Sinking into Madness

#17 - Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys
Finished 4/17/07
Rating: 4/5
Total Pages: 124
Reason for Reading: Co-read with a friend
REVIEW: A fascinating follow-up to Jane Eyre, this book recounts the troubled life of Edward Rochester’s wife Antoinette -- the madwoman in the attic at Thornfield Estate. I found this an interesting literary approach, bringing to life another character’s untold story from another book, and I wonder why Rhys felt this was a project she needed to take on. The result is a thought-provoking look at issues of racism, sexism, magic, identity, and madness, mostly set in the postcolonial world of the Caribbean amongst wildly colourful and sensual images of a lush jungle world. There are many haunting impressions and disturbing themes still running through my mind, and the longer I consider what I’ve read, the more I recognize that this is a much more complex tale than it appears to be on the surface.

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W A R N I N G - - - S P O I L E R S

Rochester's decision to take Antoinette to England with him and to lock her up in the attic at Thornfield displays a horrifyingly cruel side to a man that had gained my sympathy for a short time. Christophine offered him the perfect escape, yet he refused to leave Antoinette behind, at the time, it seems, as a reaction to the thought of her marrying someone else. But there is truly only one reason for his actions. Punishment. The desire to exact a cruel and inhuman revenge on the woman he had married.

The key question I'm left with after reading Wide Sargasso Sea is that of identity and its role in madness. Rochester maliciously and deliberately wrenches away Antoinette's identity. He takes away her money and her property. In postcolonial Jamaica, the wealth of the wife reverts to the husband after marriage. Once he is confronted with her family history of psychological illness, he takes away her name and begins to call her Bertha (her mother's name). He takes away her vision of herself, by imprisoning her in a room without mirrors. In the midst of her crazed thinking, Antoinette sees herself as split in half, two selves that cannot be reunited. She loses her sense of "self" when there are no mirrors in which to see what she looks like. This makes her doubt the reality of her own existence.

Mental illness is a subjective state that can be difficult to define. Rhys strongly suggests that Rochester is a key element in Antoinette's descent into madness, through his rejection of her and withdrawal of any sense of love or caring. At what point is the borderline crossed between sanity and madness? Can one be pushed through that barrier by another's cruelty and rejection? Can madness be defined by or equated to loss of identity? How can we understand such a process?

From a literary point of view, perhaps the most important message left by Rhys lies in perspective. Wide Sargasso Sea tell us about the life of Antoinette, and is narrated by both Antoinette and Rochester in turn. We are able to observe Antoinette's story from many angles: from the viewpoint of Jane Eyre in the original Bronte novel, from the perspective of Edward Rochester, and through Antoinette's own words and view of herself. This offers a well-rounded analysis of a complex character, accompanied by a strong commentary on the postcolonial world of the Caribbean, issues of racial and gender inequality, and the elusive relationship between identity and insanity.