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48-414: Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 novel by Dominican-British author Jean Rhys . The novel serves as a postcolonial and feminist prequel to Charlotte Brontë 's novel Jane Eyre (1847), describing the background to Mr. Rochester's marriage from the point of view of his wife Antoinette Cosway , a Creole heiress. Antoinette Cosway is Rhys's version of Brontë's " madwoman in the attic ". Antoinette's story

96-427: A postcolonial response to Jane Eyre . Rhys uses multiple voices (Antoinette's, her husband's, and Grace Poole's) to tell the story, and intertwines her novel's plot with that of Jane Eyre . In addition, Rhys makes a postcolonial argument when she ties Antoinette's husband's eventual rejection of Antoinette to her Creole heritage (a rejection shown to be critical to Antoinette's descent into madness). The novel

144-535: A Stranger", published by Penguin Modern Stories , was adapted for TV in 1972 for the BBC 's Thirty-Minute Theatre starring Mona Washbourne , Noel Dyson , Hanah Maria Pravda , and Basil Dignam . In 1976, Deutsch published another collection of her short stories, Sleep It Off Lady , consisting of 16 pieces from an approximately 75-year period, starting from the end of the 19th century. From 1960, and for

192-411: A knife bought in secret. She later forgets this encounter. Expressing her thoughts in stream of consciousness , Antoinette dreams of flames engulfing the house and her freedom from the life she has there, and believes it is her destiny to fulfill the vision. Waking from her dream she escapes her room, and sets out candle in hand. Since the late 20th century, critics have considered Wide Sargasso Sea as

240-598: A pen allegedly owned by Rhys - a devotee of the ballpoint - was added to the Royal Society of Literature 's historic collection for the signing of their Roll Book. Rhys's collected papers and ephemera are housed in the University of Tulsa 's McFarlin Library. The British Library acquired a selection of Jean Rhys Papers in 1972, including drafts of short stories, novels; After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie , Voyage in

288-400: A rock at her head. Antoinette then says she sees Tia "as if I saw myself. Like in a looking glass". Erwin argues that "even as she claims to be seeing "herself," she is simultaneously seeing "the other", that which only defines the self by its separation from it, in this case literally by means of a cut. History here, in the person of a former slave's daughter, is figured as refusing Antoinette",

336-628: A unique viewpoint, and praised her "singular instinct for form". "Coming from the West Indies, [Ford] declared, 'with a terrifying insight and... passion for stating the case of the underdog, she has let her pen loose on the Left Banks of the Old World'." This he wrote in his preface to her debut short story collection, The Left Bank and Other Stories (1927). It was Ford who suggested she change her name from Ella Williams to Jean Rhys. At

384-599: A view to obtaining the rights to adapt her novel Good Morning, Midnight for radio. Rhys responded, and thereafter developed a long-lasting and collaborative friendship with Vaz Dias, who encouraged her to start writing again. This encouragement ultimately led to the publication in 1966 of her critically acclaimed novel Wide Sargasso Sea . She intended it as an account of the woman whom Rochester married and kept in his attic in Jane Eyre . Begun well before she settled in Bude,

432-604: Is also considered a feminist work, as it deals with unequal power between men and women, particularly in marriage. Antoinette and her family were planters who owned slaves until the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act , which resulted in the family losing their wealth. They are pejoratively called " white nigger " or "white cockroach" by the island's Black inhabitants because of their poverty and are openly despised, harassed, and assaulted. The villagers, inadvertently or not, kill Antoinette's brother, setting fire to

480-461: Is caught in a white, patriarchal society in which she fully belongs neither to Europe nor to Jamaica. Rhys lived in obscurity after her previous work, Good Morning, Midnight , was published in 1939. She had published other novels between these works, but Wide Sargasso Sea caused a revival of interest in Rhys and her work and was her most commercially successful novel. In 2022, it was included on

528-532: Is in three parts: Part One takes place in Coulibri, a sugar plantation in Jamaica , and is narrated by Antoinette as a child. Formerly wealthy, since the abolition of slavery, the estate has become derelict and her family has been plunged into poverty. Antoinette's widowed Martinique mother, Annette, must remarry to wealthy English gentleman Mr. Mason, who is hoping to exploit his new wife's situation. Angry at

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576-713: Is largely confined to "the attic" of Thornfield Hall , the mansion she calls the "Great House". The story traces her relationship with Grace Poole, the servant who is tasked with guarding her, as well as her disintegrating life with Mr. Rochester, as he hides her from the world. He promises to come to her more but never does. Antoinette is thought mad by those who interact with her and has little understanding of how much time she has been confined. She dreams of freedom, when she remembers, and writes to her stepbrother Richard in Jamaica who, however, says he cannot "interfere legally" with her husband. Desperate and enraged, she attacks him with

624-559: Is that High Sunderland Hall in Halifax was the basis for Thornfield. The house had all the Gothic features of Thornfield and is a location that was familiar to the Brontë family. Haddon Hall , near Bakewell , Derbyshire , has been used to depict Thornfield on several occasions: for the 1996 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli (starring William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg ); in

672-400: Is told from the time of her youth in Jamaica , to her unhappy marriage to an English gentleman, Mr. Rochester, who renames her Bertha, declares her mad, takes her to England, and isolates her from the rest of the world in his mansion. Wide Sargasso Sea explores the power of relationships between men and women and discusses the themes of race, Caribbean history, and assimilation as Antoinette

720-517: Is unfaithful and emotionally abusive. He begins to call her Bertha rather than her real name and flaunts an affair in front of her to cause her pain. Antoinette's increased sense of paranoia and the bitter disappointment of her failing marriage unbalance her already precarious mental and emotional state. She flees to the house of Christophine. Antoinette pleads with Christophine for an obeah potion to attempt to reignite her husband's love, which Christophine reluctantly gives her. Antoinette returns home but

768-485: The 1978 New Year Honours . Australian filmmaker John Duigan directed a 1993 erotic drama, Wide Sargasso Sea , based on Rhys's best-known novel. The 2003 book and stage play After Mrs Rochester by Polly Teale is based on the life of Jean Rhys and her book, Wide Sargasso Sea . In 2012, English Heritage marked her Chelsea flat at Paulton House in Paultons Square with a blue plaque . In 2020,

816-600: The BBC 2006 mini series directed by Susanna White ( Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson ), and for the 2011 film ( Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender ) directed by Cary Fukunaga . In 1996 and 2011 Wingfield Manor , in Derbyshire , was used to depict Thornfield after the fire, and in 2011 Chatsworth House was used for the gardens. Other locations include Ripley Castle , Yorks, in 1970 ; Renishaw Hall , Derby, in 1973 ; and Deene Park , Northampton, in 1983 . The 1997 film used Naworth Castle , Cumbria, for

864-568: The " Big Jubilee Read " list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II . The novel, initially set in Jamaica , opens a short while after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834. The protagonist Antoinette relates the story of her life from childhood to her arranged marriage to an English gentleman, Mr. Rochester. The novel

912-681: The "madwoman in the attic". Rhys portrays this woman from a quite different perspective from the one in Jane Eyre . Diana Athill of André Deutsch gambled on publishing Wide Sargasso Sea . She and the writer Francis Wyndham helped to revive interest in Rhys's work. There have been film, operatic and radio adaptations of the book. In 1968, André Deutsch published a collection of Rhys' short stories, Tigers Are Better-Looking , of which eight were written during her 1950s period of obscurity and nine republished from her 1927 collection The Left Bank and Other Stories . Her 1969 short story "I Spy

960-704: The 1940s, Rhys largely withdrew from public life. From 1955 to 1960, she lived in Bude , Cornwall, where she was unhappy, calling it "Bude the Obscure", before moving to Cheriton Fitzpaine , a small village in Devon. After a long absence from the public eye, she was rediscovered in Beckenham, South London, by Selma Vaz Dias , who in 1949 placed an advertisement in the New Statesman asking about her whereabouts, with

1008-530: The Bank of England . Though a bachelor, Smith did not offer to marry Rhys, and their affair soon ended. However, he continued to be an occasional source of financial help. Distraught by events, including a near-fatal abortion , Rhys began writing sketches and short stories. During the First World War , Rhys served as a volunteer worker in a soldiers' canteen. In 1918, she worked in a pension office to help

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1056-597: The Caribbean as her parents wished, Rhys worked with varied success as a chorus girl , adopting the names Vivienne, Emma, or Ella Gray. She toured Britain's small towns and returned to rooming or boarding houses in rundown neighbourhoods of London. After her father died in 1910, Rhys appears to have experimented with living as an artist's model after she became the mistress of wealthy stockbroker Lancelot Grey Hugh Smith, whose father Hugh Colin Smith had been Governor of

1104-638: The Dark , and Wide Sargasso Sea , and an unpublished play entitled English Harbour . Research material relating to Jean Rhys can also be found in the Archive of Margaret Ramsey Ltd at the British Library relating to stage and film rights for adaptations to her work. The British Library also holds correspondence between Jean Rhys and Patrick Garland relating to his adaptation of "I Spy a Stranger" and about Quartet . Thornfield Hall Brontë uses

1152-666: The West Indies and feels alienated in England. Good Morning, Midnight (1939) is sometimes (inaccurately) considered a continuation of Rhys's first two novels. Here, she uses modified stream of consciousness to voice the experiences of an ageing woman, Sasha Jansen, who drinks, takes sleeping pills , and obsesses over her looks, and is adrift again in Paris. Good Morning, Midnight , acknowledged as well written but deemed depressing, came as World War II broke out and readers sought optimism. This seemingly ended Rhys's literary career. In

1200-711: The age of 16, when she was sent to England to live with an aunt, as her relations with her mother were difficult. She attended the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge , where she was mocked as an outsider and for her accent. She attended two terms at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London by 1909. Her instructors despaired of her ever learning to speak "proper English" and advised her father to take her away. Unable to train as an actress and refusing to return to

1248-487: The age of 88, before completing an autobiography, which she had begun dictating only months earlier. In 1979, the incomplete text was published posthumously under the title Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography . In an appreciation in the New York Times Book Review in 1974, A. Alvarez called Jean Rhys “quite simply, the best living English novelist". Jean Rhys was appointed a CBE in

1296-470: The book won the notable WH Smith Literary Award in 1967. She returned to themes of dominance and dependence, especially in marriage, depicting the mutually painful relationship between a privileged English man and a Creole woman from Jamaica made powerless on being duped and coerced by him and others. Both the man and the woman enter marriage under mistaken assumptions about the other partner. Her female lead marries Mr. Rochester and deteriorates in England as

1344-559: The daughter of a slave owner. In the novel, Rhys also explores the legacy of slavery and the slave trade , focusing on how abolition dramatically affected the status of Antoinette's family as planters in colonial Jamaica. Scholar Trevor Hope has noted that the "triumphant conflagration of Thornfield Hall in Wide Sargasso Sea may at one level mark a vengeful attack upon the earlier textual structure". The destruction of Thornfield Hall occurs in both novels; however, Rhys epitomises

1392-485: The depiction of Thornfield in a manner consistent with the gothic tone of the novel as a whole. An isolated mansion of unspecified size, the house has a number of apparently unused rooms that become important to the narrative during the Bertha Mason passages. The Hall's gloomy character also expresses and amplifies the sense of Mr. Rochester's depression and malaise before he falls in love with Jane. In contrast,

1440-461: The families of dead or wonded soldiers and sailors. In 1919, Rhys married Willem Johan Marie (Jean) Lenglet , a French-Dutch journalist, spy, and songwriter. He was the first of her three husbands. She and Lenglet lived in Paris, where their baby son died, before living in Vienna and Budapest before returning to Paris. Their daughter was born in 1922. In 1924, the year that the newly named Jean Rhys

1488-443: The fire as a liberating experience for Antoinette. Hope has suggested that the novel "[takes] residence inside the textual domicile of empire in order to bring about its disintegration or even, indeed, its conflagration". Rhys's editor Diana Athill discusses the events surrounding the publication of the book in her memoir. The book came out of a friendship between Rhys and Selma Vaz Dias who encouraged her to start writing again. At

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1536-430: The fire, Annette refuses to see or speak to her. Antoinette visits her mother once more when she is older but is alarmed at the abuse she witnesses by the servants to her mother and goes away without speaking to her. Part Two alternates between the points of view of Antoinette and her husband during their honeymoon excursion to her mother's summer estate Granbois, Dominica . Likely catalysts for Antoinette's downfall are

1584-462: The grounds surrounding Thornfield are sublime and healthful to the novel's many troubled characters and serve as a backdrop to many happier scenes. A theory holds that North Lees Hall in Hathersage was the inspiration for Thornfield, particularly given that "Morton" in the novel is believed to be based on Hathersage, and that Brontë stayed in the area before writing the novel. Another theory

1632-511: The hold of a boat and a horsebox. They settled in 1960, in a cottage in Cheriton Fitzpaine, purchased for Rhys by her oldest brother, Edward. Max Hamer died in 1966, the year in which Wide Sargasso Sea began a remarkable change in Rhys' fortunes. In 1924, Rhys came under the influence of Ford Madox Ford. After meeting Ford in Paris, Rhys wrote short stories under his patronage. Ford recognised that her experience as an exile gave Rhys

1680-427: The home and seem poised to murder the rest of the family if not for the apparition of an ill omen - their dying green parrot. Meanwhile, Rochester looks down on Antoinette because of her status as a Creole . Scholar Lee Erwin describes this paradox through the scene in which Antoinette's childhood home Coulibri is burned down and she runs to Tia, a black girl her own age, to "be like her". Tia attacks Antoinette, throwing

1728-432: The love potion acts like a poison on her husband. Subsequently he hardens his heart against reconciling with his wife and decides to take her away from Granbois out of spite. Part Three is the shortest part of the novel; it is from the perspective of Antoinette, renamed by her husband as Bertha. Mr. Rochester's father and brother have died, so he has returned to England with Antoinette to claim his sizeable inheritance. She

1776-417: The manuscript and add a few final lines. The income from the book provided enough money for Rhys to improve her living conditions. On 5 November 2019, BBC News listed Wide Sargasso Sea on its list of the 100 most influential novels . Jean Rhys Jean Rhys , CBE ( / r iː s / REESS ; born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams ; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a British novelist who

1824-403: The mutual suspicions that develop between the couple, and the machinations of Daniel, who claims he is Antoinette's illegitimate half-brother; he impugns Antoinette's reputation and mental state and demands money to keep quiet. Antoinette's old nurse Christophine openly distrusts Mr. Rochester. His apparent belief in the stories about Antoinette's family and past aggravate the situation; her husband

1872-421: The novel was produced by Merchant Ivory Productions . In After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (1931), the protagonist, Julia Martin, is a more unravelled version of Marya Zelli, romantically dumped and inhabiting the pavements, cafes and cheap hotel rooms of Paris. With Voyage in the Dark (1934), Rhys continued to portray a mistreated, rootless woman. Here the narrator, Anna, is a young chorus girl who grew up in

1920-567: The possible fate of her daughter, living in Amsterdam. (Maryvonne had joined the Dutch Resistance and married a fellow fighter against Fascism) Tilden-Smith died in 1945. In 1947, Rhys married Max Hamer, a solicitor who was a cousin of Tilden-Smith. He was convicted of fraud and imprisoned after their marriage. Rhys remained admirably loyal to him throughout, while their lives descended into conditions of extreme poverty, including even

1968-688: The rest of her life, Rhys lived in Cheriton Fitzpaine in Devon, once described by her as "a dull spot which even drink can't enliven much." Characteristically, she remained unimpressed by her belated ascent to literary fame, commenting, "It has come too late." In an interview shortly before her death she questioned whether any novelist, not least herself, could ever be happy for any length of time: "If I could choose I would rather be happy than write... if I could live my life all over again, and choose...." Jean Rhys died in Exeter on 14 May 1979, at

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2016-407: The returning prosperity of the planter class , emancipated slaves living in Coulibri burn down Annette's house, killing Antoinette's mentally disabled younger brother, Pierre. As Annette had been struggling with her mental health up until this point, the grief of losing her son weakens her sanity. Mr. Mason sends her to live with a couple who torment her until she dies. When Antoinette visits her after

2064-419: The time her husband was in jail for what Rhys described as currency irregularities. Rhys moved in with Ford and his long-time partner Stella Bowen . An affair with Ford ensued, which she portrayed in fictionalised form in her novel Quartet (1928). Her protagonist is a stranded foreigner, Marya Zelli, who finds herself at the mercy of strangers when her husband is jailed in Paris. The 1981 film adaptation of

2112-473: The time, Rhys was living in a shack made of corrugated iron and tar paper in a slum neighbourhood of Cheriton Fitzpaine . The book was virtually completed in November 1964 when Rhys, who was 74 years old and complained of the cold and rain in her shack, suffered a heart attack. Athill cared for Rhys in the hospital for two years, keeping a promise not to publish the book until Rhys was well enough to compile

2160-460: Was a Welsh medical doctor and her mother, Minna Williams, née Lockhart, a third-generation Dominican Creole of Scots ancestry. ("Creole" was broadly used in those times to refer to any person born on the island, whether they were of European or African descent, or both.) She had a brother. Her mother's family had an estate, a former plantation, on the island. Rhys was educated in Dominica until

2208-527: Was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica . From the age of 16, she resided mainly in England, where she was sent for her education. She is best known for her novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre . In 1978, she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her writing. Rhys's father, William Rees Williams,

2256-502: Was discovered and published by the English writer Ford Madox Ford , Lenglet was imprisoned for embezzlement. The couple eventually divorced in 1933, but remained loyal to each others' work, while sharing the care of their daughter, Maryvonne. The next year, Rhys married Leslie Tilden-Smith, an English agent and editor. In 1936, they went briefly to Dominica, the first time Rhys had returned since she had left for school. Her brother Owen

2304-653: Was living in England, and she took care of some financial affairs for him, making a settlement with a mixed-race woman on the island and Owen's illegitimate children by her. The visit exerted a powerful influence on Rhys's most famous novel, Wide Sargasso Sea. In 1937, Rhys began a friendship with novelist Eliot Bliss (who had adopted that first name in honour of an admired writer). The two women shared Caribbean backgrounds. The correspondence between them survives. Rhys also became close to Phyllis Shand Allfree, whose family also lived in Dominica. Rhys and Tilden-Smith lived in London through World War II, while Rhys agonised over

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