Wide Sargasso Sea: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions)
Textual notes illuminate the novel's historical background, regional references, and the non-translated Creole and French phrases necessary to fully understand this powerful story. Backgrounds includes a wealth of material on the novel's long evolution, it connections to Jane Eyre, and Rhys's biographical impressions of growing up in Dominica. Criticism introduces readers to the critical debates inspired by the novel with a Derek Walcott poem and eleven essays.
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Community Reviews
Picked this up at a Little Free Library and was finally inspired to read it after finishing the Upstairs Wife (a modern reinterpretation of Jane Eyre, far more entertaining but less ambitious than this). Wide Sargasso Sea is the backstory behind Rochester’s wife Bertha, the madwoman in the attic. Told in first person stream of consciousness it follows Bertha/Antoinette from her childhood, to the early days of her marriage to Rochester (told from both of their points of view) to a short third part taking place in the attic in England. The stream of consciousness makes it very hard to follow - likely deliberately so - added to which the narration is highly unreliable. The result is a thought-provoking but challenging to read exercise.
I always had a feeling that I am missing something in Jane Eyre and I have never liked reading Jane Eyre that much JANE EYRE SPOILER BEWARE mostly Rochester and Jane's relationship, along with the lack of clarification of Bertha's actual circumstances but reading this made many things super clear not to mention the racial dynamics among former slave traders and recently liberated coloured people and how Racism and slavery made both of these miserable is different sense
3.75/5
3.75/5
OK, I was disappointed. This was a profound description of a descent into madness - or was it a growing into ones inheritance of madness or was it an Obeah curse? Mr. Rochester's first wife's tale is told in an inherently confusing set of dialogues. Confusing, because the characters speaking are named only sporadically and the threads of identity are easily confused. The character of the 'mad' wife in Jane Eyre was well developed, to the exclusion of all the others. This was, perhaps the most disappointing component of the book for me. I wanted to see Christophine and Rochester as more than 2 dimensional props, at the very least.
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