<p>Ignatius, I really like the fact that WSS presents “the other side of the story” and gives us both Antoinette’s and Rochester’s points of view.</p>
<p>I feel that Wide Sargasso Sea is a somewhat difficult book, though. I liked it but obviously there were things in it that went right over my head. In post #135, BUandBC82 said she “found herself rereading passages to get a clearer understanding of what was written.” I did this too, and still found that some of the content was rather slippery!</p>
<p>In a way, these books may not have been the best for discussion. People seem to have such visceral reactions to them. They loathe both Rochesters…or they love one just as much as Jane did and are affronted by the portrait of the other…or they feel so sympathetic toward Antoinette that they cannot even bear to view the Bertha of Jane Eyre in the intended monstrous light…</p>
<p>I am really glad we chose these books to read, but I get the feeling that this discussion is a little bit stalled. </p>
<p>I do have one other thing that I am curious about. In post #80, PATheaterMom said, “Reading Wide Sargasso Sea certainly put the incident of the Rochester impersonating the old Gypsy woman in a different light for me.” Could you explain what you meant by that, PATheaterMom?</p>
<p>I just finished Wide Sargasso Sea and I don’t quite know what to think. Perhaps I like its idea better than the execution. I like the three parts: Antoinette’s childhood, her marriage, and her years as “mad woman in the attic.” Bringing Antoinette/Bertha to life - a novel idea that I should have liked more than I did in the end - not that I disliked the book. </p>
<p>But … but … I agree with Mary: “I dont like the fact that Jean Rhys picks and chooses what elements of Jane Eyre she will retain with accuracy and what elements she will completely change to suit the course of her story.”</p>
<p>And, truthfully, I couldn’t find the Mr. Rochester I know and am indifferent to in the unnamed gentleman in WSS. I’ve never found Rochester a romantic hero but neither did I consider him mean. Youth shouldn’t be an excuse for cruelty, so I’m not giving the man in WSS a pass on human decency.</p>
<p>I liked rereading Jane Eyre and am glad I read Wide Sargasso Sea. I liked Wide Sargasso Sea to an extent but often felt a deeper meaning lay just beyond grasp. Eventually that nagging feeling superseded my enjoyment. I can understand the book’s use in a classroom because its layer upon layer of meaning begs a guide for its reader. The connection to Jane Eyre makes the book in some aspects yet weakens it (in my humble opinion) in others. </p>
<p>(My youngest daughter would call Wide Sargasso Sea a “death came on square toes” book in tribute to Zora Neale Hurston and her ability to make you wonder what you just read. Apologies to all Hurston fans - my daughter not being one.)</p>
<p>I am enjoying all the discussion! I never liked when Rochester dressed up as the old Gypsy woman. I didn’t like all the racist assumptions and stereotypes that all the house party had.
After Rochester’s disdain for the native Carribean people-it just seemed like another disdaining of someone who is different from the typical English white person.</p>
<p>I don’t know if everyone on this thread read an edition of WSS with the same introduction by Francis Wyndham as the one I read. My apologies if everyone has seen this already, but it really struck me:</p>
<p>SJCM, your link in post #187 helped me understand the gypsy scene better. I had wondered why Jane fell into a state of being almost mesmerized during it.</p>
<p>"As a gypsy woman, Rochester aligned himself with mystical knowledge. During her telling of her fortune, Rochester seems to have peered directly into Jane’s heart, leaning her deep into a dream-state she likens to ‘a web of mystification.’ He magically weaves a web around Jane with words, and appears to have watched every movement of her heart, like an ‘unseen spirit.’ "</p>
<p>I don’t think it had anything to do with sensitivity. Everyone in the story had a name, including plenty of original names from *Jane Eyre<a href=“Richard%20Mason,%20Grace%20Poole,%20Leah,%20etc.”>/i</a>. </p>
<p>Everyone had a name—except Rochester. Why? I think Jean Rhys denied Rochester his name deliberately, as retribution for the way he denied Antoinette hers. “Names matter,” says Antoinette. Rochester doesn’t get one because he doesn’t deserve one.</p>
<p>You may be right about Rochester’s name, Mary. I still think Rhys named her main characters Antoinette and _________ to set them apart from “Jane Eyre.”</p>
<p>Grace Poole, Leah…even Richard Mason…were given the nod in WSS but they were peripheral, shadowy figures who hardly had any “lines of dialogue” in the text. Apart from the two main characters, Christophine, Am</p>
<p>We’ve touched on many of the discussion questions, but one area that we haven’t covered is the relationship–the balance of power–between the main characters and the servants. In Jane Eyre, the servants know more than Jane does about the goings-on at the Thornfield. Jane is afraid of Grace Poole and is uneasy when she hears the servants whispering behind her back:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In Wide Sargasso Sea, the servants know more than Rochester does, and like Jane, he feels as if he is being kept on the outside. He doesn’t trust Christophine or Baptiste, and he believes that the others are laughing at him. Even Antoinette has issues with the servants at Coulibri: “Mr. Mason engaged new servants—I didn’t like any of them excepting Mannie the groom” (p. 30). And she makes a real enemy of Amelie, who calls her a “white cockroach.”</p>
<p>Knowledge is power, and in that way it seems as if the servants in both novels have the upper hand. It makes Mrs. Fairfax’s comment rather ironic: “…Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can’t converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one’s authority” (p. 66).</p>
<p>Who is it that really has the authority? In Wide Sargasso Sea in particular, I feel like it’s the servants, especially Christophine.</p>
<p>Mary13 This issue brings up a question about Mrs Fairfax. In the movie version with Judi Dench as Mrs Fairfax apologizes to Jane as they walk through the ruins of Thornfield. </p>
<p>Did Mrs Fairfax ever tell, warn or apologize to Jane ?</p>
<p>Your question reminded me, SJCM, that in the book neither the servants nor Mrs Fairfax knew who Bertha was. They definitely knew that there was a madwoman up there, but they didn’t know her identity.</p>
<p>My favorite movie version of Mrs Fairfax was Gemma Jones (in the 1997 version with Samantha Morton as Jane); her version of Mrs Fairfax told Jane that she had thought the madwoman might have been Ad</p>
<p>I have a couple early-morning thoughts, and then a busy day looms. (Hopefully, my not-quite-functioning self makes sense.)</p>
<p>I thought about reading Wide Sargasso Sea before reading Jane Eyre but didn’t. If I had done so, I wouldn’t have noticed a Rhys change here and there. As it turned out, I read Wide Sargasso Sea with my mind steeped in the details of Jane Eyre. I expected JE details to remain true to Bronte’s iconic work while Rhys worked literary magic with Bertha. The changes Rhys makes seem unimportant, so why make them at all. Unless, of course, Rhys points to Mr. Rochester as an unreliable narrator. To Jane, Rochester makes himself seem young and duped by those around him and then saddled with the mad wife (and her money, of course). Rhys allows Rochester his youth but also cruel in intent and action. In a way, Rhys exposes the man behind the myth. Perhaps, she leaves him unnamed because he doesn’t deserve a name as Mary says or perhaps the unnamed man symbolizes other unknown men who acted as he did, in that time and place. </p>
<p>In a way, I wish I had read WSS first. I think I’d have a different viewpoint had I done so. I think detail changes would have gone unnoticed but that my reaction to Mr. Rochester’s tale of woe would have included that grain of salt.</p>
<p>I like that Bronte tempers bad with good in JE: Jane has Bessie to soften the Reed family’s hatefulness, Helen Burns and Miss Temple help her through bad days at Lowood, Mrs. Fairfax and Adele … , Diana and Mary Rivers …</p>
<p>WSS seems so unrelentingly bleak that I think I never softened to it. I understand completely why NJTM thinks it brilliant. But for me, the brilliance of Rhys’s work kept me at arm’s length and Jane Eyre pulled me in.</p>
<p>Yes, that’s how it was for me, too. There is no question that Wide Sargasso Sea is quality literature. And it was a challenge, which is always good. I guess one thing that the WSS Rochester and I have in common is that I didn’t “get” or like any of the people in Antoinette’s life (except Aunt Cora). I pitied the main characters and was made uncomfortable by the peripheral ones. Everyone from Tia to Amelie to Baptiste to Christophine seemed a little…menacing. </p>
<p>And I guess that speaks to the brilliance of the author, right? To create such characters is no small accomplishment. But it’s not a world I would want to revisit (again, like Rochester! I hate to keep comparing myself to that man, but so it is).</p>
<p>Reading JE and WSS were such different experiences. The first felt—how can I describe it?—crisp, clear, straightforward. The language is precise. I am Jane’s confidante and she trusts me with her story. Her world can be hostile at times, but she is always able to find refuge in other people or places. </p>
<p>WSS felt like the reverse—dreamlike (a bad dream), with two narrators who don’t trust each other, and whom I don’t trust either. The language is open to interpretation. The tropical beauty of the surroundings masks an underlying threat. There is no real refuge.</p>
I definitely agree with the servants having the power in Wide Sargasso Sea. They were very secretive throughout the book. The Europeans were out of place and not welcome. The servants burned down Antoinette’s home after they overheard Antoinette’s stepfather talking about bringing in new servants from another area. That act was bold and powerful, although their enthusiasm weakened as soon as they saw the parrot in flames.</p>
<p>I thought it was a good connection between the books that Antoinette’s homes were destroyed by fire in both books. The fire in WSS took her brother’s life and her mother’s sanity. It makes sense that it would also be something to eat away at Antoinette’s sanity, causing her to use fire to burn Rochester’s bed and eventually to destroy Thornfield.</p>
<p>Someone mentioned earlier about how Rochester called Antoinette “Bertha” in WSS. This really ticked me off. (I just needed to say that outloud!)</p>
<p>
I would have looked at Rochester very differently if I had read WSS first. I’m glad I didn’t. It would have change Jane Eryre for me and I don’t think I would have liked it as much. My view of Rochester would have been tainted from the start and I may have never found the" Rochester" that Charlotte Bronte created.</p>
<p>^ And speaking of the Rochester that Charlotte Bronte created, did anyone else find his “theatricality” unusual—and sort of refreshing? We’ve discussed his gypsy disguise and the skillful acting that was involved there. But there is also the lengthy scene of charades with Blanche Ingram, where Rochester is “costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head” in one round of games, and has a “begrimed face,“ “disordered dress” and fetters on his wrist in another round. In addition, he plays the piano and sings—quite well and with pleasure, it seems. There is a long passage with the lyrics of a song he sings aloud to Jane.</p>
<p>Do you ever wonder what other famous Victorian heroes might have thought of Rochester if they had been in the drawing room? Mr. Darcy would have found him ridiculous, Mr. Knightley would had sighed and picked up the nearest book, John Thornton would have left to go find something productive to do, and Heathcliff…well Heathcliff would have shot him on sight as soon as he caught him in the gypsy costume. :)</p>
<p>I so enjoyed reading these books together. I really liked both of them. Wide Sargasso Sea is a very haunting book-because the couple had a chance to be happy if Rochester had been a little bit more open.
I liked how WSS emphasized how the marriage arrangement took advantage of Antoinette. I quite liked Antoinette-she seemed like she had a vulnerable heart. I admired Aunt Cora and Christophine for trying to protect and mother her.
Appreciate all the links people have put up-you are all amazing!
I felt sympathy for little Adele-do you all feel that she was in fact Rochester’s d? I did.
JE is fllled with so many interesting characters-the cousins she grew up with, Mrs. Reed, Helen Burns…Helen seems too good to be true-but in her author notes Bronte mentions that she was based on real life.</p>
that I should have liked more than I did in the end - not that I disliked the book. </p>
Charlotte Bront</p>