Wide Sargasso Sea

Student:

Sergio Andres Lopez Durango

Tutor:

Mary Macaulay

Subject:
literature

Essay:

Discussion the topic of madness in relation to Jean Rhyss Wide Sargasso Sea

Degree in foreign languages

Catholic University of East

2016
The feeling must be only the servant of the evidence, and abandoned to itself, can
be equally the servant of madness.

Henri Barbusse

Childhood is one of the most important times in a person's life, because thanks to her most
of the time we can define someone's mental state thanks to the experiences he had during
this one, considering that the most traumatic events can alter in a drastic way the way of
thinking and acting of someone, in some cases when someone had a traumatic event in
their childhood and tends to repeat the same situation this destabilizes the mental state of
the people generating unusual reactions, these unusual reactions can often be confused
with Madness only because they are unusual. Madness is problematic to define, since it
can be interpreted in various ways. Madness can be viewed as both a disorder of the brain
and a social phenomenon. A persons cultural differences in norms and values can be
looked upon as madness but madness can also be a consequence of oppression in
society such as patriarchal oppression. (Karolina Tenfold, C-essay fall2005, p.4).
Considering the previous definition in Wide Sargasso Sea a persons cultural differences in
norms and values can be looked upon as madness also a consequence of oppression in
society and also previous negative experiences of a person can alter their mental condition
when it repeats them again.

In the novel 6 main characters were affected by madness Annette, Antoinette, Alexander
Cosway, Mr. Luttrell, Pierre and Rochester by cultural differences in norms and values,
Oppression of society and previous negative experiences.

Alexander Cosway - Oppression of society and previous negative experiences

It was the first case of madness of the novel; he was the deceased father of Antoinette
also he was a slave trader but his finances were ruined after the passage of the
Emancipation Act of 1833, which freed black slaves and led to the disappearance of many
white slave owners, He wasted all the money from the family drinking until he died, His
family lived in Jamaica for generations as plantation owners who were detested,

His madness was provoked by the Law of Emancipation that led him to the ruin of his
sugar plantation and the end of his fortune. Perhaps the oppression of society and his
previous negative experiences led him to madness making him end with his life.

Mr. Luttrell - Oppression of society, previous negative experiences and

One of Annette Cosway's only friends, Mr. Luttrell lived in Nelson rest, the neighboring
farm of the Cosway home.

- Mr. Luttrell would be the first who grew tired of waiting? One calm
evening he shot his dog, swam out to sea and was gone for always. No
agent came from England to look after his property Nelsons.
As Mr. Cosway Suffering financial difficulties as a result of the Emancipation Law decided
to end with his life Once again he was also the victim of Oppression of society and
previous negative experiences.

Pierre Cosway - disorder of the brain and a social phenomenon

Physical and mental disabled Antoinettes younger brother,

- Pierre who staggered when he walked and couldnt speak distinctly

It is suggested that Pierre's illness is a result of inbreeding and physical decline in the
Cosway family.

Annette - Oppression of society, previous negative experiences and cultural

differences in norms and values

Beautiful young mother of Antoinette, she has a particular case because her madness
started with some previous negative events, at the first place the death of her first husband
Alexander Cosway leave her in ruins, and also some things next to these events like five
years in which she was alone and kept her hope of improvement.

- I got used to a solitary life, but my mother still planned and hoped-
perhaps she had to hope every time she passed a looking glass.

During that time she suffered the oppression of society

- She still rode about every morning not caring that the black people stood
about in groups to jeer at her, especially after her riding clothes grew
shabby (they notice clothes, they know about money).
- Then one day, very early, I saw her horse lying down under the
frangipani tree. I went up to him but he was not sick, he was dead and
his eyes were black with flies.

And also cultural differences in norms and values

- Godfrey said, I cant watch the horse night and day I too old now.
When the old time go, let it go. No use to grab at it. The Lord makes no
distinction between black and white, black and white the same for Him.
Rest yourself in peace for the righteous are not forsaken: But she
couldnt. She was young. How could she not try for all the things that
had gone so suddenly, so without warning? Youre blind when you want
to be blind, she said ferociously, and youre deaf when you want to be
deaf. The old hypocrite, she kept saying. He knew what they were going
to do: The devil prince of this world, Godfrey said, but this world
doesnt last so long for mortal man.

Thanks to these events and this next one

- She persuaded a Spanish Town doctor to visit my younger brother Pierre

who staggered when he walked and couldnt speak distinctly I dont
 know what the doctor told her or what she said to him but he never
came again and after that she changed. Suddenly, not gradually she
grew thin and silent, and at last she refused to leave the house at all.

They contributed showing the first symptoms of a madness that was hurrying

- My mother usually walked up and down the glacis, a paved roofed-in

terrace which ran the length of the house and sloped upwards to a clump
of bamboos. Standing by the bamboos she had a clear view to the sea,
but anyone passing could stare at her. They stared, sometimes they
laughed. Long after the sound was far away and faint she kept her eyes
shut and her hands clenched. A frown came between her black
eyebrows, deep- it might have been cut with a knife

- She wanted to sit with Pierre or walk where she pleased without being
pestered, she wanted peace and quiet. I was old enough to look after
myself. Oh, let me alone, she would say, let me alone, and after I
knew that she talked aloud to herself I was a little afraid of her.

Five years after these events Annette meets Mister Mason who will be the principal
explosive of her madness, he never believes in her words

- Mr. Mason would laugh if he knew how frightened I had been. He would
laugh even louder than he did when my mother told him that she wished
to leave Coulibri

Next to these requests from Annette the slaves burned the house, and Pierre died in
consequence of this Annette got angry with her husband, even she tried to kill him and
then she got mad

Her madness was a product of a successive of negative events that make her mad, even
Christophine will talk about it later, saying!

- They drive her to it. When she loses her son she lose herself for a while and they shut her away.
They tell her she is mad, they act like she is mad. Question, question. But no kind word, no
friends, and her Husband he go off, he leave her.

Antoinette

There are so many things that we can expect about the Antoinette madnesss, maybe her
husband drove her mad trying to get her money Or perhaps she had inherited the genes of
her parents but Taking into account that her father went mad because he run out of money
and her mother because she had been taken out of her world; Everything points to that
Antoinette had a hard childhood, (Her mother left her alone since she was little Making her
a lonely woman who loves nature
 - I took another road, past the old sugar works and the water wheel that
had not turned for years. I went to parts of Coulibri that I had not seen,
where there was no road, no path, no track. And if the razor grass cut
my legs and arms I would think Its better than people: Black ants or red
ones, tall nests swarming with white ants, rain that soaked me to the
skin -once I saw a snake. All better than people.)

Which was influenced by many events that led her to has different behaviors out of the
ordinary, to conclude that these old behaviors cataloged sometimes as madness tended
to appear again in her life to see his home threatened again, proving the fact that she did
not go crazy on her own, Rochester turned her mad because he did the same thing that
someone did to her mother, Get her out of her own world. The cultural differences in norms
and values, Oppression of society and previous negative experiences can drive us
madnnes.
Some ideas were taken from

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:16322/fulltext01 madness

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/sargasso/summary.html Antoinette