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Madness

There is no doubt that a reoccurring characterization of Antoinette, as well as multiple other characters, was madness. Antoinette, before anyone was able to make any judgement calls that were purely based on her and her alone, was labeled as crazy. The familial connection to Annette fostered a whole set of additional characterizations that may or may not have been merited. Unfortunately for her, with the foreshadowing of Jane Eyre, it ultimately lead to her fulfilling the preconceived ideas of her sanity.

Over the course of the book, beyond part one, she becomes very displaced, leading her to be solitary and void of super personal relationships, which we as readers see that she longs for. The lack of such relationship, is what I believe to be a major part of her madness. We see that ultimately it leads to her giving Rochester the potion, he main fault in the book, a point which we all agree she held responsibility for. Her fragmented memory calls into question the reality of Antoinette's mental sanity. Whether it was imagined or alternate due to the idea that she is conjuring up a story post-life. Additionally, it is important to note that the moments when her madness manifests with her life almost completely, she is alone and invisible, the whole reason that she is like this.

I constantly come back to the question of whether her madness was predestined because of her parents and the associated implications of that familial relationship, or if it was due to social factors and the relationships that she fostered...?

Comments

  1. IzzyNovember 17, 2017 at 12:43 PM

    From how I understood the reading we did, I think that how Antoinette acts in her relationships and how she treats the people in those relationship are definitely influenced by her childhood, which was influenced by her parents and her association with them. So, basically I think both work together.

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  2. SophiaNovember 17, 2017 at 1:10 PM

    This goes back to the fundamental question of nature vs. nurture. Would Antoinette have still gone mad if she had her relationship with Rochester, but came from a stable, loving family? What about if she had her same background but never met Rochester? We can only speculate, but it's interesting to debate and see the influence that these different factors had on her.

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  3. Lia DNovember 17, 2017 at 2:24 PM

    Something that I find really interesting to think about is how Rhys wrote this entire story knowing that Antoinette would have to end up going somewhat insane. I remember there was one day in class where we discussed what might have happened had Antoinette and Christophine gone off together, and it made me wonder, did Rhys ever want to change the ending and just give Antoinette a happily ever after? I imagine it must have been very confining, writing about a character whose ending was set, with very little room to improve.

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  4. Max E.November 17, 2017 at 5:43 PM

    The last thing you wrote about whether she was predestined to go crazy to me seems somewhat backwards. Antoinette had to go crazy, because this book has to lead into Jane Eyre, where she is the crazy woman in the attic. I think that Annette's insanity and the notion that madness runs in the family was a convenient way for Jean Rhys to explain why she lost her mind. It is interesting to see the various connections between Antoinette and Annette, and maybe that can explain her madness, but if Rhys's purpose for writing Wide Sargasso Sea was to see into the life of the crazy woman in the attic, then she failed, because, as you pointed out, the reason for her insanity is still ambiguous and debatable in this book.

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  5. NishantNovember 18, 2017 at 9:27 PM

    To me, Antoinette’s ‘madness’ did not seem like an inherited mental illness from her mother, because I think that Annette was not mad, but was beside herself with grief after losing Pierre. As Mr. Mitchell mentioned in his blog, Antoinette’s longing for her culture and real relationships both in her childhood as well her adult life seemed to have resulted in the type of behavior seen as craziness or madness.

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