This post-colonial novel will leave you speechless and enthralled by Jean Rhys writing style. This novel cleverly, metaphorically brings to life the past events linked to British colonialism and the damages done to the West Indies.
Crédit : Willoh S. Weiland & Halcyon Macleod
Short summary : Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress marries an English gentleman. When some poisonous rumors reach the English gentleman's ears, their couple is afire.
This review contains spoilers, watch your moves… :
This book has left me bewildered... The words used in it are too sharp or too deep. I got goosebumps reading it. Love and hate were at their peak I would say. It was impossible love and infinite hate without being able to get ever enough from the loved one. It's an emotional roller coaster I rode with pleasure. I was touched by the beauty of Jean Rhys’ writing and how she succeeded in making us feel strong emotions with her words. She knows how to entertain the reader.
All along the book I was immersed by what was going on.
Firstly, Wide Sargasso Sea is a gothic story because Jean Rhys mostly described dark, hazy and a vibrating calm atmosphere where sometimes even nature (trees, plants) were personified as something suffocating and deceitful.
Also, I highly appreciate the fact that she chose to mix English, French and Creole to create an authentic portrait of the protagonist's country.
Other than that, I love Antoinette's character because she radiates a very intense energy. She was the kind of person who was consumed by whatever touched her. She had a special way to show her devotion and passion to her husband. I'm fond of her. Her sensibility is really heartbreaking in some parts of the book, it's rough. Jilted by the one she had sworn to give her life for.
She was the victim of patriarchal society and was a prisoner because she felt love and had not enough power to defend herself against the English laws of her marriage. It really dug into the injustice done to women in old times, and the despotic behavior most men had. What I find even more heart-rending is that the novel has a link with the colonization of Caribbean isles by England.
Wide Sargasso Sea is a postcolonial and feminist book that is a prequel to Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Jean Rhys was annoyed when she learned that the Creole white woman was dehumanized in the most loved novel in the history of literature.
When I found that, I was really impressed by how Jean Rhys used her imagination to put together past events and expose the latent and recurring racism Antoinette Cosway (Bertha Mason) has been a victim of. Moreover, in a letter, the author shared her thought on the novel Jane Eyre: “ That’s only one side – The English side”
I would say that Antoinette and her husband's relationship is a clever metaphor to show the damage done to the Caribbean isle by England. Antoinette, the usurped countries and Rochester (her husband), England. Rochester imprisons her and takes all her money instead of letting her free. In the same way England has stolen colonized countries' gold.
To finish, I would like to say that this book is very instructive of past events and encapsulates a large spectrum of emotions that will leave you without words.
A poignant quote of Wide Sargasso Sea :
“If I could die. Now, when I am happy. Would you do that? You wouldn’t have to kill me. Say die and I will die. You don’t believe me? Then try, try, say die and watch me die.”
Écrit par Warda.
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