Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Grew Up… in a convent in Jamaica after her slave-owning father passed away, her brother died in a fire, and her mother went mad. Poor and alone, Antoinette only has her black nurse, Christophene, to turn to.
Living… in a rundown plantation in Jamaica after the slaves have been freed. She is part of the Mason family since her mother remarried before going mad, and the Masons are responsible for arranging her marriage to a fortune-seeking Englishman. Although technically upper-class, Antoinette is not treated well because of her mother’s madness and her Creole heritage.
Profession… housewife. As a lady with lands held in her name – a “rich white girl”, as Christophene puts it – Antoinette does not have and is expected not to have any other profession.
Interests… her husband, because she loves him, and Granbois and England. Granbois is the place of her honeymoon, and a place she loves dearly; England, on the other hand, is a far away dream. She wonders what its cities are like and wants to see snow.
Relationship Status… married to Edward Rochester. While it is a passionate relationship at first, rumors about Antoinette and her family cause Edward to pull away.
Challenge… being of Creole descent; she belongs with neither the blacks nor the whites. On top of that, her mother’s madness starts suspicions that Antoinette has inherited the illness. Antoinette must find a way to deal with her loneliness and the hostility surrounding her, or succumb to madness.
Personality… passionate, needy, and sultry. Desperate for a place to belong, Antoinette falls in love with Edward and clings to him. She is beautiful and intoxicating, and she will do anything to keep the refuge he seems to offer. However, her intense love (“Say, “die”, and I will die”, she tells him) may be the thing that drives him away.
Get to Know her in...
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Dramatisation of Jean Rhys's novel set in 19th-century Jamaica. The tragic story of the first Mrs Rochester from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre centres on an arranged marriage between a white Creole heiress and a brooding Englishman, who fall in love only to be torn apart by rumours, paranoia and a cultural divide.
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In the wake of Jamaican emancipation, French colonist Annette Cosway falls into poverty and marries racist Englishman Paul Mason. But when Annette's young son dies in a fire started by former slaves, Mason flees to England, leaving his grief-stricken wife and her Creole daughter Antoinette behind. Soon Antoinette learns she must marry to claim her inheritance and sets her sights on Rochester, an Englishman eerily similar to Mason.
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Wide Sarassago Sea ingeniously brings into light one of fiction's most fascinating characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. This mesmerizing work introduces us to Antoinette Cosway, a sensual and protected young woman who is sold into marriage to the prideful Mr. Rochester. Rhys portrays Cosway amidst a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind.
