a double-edged sword. And that love is merely one side of the coin, the other being hatred. I really enjoyed the experience. I hope you do too.

“There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.”
Image: Karina Lombard as Antoinette Cosway in the 1993 film adaptation of the story.

...more

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Oct 05, 2020 Nat K rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub-2020, makes-you-think, 2020-books, intense, favourites, novella

"I knew the time of day when though it is hot and blue and there are no clouds, the sky can have a very black look."

From the opening pages, this story has a feeling of malice behind it. There is an impending feeling of doom that emanates, which practically pulses from the book. As if you know something bad is about to happen.

Which of course it does.

This is the story of Antoinette Cosway. Of Creole heritage, she is neither black nor white. And is not fully accepted by either. It's not a comfortab ...more

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Apr 30, 2014 Caroline rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: ho-hum, so-much-potential, literary-fiction, overrated, waste-of-trees, she-wrote-it

***SPOILERS HIDDEN***
***NO JANE EYRE SPOILERS***

Published 119 years after Jane Eyre, the famous classic that inspired it, Wide Sargasso Sea is Jean Rhys’s attempt to give Bertha Mason (here going primarily by the name “Antoinette Cosway”) a detailed back story. A fan of Jane Eyre since I first read it in ninth grade and a fan of the movie version of Wide Sargasso Sea, I greatly looked forward to reading this book. I want to stress how crucial it is to read Jane Eyre before starting this. There's ...more

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Jul 20, 2015 Sara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-classics

Jean Rhys takes us to the West Indies, an environment that is heavy, languid, stifling, and claustrophobic. It is not surprising that people go insane here, what is surprising is that anyone is able to keep their sanity. In this world of mysticism, racial mixtures and moving boundaries, is born the tragedy that becomes the catalyst to one of the greatest love stories of all time. But that is after--this story belongs, not to the governess, but to the wife.

Antoinette Cosway is a girl who is press ...more

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Oct 30, 2013 Duane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: rated-books, reviewed-books, guardian-1000

Anytime a writer takes on the idea of writing or rewriting another writers story or characters, they are treading on delicate, even sacred ground. Especially in this instance, you are talking about an iconic work, a masterpiece, the gold standard of classic English literature, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. But somehow Jean Rhys pulls it off without too much damage to the original work, and let's face it, Bertha needed to have her story told. Bertha's real name is Antoinette Cosway, and this is ...more

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Jun 25, 2016 Kevin Ansbro rated it really liked it

Shelves: human-emotions, immorality, island-life, gritty-realism, human-cruelty

"Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere."
-Hazel Rochman.

Jean Rhys was a post-colonial writer, who lived in the Caribbean and identified with the plight of former plantation slaves for whom emancipation didn't offer the freedom it promised.

This, an innovative sequel to Jane Eyre, is a raw depiction of life in the steamy underbelly of post-colonial Jamaica.
At times an astonishing read, Rhys gives voice to the subjugated ...more

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Nov 09, 2016 Cheryl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, women-and-books, the-psyche

"I watched her die many times. In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty. Only the sun was there to keep us company. We shut him out. And why not? Very soon she was as eager for what's called loving as I was - more lost and drowned afterwards."

Forget the Jane Eyre parallel, you don't need it. This book encapsulates the melancholy of evolving times and evolving minds and it measures human decency. Just when one th "I watched her die many times. In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty. Only the sun was there to keep us company. We shut him out. And why not? Very soon she was as eager for what's called loving as I was - more lost and drowned afterwards."

Forget the Jane Eyre parallel, you don't need it. This book encapsulates the melancholy of evolving times and evolving minds and it measures human decency. Just when one thinks there is some progression towards human decency, money stills morality. And I'm not just alluding to American politics, I'm also referring to Antoinette, the main character who sees her mother taunted and abused because of her mental disorder, only to watch while the same thing happens to her years later. The common denominators? An enviable house and land, skin color, inherited money from a stepfather (even if she was dirt poor before), black nationalistic pride that determines she is a white minority who must be excavated, despondency of blue-collar employees, and so on. Go, her black housekeeper of many years warns her, take your money and leave your husband and he'll be a poor man. But she doesn't listen to her, something about misplaced trust. What's with the complacency and lack of togetherness that drowns women in deeper mire? Do something. It's coincidental that I read this after reading Of Human Bondage, but after watching recent news with tears in my eyes as I had to once again doubt basic human decency, I thought how it must have been fate that linked me with these two works that illustrate life and the oddities of humans and their complexities.

I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets of whatever color, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. 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. She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.

It's hard to sympathize with the Cosways who once owned the slaves who birthed those harassing them, but it is not too difficult to empathize with Antoinette who is a child and innocent partaker to the 1830s Jamaican society wanting to erase the brutality of human ownership and colonization. I'm happy that I've read this work of Jean Rhys, because Good Morning, Midnight was not one of my favorites. The mood of this book is sharpened through terse, yet visceral prose that proceed in a fragmentary haphazard and hallucinatory manner, in order to elucidate the renderings of psychological upheaval. It is an underscoring of generations who refuse to break the pattern of suffering. Antoinette wants to leave, just like her mother before her, and yet she doesn't until she is forced to. She has money, unlike her mother before her, and yet she, a white woman, allows herself to become a slave to the white men around her: her half-brother who turns over her wealth to his best friend, and a husband who uses her and cares nothing for her well-being. In the end, Antoinette is no different than those of Creole descent around her who for years, fought to gain back their basic human rights, including the right to individualism. Yes, there is something brutal, yet self-actualizing about watching history repeat itself.

As for my confused impressions they will never be written. There are blanks in my mind that cannot be filled up.
...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Jenn(ifer) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: those who have already read Jane Eyre

Recommended to Jenn(ifer) by: I would never have found Jean if not for Mariel

Shelves: summer-of-women-2012, xx, read-in-2012, my-reviews-that-dont-suck

As many of you who read my reviews are aware, I had devoted this summer to exclusively reading female writers, as my reading list was woefully lacking in books written by the fairer sex. It has been an exceptional experience for me as it has opened my eyes to such great writers as Flannery O’Connor, Virginia Woolf, Alice Munro and the incomparable Jean Rhys.

Jean Rhys! I feel I owe a debt to the original publishers of Wide Sargasso Sea because if not for its publication her exceptional early work ...more

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Jun 09, 2016 Roman Clodia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: contested-histories-paper

Reread for the third time 13/10/20

I'm blown away by this book all over again and am in awe of the magnificent way that Rhys deftly layers her art: Antoinette is both character - melancholy, traumatised by her family history, exploited, and menaced in so many ways - but she's also a figure who might stand in for a British West Indian colonial history which many people want to mute or hide away, but which still finds ways, however brutal and disturbing, to assert itself and wander the corridors of ...more

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Dec 13, 2015 Paul rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: caribbean

Jean Rhys provides an atmospheric backdrop to Jane Eyre, asking some obvious questions and posing some difficult questions. The slave trade and its profits are behind much of the nouveaux riches of the eighteenth century and their country houses; especially in the west of England and around the port cities of Bristol and Liverpool. The novel addresses the aftermath of the end of slavery and juxtaposes another sort of slavery; marriage. The link is an obvious one; the marriage is arranged by Anto ...more

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May 20, 2013 Aubrey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Aubrey by: Dolors

Shelves: reality-check, 1-read-on-hand, 4-star, reviewed, shorty-short, antidote-think-twice-read, pure-power-of-gr, r-2013, r-goodreads, antidote-think-twice-all

4.5/5

And if the razor grass cut my legs I would think 'It's better than people.' Black ants or red ones, tall nests swarming with white ants, rain that soaked me to the skin - once I saw a snake. All better than people.
Better. Better, better than people.

Imagine you are owned. Not from day one, not full physically either, but the brief taste of the former and the dire potential of the latter is enough to make you scream. For scream is not only what you can do but what you are expected to do, you, the fair, the frail, the coquette so volatile and weak. Born into beauty and likewise condemned, for where we find beauty we also find fear, and a pretty face only goes so far.

Imagine you are defective. Think upon the defectiveness that was your bread and butter, when the normal ones closed ranks and secreted away the lies and treachery and social functioning in the name of blood and bond. Ponder the long, slow death of mind and fate, when all the world's a foe and you must sell yourself before you find a friend. Measure how much time it takes for you to fidget in your silence and your isolation before recourse drives you to any and all distraction. Now reduce said available distraction to engorged nature, garroting humanity, and rum. See what you can find.

Isn't it quick to say. And isn't it long to live.

Imagine that there is hope, but not quite. Ponder the divisions of race, gender, and sanity, and the usual circumstances that accompany such bigotry, such ideology, such hate. The men are free, the women are free enough, and the mad ones are kept safe for their own good. Muse on the terms of legality, and how easily the webs spin into choke holds and damnation.

No more slavery! She had to laugh! 'These new ones have Letter of the Law. Same thing. They got magistrate. They got fine. They got jail house and chain gang. They got tread machine to mash up people's feet. New ones worse than old ones - more cunning, that's all

Imagine lurid environment in rotting ripeness being the only confirmation that you are alive. Then sacrifice it for cardboard cutouts and denial of all sensory satisfaction.

Imagine a life lived in limbo, on the crest of looking up. Imagine the burning in a livelong text written before and happening after, measuring out truth as merest pinches of salt. Imagine lust and its double-standards of love and hell fire.

How old was I when I learned to hide what I felt? A very small boy. Six, five, even earlier. It was necessary, I was told, and that view I have always accepted.

Names matter, like when he wouldn't call me Antoinette, and I saw Antoinette drifting out of the window...

Imagine what could have been, before your self was pinned and splayed and smothered deep within your life.

P.S. If Hemingway is the short shrift patter of BB guns, Rhys is the knifework honed to an exquisite flush. ...more

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About Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys

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Jean Rhys (originally Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams) was a Caribbean novelist who wrote in the mid 20th century. Her first four novels were published during the 1920s and 1930s, but it was not until the publication of Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966 that she emerged as a significant literary figure. A "prequel" to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea won a prestigious WH Smith Literary Award i ...more

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