Background for Rhys’ Wide Sargasso
Sea
Important Dates for Jamaica and the Caribbean:
- 1789: Publication of Olaudah Equiano’s Narrative, first important slave narrative written by an ex-slave
- 1808: British abolition of the slave trade
- 1814: Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (acknowledges the slave trade that supports the aristocracy)
- 1831: Jamaican slave revolt
- 1834-38: Abolition of slavery begins in British occupied territory
- [1839-1845]: The events of Wide Sargasso Sea
- 1847: Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
- 1865: Rebellion in Jamaica
- 1907: Self-governing “white” colonies are declared Dominions
- 1937: Nationalist revolts in Jamaica and Trinidad, inspired to some extent by Gandhi’s non-violent protests in India which lead to self-rule
- 1944: Jamaica achieves self government
- 1958: Race riots in Notting Hill (a neighborhood composed largely of Caribbean immigrants in London)
- 1962: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago achieve independence
- 1966: Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea published
Q1: Why does Rochester insist on calling Antoinette “Bertha” in the
story? What might this change signal for
him, especially in a novel where, as Antoinette herself says, “names are
important”?
Q2: Do you feel Rochester is a reliable or an unreliable narrator? Is he supposed to be sympathetic or unsympathetic? Is anything he records or presents to the
reader “true”? How do we know? Cite a specific passage.
Q3: Christophine says to Rochester that “You young but already you hard. You fool the girl. You make her think you can’t see the sun for
looking at her” (Norton, 92). Was it Rochester’s plan to destroy her—to punish her? And if so, for what reason?
Q4: Is Antoinette
“mad”? Does she suffer from a family
illness, as evidenced in her mother and brother…or is her madness merely Rochester’s inability to accept her ‘Non-Western’ ideas and
character? Use a passage to discuss
this.
No comments:
Post a Comment