Resenhas - Wide Sargasso Sea

Toni 04/03/2012

Caribbean gothic
There are two ways of reading Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea: the first one is not knowing that the novel dialogues with the English literary tradition by giving voice to a silenced character from a nineteenth century book; the second, and opposite one, is acknowledging its postmodern stand of revisiting the past, by bringing to life one of fiction’s most mysterious characters, the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Both readings will certainly guarantee an intriguing plunge in such an atmosphere that one is promptly tempted to refer as Caribbean Gothic.

Unluckily, I was not fortunate enough to read it unaware of its relation to Brontë’s work, which sadly impeded the overwhelming and delightful surprise of finding that out in the third and last part of the novel. Nevertheless, bearing in mind its intertextual endeavor is sure pleasing in its own way, allowing the reader to infer many of the foreshadowing symbols of the novel. As in the short passage from the first part: “‘You go,’ she said. ‘I wish to stay here in the dark… where I belong,’ she added.” In Rhy’s passionate and heartbreaking narrative everything is encompassed by a dream-like scenario, half-said words and hazarding feelings: the imminent-tragedy mood which pervades the novel drives characters and readers towards the inexorable fire that shall destroy Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre. Suggesting the maddening metamorphosis of Antoinette Cosway into Bertha Mason, the madwoman in the attic, by bestowing upon her the chance to tell her side of the story is one of the great triumphs of the novel—in my opinion, something afterwards achieved so equally creatively by Michael Cunningham in his Woolfish work The Hours.

In a few words, Wide Sargasso Sea tells the story of Antoinette Cosway, a witty and sensual creole girl who is sold to marriage to the prideful Rochester, whose voice is also portrayed in the novel even though his name is never revealed. After a first attempt to live in Jamaica—a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations that drives Antoinette mad—the couple leaves the Caribbean islands to England, where Antoinette is kept imprisoned under Grace Poole’s watch.

The pervasive nature—pungent, bright and colourful—has an almost hallucinatory quality, demanding a careful reader specially in the dark places of the novel. As Rochester points out: “Desire, Hatred, Life, Death came very close in the darkness. Better not know how close. Better not think, never for a moment. Not close. The same… ‘You are safe,’ I’d say to her and to myself. ‘Shut your eyes. Rest.’” Shutting one’s eyes is to admit the dream-upon-waking atmosphere to barge in, but it also has the power to reveal both Antoinette and Rochester incompatible worlds, as we are suggested by the powerful upcoming passage which closes this review:

‘Is it true,’ she said, ‘that England is like a dream? Because one of my friends who married an Englishman wrote and told me so. She said this place London is like a cold dark dream sometimes. I want to wake up.’
‘Well,’ I answered annoyed, ‘that is precisely how your beautiful island seems to me, quite unreal and like a dream.’

Loba Literária 06/03/2022

Gostei muito, uma leitura bem rápida, li em um dia só. Tem que ler Jane Eyre antes pra aproveitar de verdade. Ambos os narradores não são confiáveis, os dois são meio tóxicos, muito interessante de se analisar.

Nath 18/10/2022

Antoinette merecia mais
Apesar de não ser escrito pela própria Brontë, portanto um prequel não canônico à história criada por ela, Wide Sargasso Sea trouxe uma versão do Rochester que faz sentido pelo que foi retratado em Jane Eyre: nem de longe apenas uma vítima, mas sim um homem que levou sua primeira esposa a ruína e ainda teve a audácia de dizer que foi o oposto. Rochester tira de Antoinette sua liberdade, sua frágil sanidade, sua fortuna e sua identidade. Um grande manipulador. Além de todas as outras questões sociais muito relevantes tratadas no livro, sem dúvida é um grande adendo à leitura de Jane Eyre, dando a retratação e espaço necessário a uma personagem que foi subjugada e escanteada. Antoinette merecia mais.

Gabi 16/02/2023

O microcosmo de Jean Rhys
Interpretei o "vasto mar de sargaços" como um microcosmo da sociedade pós colonialista. Assim como o verdadeiro mar de sargaços se situa entre Estados Unidos, as Antilhas, a África e as Ilhas Canárias, o romance de Jean Rhys (pseudônimo literário de Ella Gwendolen) abrange tanto colonizadores quando colonizados. Aqui uma personagem importante da literatura vitoriana ganha voz e somos levados ao íntimo de uma mulher "louca". O ponto forte da leitura é a representação de pessoas colonizadas e as dificuldades e preconceitos que essas pessoas sofriam com o choque cultural da época.