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Review
The novel is a triumph of atmosphere of what one is tempted to call Caribbean Gothic atmosphere. . . . It has an almost hallucinatory quality.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Antoinette Cosway is a Creole heiress, the product of an inbred, decadent, expatriate community, a girl at once beguiled and repelled by the lush Jamaican landscape. Soon after her marriage to Rochester, rumours of madness in the Cosway family poison his mind against her.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
62 of 65 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Antoinette, like most of Jean Rhys's other female characters, is a woman that hovers between two worlds: black and white, English coldness and tropical warmth,sanity (accepted behaviour) and madness. Although given a poignant voice, she is helpless because she doesn't know how to use it. She goes mad insofar as madness is silencing her voice and retreating more and more inside herself - and letting others speak for her. She is the perfect victim, as she doesn't distinguish the boundary between love and madness anymore. Unlike Bertha Mason in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, to which I think this novel is an answer, this woman has loved deeply and has suffered a great deal on account of that love through no fault of hers. Madness is the result of prolonged emotional distress, and comes as the only outcome when she ceases struggling against her bleak reality and can't face it anymore. Having read this book after Jane Eyre, I can't help but feel that at least Antoinette had the chance to have the voice she never had in Charlotte Bronte's novel. At last, the story told on the silenced madwoman's point of view!
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is stunning, intricate and heart-breaking. It is far more than just a prequel to 'Jane Eyre' (indeed, its anachronisms demonstrate that this is not what it aspires to be); it is an intimate study of the troubled race relations of the West Indies, a torturous depiction of marital betrayal and a devastating exploration of the causes and effects of mental break-down. In much of the novel, Rhys writes - unusually - from the perspective of her male protagonist as well as the female and the interplay between the two voices is fascinating, as is the deeply uncomfortable non-story of how Bertha got her name. Read this when you have the time to be immersed completely in the scents and customs of Jamaica, which Rhys conjures perfectly.
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'Wide Sargasso Sea' tells the story that 'Jane Eyre' omitted to tell - that of Rochester's first marriage to a beautiful and sensual but 'mentally unstable' Creole woman. Finally Bertha (or Antoinette as she is known here)has been given a voice to tell her side; no longer is she the mad wife forever confined to the attic. Rhys uses the tale of one woman's corruption by her misguided husband to emphasis the forgotten consequences of colonialism. The gap that exists between Antoinette and Rochester is as wide as the ocean that lies between their respective homelands. Rhys has purposely set the action a little earlier than it should logically take place, presumably to incorporate the end of slavery in the islands. Antoinette is the embodiment of the ambiguous position faced by the Creole population after the Emancipation Act. 'Wide Sargasso Sea' rescues both Antoinette from her attic imprisonment and her past from its obscurity.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Tremendously atmospheric storytelling
A lot of people, and especially I notice women readers, pick up this book to learn the back story to Rochester's mad wife in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre since this book is an... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Brownbear101
Interesting prequel to Jane Eyre
WARNING: A PLOT SPOILER IS INCLUDED IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH
This book was written as a prequel to Jane Eyre (JE). Read more
This book was written as a prequel to Jane Eyre (JE). Read more
Published 5 months ago by James
A gem of a book.
I am a great fan of Jane Eyre, so read this out of interest, and wow! It is beautifully written, evoking such a strong sense of the West Indies that I was there with Antoinette,... Read more
Published 5 months ago by MrsN
excellent
It came very quickly and was in perfect condition. Haven't read it yet so I can't tell if it is good but our book group decided to read it after jane Eyre as Jean Rhys was inspired... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Mrs Dorothea Wight
So much more than a prequel
If one was to mention 'Wide Sargasso Sea' to the (well-read) person in the street, the first thing they would likely mention is that it is a prequel to the Charlotte Bronte novel... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Huw Davies
Wide Sargasso Sea
I was disappointed by this book!
I love Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and that is intially why I chose the book. Read more
I love Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and that is intially why I chose the book. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Freja
Great Read
Really enjoyed this book. If you are a Jane Eyre fan this is a must read. It is life before Jane Eyre and fills out the characters of Mr. Read more
Published 7 months ago by L. Rodgers
different to expectations
This story is very different to the Jane Eyre book that inspired it. Forget genteel English manners and a handsome brooding Rochester. Read more
Published 8 months ago by C. VERO
Wide Sargasso Sea
Wide Sargasso sea is Jean Rhys's elaboration of the character of Mr Rochester's first wife Bertha Mason, from Charlotte Bronte's book Jane Ayre. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Celia
Heart of Tropical Darkness
This is possibly one of the earliest 'prequels', (given how familiar these are in contemporary culture), written by Rhys to provide a backstory for Rochester's 'mad' wife... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Sentinel
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