Clara Thomas writes, “There is the constant menace of the strange exotic land, the people he distrusts, and something secret that he cannot fathom in Antoinette” (344). He does not understand the customs of the country, and even the natural order of the moon and the stars seems strange to him. When the environment is so new, one is not going to feel comfortable and at ease. Clara Thomas writes that “Antoinette’s familiar treatment of Christophine and Antoinette’s whims, which to Rochester are so exotic and therefore troubling, bring distrust and suspicion into their idyll” (344). This passage describes how Rochester perceives the island and how it is not what he is used to.
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“Not night or darkness as I know it but night with blazing stars, and alien moon- night full of strange noises” (53).
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The foreignness of Jamaica adds distrust to Rochester’s wide range of emotions because he does not know exactly how to handle himself.
He tries to find some reassurance in his situation. He does not criticize everything about Jamaica, and he stops to acknowledge and admire beauty in the strange area he has been placed in. And an intoxicating freshness as if all this had never been breathed before” (41). Cloves I could smell and cinnamon, roses and orange blossom. “Standing on the veranda I breathed the sweetness of the air. In his letter to his father he mentions that it is very beautiful there. He describes the sea as serene, and when Antoinette asks him to taste the mountain water he says “it was cold, pure and sweet, a beautiful colour against the thick green leaf”(40). While he is walking through the village and observing the activity of the town, he says “I felt peaceful”(39). Jamaica is unwelcoming towards Rochester, and the hostility of the country does not come from his imagination.Įven after being thrust into a shocking new culture, Rochester manages to open his eyes to the beauty of Jamaica. The man called The Young Bull tells Rochester “This a very wild place-not civilized. The town is called “massacre” which already has a connotation of death. When Rochester and Antoinette first arrive to their honeymoon house, Rochester smiles at a little boy and the boy begins to cry. She appears normal to begin with, but as she progresses further into a state of insanity, Jamaica becomes more menacing. He is hopeful in his situation, he tries to live up to the English standard, and he is given no other option but to attempt to love a madwoman.Īlthough Rochester speaks to Christophine and calls Jamaica an “abominable place”, that is because Jamaica is a reflection of the demented mind of Antoinette. Rochester is often seen as untrusting and selfish, but he is justified in many ways.
Rochester is not a tyrant who ruthlessly seeks out to destroy her, but a victim with his own dilemmas who tries to make his way in the world. The circumstances of the situation and each of their backgrounds is what causes their tragedy. It is clear that Antoinette is a beautiful thing with a sad destiny, and that Rochester cannot do anything to control it. Rochester asks “Have all beautiful things sad destinies?”(Rhys 51).
Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea comes to a tragic end where the protagonist, Antoinette, is left as a mad woman in an attic.