Wide Sargasso Sea key quotes

Question 1

‘They notice…’

[1 - Antoinette]

Answer 1

‘They notice clothes, they know about money’
they ‘can smell money’

[Race]

Question 2

“Creole…”

[2 - Rochester]

Answer 2

‘Creole…not English or European either’

Question 3

‘I will live with Tia…’

[1]

Answer 3

‘I will live with Tia and be like her…’

‘It was like I saw myself. Like in a looking-glass.’

Question 4

Slavery

[2]

Answer 4

R: “Slavery was not…liking or disliking…a question of justice”
A: “Justice…a cold word. I tried it out…I wrote it down…it looked like a damn cold lie”

Question 5

City/England

[2]

Answer 5

A: “a big city must be like a dream”

Question 6

“What I see is nothing…”

[2]

Answer 6

‘what I see is nothing - I want what it hides - that is not nothing’

Question 7

‘I thought if I told no-one…’

[1]

Answer 7

‘I thought if I told no-one it might not be true’

Question 8

‘Now the thought of her…’

[1]

Answer 8

‘Now the thought of her is mixed up with my dream’ [of Christophine]

Question 9

‘Quickly, while I can…’

[1]

Answer 9

‘Quickly, while I can, I must remmeber’

Question 10

Speaking of rats

[2]

Answer 10

A: “I never told anyone…but I have not forgotten them”

Question 11

Rochester, on marriage

[2]

Answer 11

‘I was young then…a short youth mine was’

Question 12

Grace Poole on Bertha

[3]

Answer 12

“She’s got spirit, she’s still fierce…”

[Subordinated from JE]

Question 13

“Names matter…’

[3]

Answer 13

‘Names matter, like when he wouldn’t call me Antoinette and I saw Antoinette drifting out the window with her scents, her pretty clothes and her looking-glass’

Question 14

“Time has no meaning..”

[3]

Answer 14

“Time has no meaning. But something you can touch and hold, like my red dress, that has a meaning”

(importance of ‘a’ - singular meaning?)

Question 15

If they ‘changed’ her dress

[3]

Answer 15

Would be ‘the last and worst thing’

Question 16

Like ‘that garden in the Bible…’

[1]

Answer 16

‘that garden in the Bible…the tree of life grew there’

Question 17

Nature, even snakes and cutting grass

[1]

Answer 17

‘All better than people’

Question 18

Of the convent

[1]

Answer 18

‘Everything was brightness, or dark’

Question 19

The wreaths

[2]

Answer 19

“I crowned myself with one of the wreaths…’
“You look like an emperor…”
‘…I stepped on it’

Question 20

‘Life and Letters of…’

[2]

Answer 20

‘Life and Letters of…’ the rest was eaten away’

Question 21

Letters

[2]

Answer 21

‘I wondered how they get their letters’

Question 22

‘As for my confused impressions…’

[2]

Answer 22

‘As for my confused impressions they will never be written. There are blanks in my mind that cannot be filled’

Question 23

A on lies

[2]

Answer 23

“Lies are never forgotten, they go on and grow”

Question 24

‘She’ll not dress up…’

[2]

Answer 24

‘She’ll not dress up…in that looking glass. So vain, so satisfied. Vain, silly creature’

Question 25

‘I watched her…’

[2]

Answer 25

‘I watched her die many times. In my way, not in hers.’

Question 26

‘Tears - ‘

[2]

Answer 26

‘Tears - nothing! Words - less than nothing!’

Question 27

Of England, to Antoinette

[2]

Answer 27

R: ‘reality…would not be reality’ in his descriptions

Question 28

Obsession with ‘black magic’

[2]

Answer 28

Black magic; zombi; Obeah

Question 29

“Bertha is not my name…”

[2]

Answer 29

A: “Bertha is not my name…you are trying to make me into someone else…that’s obeah, too’

Question 30

‘I scarcely…’

[2]

Answer 30

‘I scarcely listened to your stories’

Question 31

Butler

[Critical Quote]

Answer 31

WSS questions “dominance of other readings”

Question 32

Anderson

[Critical Quote]

Answer 32

Rochester’s ‘deliberate erosion of Antoinette’s identity’

Question 33

Fumagalli

[Critical Quote]

Answer 33

‘localising element’ of names

Question 34

Ferguson

[Critical Quote]

Answer 34

the roles of insiders and outsiders have become blurred’
‘denied even the colonizer’s script, Rochester finds his authority disintegrating’
Rochester’s ‘near paranoia and sociocultural paralysis’ as ‘the new colonizer’, ‘vehemently supresses’ colonial past
Antoinette ‘embraced one of the few spaces a powerless woman can occupy – that of the sexually desirable female’
Suggests reader is ‘assumed to be white’
‘represents a struggle between old and new colonial enemies’
Christophine’s obeah – ironic relation with Christ; also choco plant
Antoinette is ‘torn between old and new worlds, alienated from both on one hand and uniting them on the other’