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?
Yeah, they have similar roles in the story. I think that Rhys sets it up that way partially because of the theme of predestination/haunted-ness in the novel. If you see the fate of Annette first, Antoinette's fate seems inevitable and all the more tragic.
ReplyDeleteThey have a lot in common. Both are, like you said, oblivious to their surroundings at first. They're not accustomed to the culture and lifestyles to where they landed. But like you said, the main similarity is their behavior towards their wives. Insanity took over.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I agree that they are similar in a lot of ways. I think that Rhys wrote both the characters to symbolize the western culture. As you said, there are definitely some differences between the two characters, like how Rochester becomes more wary later on, but I think their ignorance is a huge thing that they have in common. Their inability to accept and try to understand the environment that they are in is what I think ultimately leads them to locking up their wives and driving them insane.
ReplyDeleteWell the men both came in with racism and both Mason and Rochester decided to ignore their wives and assume that they know the entire story. After being poisoned, Rochester immediately assumed that what everybody told him about Antoinette was correct without ever reconsidering the story that she told him the night she poisoned him in a similar fashion to the way Mason ignored Annette when she tried to explain the background story.
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