by Jean Rhys
has no meaning. But something you can touch and hold like my red dress, that has a meaning
(Sargasso 109). Do you think that time matters in Sargasso? Is it hard to understand time in
Sargasso?
7. Jean Rhys wrote about point of view in Sargasso: It can be done three ways. (1) Straight.
Childhood. Marriage. Finale told in first person. Or it can be done (2) Mans point of view; (3)
Womans ditto both first person. Or it can be told in the third person with the writer as the
Almighty. Well that is hard for me. I prefer direct thoughts and actions. I am doing (2)
(Letters 162). Although Rhys claims that the story is written from the mans point of view,
Antoinette is clearly the narrator in the first and third sections. Rochester (or the unnamed man)
is the narrator of the second section with a few subtle shifts when the story is again told from
Antoinettes point of view. Do you think the overall point of view is masculine or feminine? Is
it ever hard to establish whose point of view the story is being told from?
8. Rhys said I carefully havent named the man at all (Letters 297). Rochester doesnt have a
name or a physical description; is Rochester a reliable narrator for the second section? Is
Rochester a villain or a victim? Did Antoinette inherit madness, or did Rochester drive her to
madness?
9. In a 1982 study of Rhys's work, Jane Aschom made a statement: "Rhys's novels describe a
female consciousness passive and impotent in a world where men have all the power." In the
same year, Linda Bamber included Rhys with her fictional heroines when she described Rhys as
a "woman more comfortable with failure than with success." What men have power in
Sargasso? Does Antoinette have power over anyone? Or power over her destiny? Do you agree
that she is more comfortable with failure? In what ways does Antoinette play the victim? In
what ways is she victimized by those around her?
10. A wife had no legal identity until the Married Womans Property Act of 1870. Once
Antoinette marries Rochester, he possesses all of her money and complete control of her personphysically and legally. M. M. Adjarian calls Rochester her oppressor and claims that She
wishes to strip him of as much of his power as she can. She also desires to escape from the space
of living death to which Rochester has condemned her and where she can do little else but
remember her past and wait for her own demise. Hence she decides to burn down Thornfield
Hall after a dream in which she sees herself setting the mansion on fire: Now I know why I was
brought here and what I have to do (190). Is she mad or has Antoinette finally achieved power
over her masculine oppressor?
11. Deborah A. Kimmey claims With the books first movement from the shelf, Wide Sargasso
Sea intimates that Antoinettes descent into madness results from her conflicting position vis-vis the Europeans and Dominicans; she is both a white cockroach and white nigger.
Denounced and denied by both countries, she is marooned-with her existence jettisoned to the
borders. As she says to the unnamed husband: * I often wonder who I am and where is my
country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all (Sargasso 61). Do you believe
that cultural instability and displacement caused or contributed to Antoinettes madness?
12. Names play an important role in the story. How does Antoinettes name evolve with her life
situation? Who calls her which names and why? Is it important that in the last section when her
name is not spoken at all; how does that reflect her character?
13. One day, when Rochester touches the full-blown pink rose and its petals drop at his touch,
he wonders, "Is that poem true? Have all beautiful things sad destinies?" (72). Do you agree?