How Do Mr. Mason and Rochester Compare?

In Jean Rhys’ 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea, there are two Englishmen that feature prominently in the story – albeit during different parts.  During the first section of the story, while Antoinette Cosway, the main character, is growing up, we have Mr. Mason, her new stepfather who marries her mother and comes over to the estate.  During the later parts of the book, when Antoinette has become an adult, we have (although his name is not mentioned for a very long time) Rochester, Antoinette’s new husband who marries her without knowing too much about the history of the Cosway family. 

Mr. Mason seems to be completely oblivious to what goes on in Jamaica.  When Annette, Antoinette’s mother, describes how the African American members of the community feel about their family, Mr. Mason brushes it off completely.  The interaction on page 32 between the two displays this well: “’The people hate us.  They certainly hate me.’. . .’You imagine enmity which doesn’t exist.’”   Mr. Mason thinks that the black Jamaicans are “too lazy to be dangerous”, and this attitude causes a lot of damage in the end – when he mentions his plan to import some labor in front of one of them, they form a mob and burn the Coulibri estate. 

Rochester, in comparison, is far more wary when it comes to Jamaica.  It probably helped that when he arrived, he felt very out of his element due to the change of environment (Jamaica being much more colorful and “wild” than his native London), and due to the fact that the natives seem to know something that he doesn’t about his new wife and her family.

These two Englishmen, looking at their general behaviors and attitudes, seem to be very different.  But I ended up realizing that there was one big similarity between the characters.  For example, Rochester and Mr. Mason both end up deciding that their wives were insane and locking them up inside the house – the relationship between their wives was affected by the history that the Cosway family bears.  What do you guys think?  What are some other big parallels between these two characters?

Bad Luck?

During Meursault’s trial, regarding the murder and the sequence of events leading up to it, Celeste says, “The way I see it, it’s just bad luck.  Everybody knows what bad luck is.  It leaves you defenseless.  And there it is!”  I think that this statement can be considered to be accurate or inaccurate depending on the perspective that you adopt. 

First I’ll cover Celeste’s viewpoint.  He removes Meursault’s responsibility from the equation.  He is implicitly saying that the whole situation is not Meursault’s fault.  Although this might seem to be a bit biased – Celeste considers Meursault to be his friend, after all (even to the extent that he says he doesn’t care excessively about whether Meursault has kept up with the bills he runs up at the diner) – I think there is definitely some merit to this statement.  The whole entire mess sort of starts when Meursault goes to get dinner with Raymond.  After that, feeling a sort of bond with Raymond, he decides to support Raymond when he goes to get revenge against his mistress for supposedly cheating.  After that, he ends up getting drunk, and the sun irritates him to the point that he squeezes the gun too hard and pulls the trigger.  When you look at it like that, it seems like Meursault is just the victim of some larger force here, just stumbling from misfortune to misfortune.

Of course, you could look at it differently, saying that it is Meursault’s fault for just going with the flow and maintaining his impartial attitude, and that would also be valid.  If Meursault wasn’t like this, even if Raymond still approached him, he would be able to recognize how shady Raymond is and refrain from helping him accomplish any of his shady goals.  Everything could potentially have stopped after the dinner.  But that would change a major aspect of Meursault’s character to the extent that we probably wouldn’t recognize him afterwards. 

Personally, although I don’t condone that Meursault killed the Arab, I think that he did get unlucky.  Given his personality, Meursault seems to be sort of vulnerable to Raymond's brand of coercion.  Had he not become Raymond’s “pal”, he would likely have gone on with his normal daily life.  What do you think?  Which viewpoint do you think makes the most sense?