Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
58 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The madwoman from the attic is rescued, 11 Feb 2002
This novel not only gives a voice to Bronte's madwoman from the attic, but it shows the woman as the true underdog she is --doubly oppressed by race and sex. A white Creole, the heroine Antoinette comes from an impoverished former slaveholding family on a Caribbean island, and as such is hated both by the black population (who continue to be exploited despite the formal abolition of slavery) and by the rich English "newcomers." After the death of her father and stepfather, and after her mother has been driven mad by their desperate citcumstances, Antoinette is sold, for the price of her dowry, to a young Englishman who wants to make a quick fortune. Rochester (who is never named and whose identity can only be guessed from the plot), is at the same time attracted and intimitated by her independence and exotic beauty, but soon the lush beauty of Antoinette's island turns into a nightmare for him too, as he is drawn into a net of lies and intrigues. Not willing nor able to listen to her side of the story ("There always is the other side," she once says to him), he begins to hate Antoinette with a hatred so fierce that it drives him to crush her personality until the point of madness.In this novel, identity is never a simple and stable thing, and this is as true for Rochester as it is for Anoinette and the black servants who work for them. Despite the antagonistic feelings they all have for each other, there is a subtle mirroring taking place, blurring the distinction between "you" and "me", "them" and "us." Rochester's first person narrative (sandwiched and interrupted by Antoinette's first person account) reveals the extent to which he, too, increasingly feels a loss of control over his life and world, himself getting to the brink of madness. But with typical male dominance he decides to break Antoinette rather than be broken by her world (which he can neither understand nor accept), and so he ships her off to England, into the exile of his attic from which she shall never return alive. You will never read "Jane Eyre" the same way after having read this novel!
|
|
|
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A prequel to Jane Eyre telling the story of Mrs Rochester, 8 Jul 2001
A wonderfully written prequel to Jane Eyre, recounting the story of the mad Mrs Rochester in her native land. It is a highly unusual genre of a novel, where the writer knows that the majority of the audience is fully aware what happens in the novel before they've read it.Died Hard Charlotte Bronte fans approve of this novel, which shows the completeness with which Jean Rhys is successful in telling the untold story of Bertha (Antoinette as she is in this novel). The novel is a fusion of opposing forces, and delves into the conflict within Antoinette as she fights the opposing forces in her and Rochester. The forces of black and white (of which she is both and neither)play on Antoinette, as do those of the cold, stark, hardness of Rochester compared to her own passionate warmth, with neither Rochester or Antoinette understanding each other's culture, personality or needs. Rhys wonderfully portrays the opposing worlds of the warm vibrant Caribbean of Antoinette's homeland and the cold, austere England where she finds herself even more a victim. The major protagonists are both portrayed as victims, one of circumstance and environment and one of arrogance. Our sympathies are forced to lie with Antoinette as she has no control over anything, and in a sense is a pure victim. Whilst Rochester is seen as losing control over his own perceptions, and therefore chooses to believe the rumours, whilst Antoinette is painfully incapable of refuting the rumours. This is ultimately a satisfying book, giving voice to the mad creature in Jane Eyre.
|
|
|
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Caribbean then and now, 17 Nov 2006
I re-read this upon finding it - along with Phyllis Shand Allfrey's The Orchid House - on a bookshelf a decade after first buying and reading both. They both depict a colonial way of life which has come to an end. Wide Sargasso Sea is quite simply an exquisite portrayal of Jamaica and the other un-named island which the newly-weds travel to and albeit short, a marvellous novel. Jane Eyre was an must for O-level but I never warmed to her, unlike Antoinette, whose story is tragic and still an enigma in the novel. Who really made her insane?...
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by Charlotte Bronte
by Chinua Achebe
by George Bernard Shaw
by Ellie Chambers
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). 
Amazon Home