Wide Sargasso Flashcards
“She sighed and covered me up. ‘You were making such a noise. I must go to Pierre, you’ve frightened him.’ “
Annette shows a lack of love towards Antoinette, when after having had a nightmare, Antoinette cries out in fear, waking both her mother an Pierre. Despite her apparent motherly love towards Pierre, Annette displays no love for Antoinette, this neglect could be seen as cruelty. (LINKS: Tess, as her parents could be seen as being culpable for her eventual downfall, also potentially Jane Eyre as Mrs Reed often treated her cruelly)
“She held me so tightly that I couldn’t breathe and I thought, ‘It’s not her.’ “
The only time Annette demonstrates any affection towards Antoinette is after her mental breakdown and when she holds Antoinette “tightly”, Antoinette doesn’t recognise her.
“Nothing would be left, the golden ferns and the silver ferns, the orchids, the ginger lilies and the roses… And the picture of the millers daughter.”
Antoinette demonstrates a great love for her surroundings, as shown by her colourful description of Coulibri when it is burning down. In using precious metals such as ‘gold’ and ‘silver’, Rhys emphasises the importance of surrounding to Antoinette. Antoinette’s love gives her surroundings an importance which is ordinarily reserved for other people. (LINK: beggars opera, comparing love with valuable items.)
“The deep blue colour of the sky and the mango leaves, the pink and red hibiscus, the yellow handkerchief she wore around her head”
The colours of the Caribbean appear to be overwhelming to Rochester however they are fascinating to Antoinette this shows the clash of character between the couple and prefigured the fact that their relationship is doomed from the start. (LINK: Jamaica could be seen as Talbothays to Antoinette as she sees the chance of love blossoming)
” ‘The earth is red here, do you notice?’ ‘It’s red in parts of England too.’ ‘Oh England, England,’ “
Rochester here, is reassuring himself with his love of England, however Antoinette sees him as mocking her through using this as reassurance.
” ‘You can make people love or hate…or die’ “
Here Antoinette is pleading with Christophine for a potion. The ‘die’ part suggests that perhaps Christophine shouldn’t have been as trusted as she has been up to this point. The black magic seems to be meddling with fate and instead of Antoinette’s relationship with Rochester deteriorating she attempts to repair it through the means of a ‘love’ potion. However, what she doesn’t realise is that this is the starting point of her mental deterioration into insanity, she is never in love or completely out of love with Rochester, demonstrating her liminal state.
“Long, sad, dark, alien eyes. Creole of pure English descent she may be, but they are not English or european either”
Rochester’s lust is shown to be subservient to social standing and criteria when in part 2, Rochester comments on his wife’s eyes, describing them as ‘alien’. Rochester is obsessed with the fact that her ancestry may not be entirely British which in his Victorian society is deemed significant (LINK to Tess, where ancestry is of great importance!)
