Wide Sargasso Sea II
Here's the space for part two...How're you feeling about Mr. Rochester now?
posted by Ms. Clapp @ 12:09 PM
16 comments
Here's the space for part two...How're you feeling about Mr. Rochester now?
posted by Ms. Clapp @ 12:09 PM
16 comments
16 Comments:
So, Antoinette's life just goes from bad to worst. Talk about Mr. Rochester's treatment of Antionette. Of I like the name Bertha so that's what I'm going to call you. I mean maybe it would be alright if she liked him calling her that by she says directly to him that she does not like to be called that. His total lack of respect for her could and probably is directly related to him believing that he is above her in status. The other thing that really bothered me was how he was like oh, your happiness is most important but he does not care about her at all.
After reading Part 2 I just really started to dislike Mr. Rochester. In Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester is almost seen as a victim. This is obviously because the reader only got to hear from his point of view and not Bertha's. This just goes to show that there's always two sides to a story. I felt like Mr. Rochester didn't give Antoinette a chance to explain thoroughly and it really didn't seem like he was listening. Like I said before, WSS lets the reader sympathize with Bertha and actually see her as a human being who has emotions. Like Antoinette's mother, Antoinette was "driven" to be mad. Antoinette states that the people would talk about her mother and how they "would not leave her alone, they would be talking about her and stop if they saw me." (134) Society and the racial tensions along with her depression is what caused her to be mad.
Also when Rochester calls Antoinette "Marionette" it just further associates Antoinette with a doll that is devoid of emotions.
Also I’ve really noticed the imageries of like death and dead things such as the centipedes and cockroaches (136) and I remember there was a dead fly that Antoinette flicked. Also the dead horse with the insects all around it. All these imageries sort of foreshadow the corruption, sickness, and decline of Antoinette’s life.
It just seemed like everybody was conspiring for something. Mr. Mason wanted money for the things he told Mr. Rochester. Christophine just sort of confused me towards the end because I’m like is she good or evil? It seemed like she was sincere about caring for Antoinette but Mr. Mason made her seem very wicked because she does “obeah” or voodoo. Also I was really bothered towards the end of Part 2 when Antoinette told Mr. Rochester how she told the young boy that when they left, Mr. Rochester would take him with them. Mr. Rochester just seemed so heartless at that point because he refused to take the little boy.
After reading this book, I am definitely not a fan of Mr. Rochester anymore. In Jane Eyre, he seemed rather eccentric, but very loving and understanding. In Wide Sargasso Sea, he treats his wife like some sort of animal. I think, because of both his youth, his ignorance, and his pride, that that is why he is treating Antoinette with such scorn. I really liked how the book cotinually switched narratives, as you could see both Antoinette's and Rochester's opinions on the events occurring in the book. Rochester starts calling Anoinette Bertha because it symbolizes how Antoinette is a different person in Rochester's mind. She is now the despised wife that he tries to avoid, as opposed to the exotic and alluring woman that he first met. The scene when Rochester got lost in the woods shows how lost he is in the culture of the island, and how he is so out of place with everyone else. I was honestly surprised when Antoinette went to Christophine to try to use her "powers" to make her husband love her again, because I didn't think she cared that much. I found it hard to decipher whether Antoinette was genuinely insane, or whether the situations forced her to act in an odd way, which might be the intention of the author (a little like Hamlet, eh?) At the end of the section, when Rochester hatefully rejected the boy who wanted to go with him shows how he doesn't like the culture, and doesn't want something else besides his wife to remind him of it.
Like Kate, Maggie, Drew, and probably everyone else, I also despise Mr. Rochester now. In the beginning of Part II, he was all sweet to Antoinette and seemed to actually love her. He would listen to all the stories that Antoinette would tell him about her childhood fears and they would sometimes even sing together softly and sweetly. But obviously, Mr. Rochester never loved her—at least, not enough to trust her. He chose to listen to a complete stranger (Daniel) and the letters he sent him, believing all his attacks on Antoinette and how she was a total liar and a lunatic. Like Maggie mentioned, Mr. Rochester did not even give Antoinette a real chance to explain her side of the story. He changed from a seemingly caring man to acting like a slaveholder. In the last section of Part II, he treated Antoinette like an animal—controlling her and calling her his “lunatic” and his “crazy girl” (166), as if she was an animal that he owned and could torture. And he did certainly torture her by purposely taking her away from the place she loved and taking everything away from her. He coldly tells her, “You will have nothing” (170). What’s worse is that Mr. Rochester actually believes he is doing the right thing—that he has the right to take revenge on Antoinette for never telling him before their marriage about her “lunatic genes.” With the intention of trapping Antoinette forever by taking her to his English home, Mr. Rochester acts more like a lunatic than her.
By the way, contrary to what Drew felt, I did not like the switching of perspectives all that much in Part II. It always took me awhile to figure out who was narrating each time. And sometimes when I expected the narration to switch, it would stay the same…
First off, I want to point out that Maggie said "this just goes to show that...", a phrase that she has made fun of me for because I use it a bit too much. I bite my thumb at you, Maggie!
I've been contemplating about how I feel about Mr. Rochester. I know he cheated on his wife and all, but he really was thrust into the predicament.
From what I gather from the book, Mr. Rochester is forced into marriage due to his father, brother, and Mr. Mason. Also, his brother was to inherit his father's property and wealth, leaving Rochester with little fortune. I see Rochester as a victim of the others' cruel plan to pry money away from Antoinette. I think Rochester just became bitter from the farce and began to loathe Antoinette because she had kept her family past from him. Rochester was basically tricked into marriage and left with a mentally unstable wife. In a sense, Rochester was just marrying Antoinette as Charlotte married Mr. Collins in P&P. Rochester married for a life of comfort with an optimistic future. Once Rochester began to realize that his life of comfort came at too much of a price and that his future looked bleak, he began to ignore Antoinette since she had not been entirely truthful with him. I won't deny that Mr. Rochester shouldn't have slept with Amelie or that he should have been much more intelligent about handling the situation, but he definitely was left with few options and chose the worst way to express his displeasure.
But that is the only rationalization I can come up with. In the end, Rochester just wants to control Antoinette instead of helping her. He'd rather just lock her in an attic than actually calm things with her. Though she probably would never forgive Rochester for cheating on her, she would probably be much happier at her own home than in an attic in England. Rochester could have (at the very least) leave money with Christophine to take care of Antoinette and be on his merry way, but his pride would have suffered too much from losing his wife. Rochester's controlling nature is reflected from his attempt to control Jane before they first married, e.g. when he bought her gifts and tried to transform her when they were engaged.
I suppose I felt bad for Rochester until he cheated on Antoinette and then decided to lock her away in England.
In the second part of the book, I really liked the imagery of the tropical setting throughout—the beautiful trees, flowers, green hills. I feel like, as Drew alluded to, the setting was supposed to help portray the cultural clash between Rochester and the blacks. Just as he refers to the area as “a very wild place—not civilized” (68), he seems to feel the same about the black culture: “… her language is horrible and she might hold her dress up” he says scornfully of the black servant Christophine. Furthermore, the setting also seemed symbolic of Antoinette herself: enigmatic and too beautiful to be true—having a beauty that must be hiding something sinister. As Rochester himself says:
“It was a beautiful place—wild, untouched, above all untouched, with an alien disturbing, secret loveliness. And it kept its secret. I’d find myself thinking, ‘What I see is nothing—I want what it hides—that is not nothing” (87).
The wild overgrowth of the jungle is the perfect hiding place for secrets and the perfect place for lies to grow within the sinister beauty. The fact that, as Antoinette says, “lies…go on and they grow” (131) also brings to mind growing and nature imagery of the tropical place itself, where the lies and secrets abound.
Furthermore, the fact that Jamaica feels “quite unreal and quite like a dream” (80) to Rochester seems to signify his feels toward Antoinette as well—he knows so little about his mysterious wife that she is nothing but a dream to him. That both feel the others’ place is origin is like a dream also suggests a cultural clash between the two. They come from such different backgrounds and cultures that not only can they not wrap their mind around the others’ place of origin, but they also cannot wrap their mind around each other. The unreality of the others’ place of origin and way of living serves as a physical hindrance for them to understand each other, hence easily facilitating their huge argument and misunderstanding. Rochester also says of the place, “it was all very brightly coloured, very strange, but it meant nothing to me,” then adds, “nor did she, the girl I was to marry” (76), and this portrays another overlap between his feelings for the location and for Antoinette. Behind the superficial attraction of beauty, both the location and Antoinette are meaningless to him. Finally, the setting is significant because, as it is so similar to Antoinette herself, it served as her only friend in a world that “othered” her: “I loved [the land] because I had nothing else to love” (130), she proclaims.
I think also the idea of the cultural clash between Antoinette and Rochester relates to the idea of racial ambiguity and, as Janna had mentioned in the blog for section 1, how Antoinette seems not to fit into either the white culture or the black culture. From the second section it is now almost certain that Antoinette’s race is purely white. Rochester says of her that she is a “Creole of pure English descent” (67) and Christophine refers to her as a “rich white girl” (110), though the sense permeating the whole second section—one of distrust and deceit and lies and uncertainty about everything (“No one would tell me the truth” (104) Rochester claims)—is, I believe, supposed to make the reader unsure about the truth of most things, so that there could still possibly be some question as to race. However, I think the reason for the ambiguity relates more to what the Cultural Criticism of Jane Eyre discussed, of the Irish people being “not quite, not white.” Antoinette, too, seems to be “not quite, not white,” a white in a mostly black culture, though ultimately separated from both the blacks as well as from Rochester and the white culture: as Antoinette declares with confusion, “I wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong” (102). Rochester also concedes to the confusion of her racial identity when he says, after admitting that she is of pure English descent, that her “sad, dark alien eyes…[are] not English or European either” (67). Perhaps it is this ambiguity that allows Rochester to “other” Antoinette in his mind so that he can treat her in the way that he did, as merely a doll or “marionette” while he is the oriental despot who “look[s] like a king” (73). He does, after all, often refer to her Creole background in a derogatory way, claiming once that he would not want to return back to England “in the role of the rejected suitor jilted by this Creole girl” (78). The way that he says “this Creole girl” lessens her value, as if it would have been that much more humiliating to have been rejected by her than by a woman associated only with the white, European culture.
On another note, the consensus seems to be almost a flat-out hatred of Rochester. I would have to say that my feelings toward him are more ambivalent. True, like Maggie said, Mr. Rochester comes across more as a victim in Jane Eyre because all these events are told from his perspective, and he is not really victimized in WSS. From the start, it is true that Mr. Rochester harbors merely superficial attractions for Antoinette, claiming that it would almost be acceptable for him to have “sold [his soul]” because “the girl is thought to be beautiful, she is beautiful” (70), and pretends to be happy in the relationship—“I played the part I was expected to play.” (76). It is true that he does not love her and disregards her when he discovers from Daniel the supposed truth of her background, though at the same time, why did Antoinette not tell him about her mother and what happened to them before? Of course he’s going to distrust her if she keeps secrets from him; had she told him about it first, it would have been easy for him to disregard what Daniel told him. But since there were so many secrets between them, an atmosphere of distrust was created that made it easy for him to believe Daniel when he said that there was “bad blood…from both sides” (97), even though, as Maggie said, both Antoinette and her mother were “driven to be mad.” That is not to say that I didn’t feel any pity for Antoinette. She truly did love Rochester, and once the story changed to her perspective and I saw how hurt she was from the distanced treatment Rochester was giving her and how she really just wanted Rochester to love her, I really did feel awful for the position that she was placed in. I agree with what Maggie said about WSS giving us a chance to see Bertha as a real human, so we can see just how, like any other person, she is deeply affected by how others treat her. To Rochester, she had been from the start only a “girl” ---not a woman—and a doll, something that he “thirsted for” and wanted to play with but for which he had no real feelings and which he regarded as inferior, and she is finally broken after being treated like an “other” from her own husband and from the rest of society.
The other aspect of WWS part two that I really liked and picked up on was the extensive use of foreshadowing. Maggie brought up this really interesting point about how the death imagery seemed like a foreshadowing for all the corruption and such in Antoinette’s life, and I was thinking something similar—it not only foreshadows her physical death when she perishes in the fire but also her spiritual and emotional death that is prompted by the treatment she receives at Rochester’s hands. The name of the town itself, Massacre, seems very significant in this regard, with all its associations with brutal death and violence, as does the name of the rocks—Mounes Mors (the Dead Ones). There were also the nightly talks of death between Rochester and Antoinette: “Is she trying to tell me that [death] is the secret of this place? That there is no other way?” (92) Rochester questions, and this seems prophetic of Antoinette’s eventual fate. I also think the line that Antoinette says, “Have all beautiful things sad destinies?” (86), is extremely important in terms of foreshadowing and tying the novel together as a whole. Throughout the book, many beautiful things have unfortunate fates—the Cosways’s horse dies, their gorgeous parrot perishes in the fire, the large and exquisite moth flies into one of the candles, Antoinette’s mother is driven insane, and finally, Antoinette herself eventually has the same destiny as her mother. “I am afraid of what may happen” (78) Antoinette had declared about her emotions toward marrying Rochester, and she was right to feel this way. Furthermore, there was a lot of burning imagery throughout this section and the section before it that seems to foretell Antoinette’s burning of Mr. Rochester’s estate, including the moth flying into the candle, the burning of the Cosways’s house, etc. The other two examples of foreshadowing I saw were when Antoinette stated coldly, “…before I die I will show you how much I hate you” (147), which seemed to portend the ultimate revenge she would exact upon Rochester by burning his house and finally humbling him, and when Rochester declared that “[he] would give [his] eyes to have never seen this abominable place” (161), which is an obvious reference to the fact that he later gets his wish and goes blind.
On a different note altogether, I also thought the exchange between Rochester and Antoinette--
“Is there another side?”
“There is always the other side, always” (128)—
was significant in examining the book’s varying perspectives, for the fact that the novel changed back and forth from Antoinette’s to Rochester’s perspectives indicated the fact that there are many different ways to view an incident. I felt that the different viewpoints added to the sense of uncertainty in the novel, because it was difficult to know who to believe and who was the victim. Like Drew, I liked the switching of the perspectives; whenever I felt myself becoming biased toward one viewpoint, the novel would switch the point of view and I would find myself leaning another way. Going back to what I was saying about how this section was overwhelmingly filled with uncertainty and deceit and lies, I also feel like Rhys is trying to point out through the completely opposite perspectives that are brought by Rochester and Antoinette that perhaps there is no one truth or no way to arrive at an absolute truth, as everyone sees things differently.
Also, after reading Dana’s blog, I have to question: when did Rochester sleep with Amelie?? I must have missed that (?!), although that explains why Christophine made some sort of comment about Rochester cheating on Antoinette…I was quite confused at that point.
On the one hand I really do despise Rochester for his brutal treatment of Bertha and, of course, for cheating on her. But I can see his reasons for acting the way he did, and though they do not justify his actions later on in the book, they do give some insight into why he was so cold towards his wife. Like Dana said, Rochester was almost tricked into marriage. It was ultimately his choice but he was lured in by dreams of a comfortable and a desire for a luxurious life. He thought very little about his feelings for Bertha and when he realized that he didn't actually love her, it was too late. I feel that sometimes, it is easy to make huge mistakes when you are mislead by a false hope. Secondly, the environment in which he was forced to live in with Bertha made him extremely uncomfortable; throughout part II, he describes how out of place he felt in the nature-dominated West Indies. At one point he states: "everything is too much." He was unhappy, he was uncomfortable, he knew that the servants hated him, and he seriously regreted his decision to marry bertha. All of these things factored into his actions: cheating on his wife and later, locking her up in the attic. Maybe in better circumstances, he would have actually grown to love her, but instead he chose to immediately accept her as the "dangerous lunatic" she was described to be. There was also the racial divide that affected both rochester and bertha...specifically when Amelie calls bertha a "white cockroach." I think that by locking her up in the attic, Rochester hoped to get rid of his problems and "fix" the mistake he made by marrying Bertha in the first place. It was obviously completely inhumane and explains Rochester's treatment of Jane later on. Perhaps he was afraid that if he did not control her from the start, he would end up as unhappy as he was with Bertha.
Holy moly. That's one long blog.
Um let’s see…I definitely agree with Drew that the sources of Antoinette's madness do seem obscure, deliberately and intentionally so. I think maybe Rhys wanted to leave it more up for the interpretation of her readers how much of Antoinette’s madness is in her blood and how much external factors (the society around her, the racial tensions, her unreciprocated love, Rochester’s priggish treatment of her) contributed to her decline.
I think a major parallel running between the two books is the partial overlap in similarities between the female protagonist of WSS and Jane Eyre in Bronte’s novel. In a way though, their similarities further distinguish between their differences and the points at which they start to diverge from one another. Antoinette and Jane are both “othered” by those around them, both begin their young adulthood as such and both, as they grow older, yearn to be loved and to not be seen by at least one person as “other.” As they go along their paths though, you see the differences, Antoinette seems more fragile, more susceptible to instability, she lacks the intelligence and certain degree of self-assuredness that Jane has.
There’s a lot of imagery throughout both Parts One and Two that suggest the decline of something that was once pure and beautiful—and it also usually seems to be due both to the surroundings and to something inherent. Back in Part One, Antoinette talks about the garden at Coulibri. It seems to mirror how beautiful things in this quiet and tragic place never seem to last. There was also the house—Rochester is narrating—“more than ever before [the shabby white house] strained away from the black snake-like forest. Louder and more desperately it called: Save me from destruction, ruin, and desolation. Save me from the long slow death by ants.” I think the house in this context signifies Antoinette and her sort of plea to Rochester to pull her up from the abyss she was falling into.
I had typed this up in Word before reading Nina’s blog, but I definitely agree with what she had to say regarding that ever lingering question in the book: “Have all beautiful things sad destinies?” (86). I guess the examples above supplement the same perception she had. I also definitely agree that there always seems to be something beneath things of beauty. There is this “superficial attraction,” like Nina had said, some treacherous allure that draws a person in and never quite lets them go. The pervasive sense of some really beautiful, almost untouchable unreality seems to linger throughout the book. Also. I also noticed that there is a lot of “extensive foreshadowing,” portentous dreams and whatnot.
The changes in narration, I felt, added a lot of dimension to the story. For me, it was like the two perspectives were sort of pulling at one another. The reader sort of has to continually re-examine a situation, an event, the thread of the story itself within different contexts.
To answer Nina’s question, I started questioning the relation between Rochester and Amélie was around the beginning of Part Two: “Amélie, who had been sitting with her back to us, turned round. Her expression was so full of delighted malice, so intelligent, above all so intimate that I felt ashamed and looked away.” I think page 140 is when the actual scene is described. I think that night is what Antoinette refers to when she’s screaming at Rochester and tells him that she could hear everything, but that didn’t even bother her most. That Rochester was calling Antoinette Marionette (92) got me nearly as mad as when he was cheating on her.
Yeah. Not cool Rochester. Just the fact that he was all “capital” was really funny though. Capital. That. Is. Capital.
I think Rhys’ novel invites her readers to re-examine other seemingly marginal characters in other works of literature. It sort of reminded me of Stoppard’s play and how he took two relatively minor characters and portrayed their lives with completely new dimension and in a context with a lot more depth.
Yay, my sister finally let me on the computer after about 3 days! Okay, well, I wish a horrible, long-lasting death on Mr. Rochester. (Possibly being eaten by red ants, that would be fun!) Wow, what a jerk! So, he basically treats Antoinette like a piece of property. I agree with Kate, where he likes the name Bertha so he just calls her that. Who is he to decide that? I really love how Rhys created this whole back-story really incriminating Mr. Rochester. In Jane Eyre, I always felt as if Mr. Rochester was really dirty when Bertha was revealed, locked up in the attic. What kind of person does that? (Reminded me of that Simpsons episode where they had Bart's twin in the attic!) Now we see how he drove her mad, basically neglecting her and only wanting her for lust. He even tells her that he doesn't love her to her face! Wow, I really hate him now the more I write this. Christophine's objection to Rochester near the end of section two was brilliant, and he was so low and sickening just kicking her out of Antoinette's life. Christophine was right in everything she was saying; he was neglecting Antoinette, he didn't love her, and he only wanted her for her lust. Although he doesn't admit it, I'm sure he wanted her for her money too. Mr. Rochester is so horrible, yet he still tricked Jane into marrying him! I wonder that if Jane had known of his actions prior, would she still have married him?
First off, let me say, in response to Dana, that even though Mr. Rochester was thrust into marrying Antoinette, that is no excuse for his behavior! A life of comfort and money should not precede true love and sincerity. Excuses should not come into play when the issue is dealing with someone’s heart.
I feel like Mr. Rochester simply used Antoinette. Sure, when he felt that his life with her would be comfortable—possibly even happy—he didn’t mind the idea of being married to her. But then, he seems to find excuses for her behavior, like her “bad genes” that she shares with her brother or that she was a liar. What gives him the right to treat her like that? HE cheated on HER. Plus, it was her money that he was wasting—the selfishness and hierarchy of Rochester’s family robbed him of his own money.
I also definitely agree with Drew that Mr. Rochester is completely lost in relation to Antoinette’s native heritage and culture. Sure, he may have listened to stories about her childhood without complaining, but I don’t think that means that he really understood—or cared for that matter—about her life back on the island. While he didn’t really show it at first, I think Rochester was hoping that Antoinette could just leave her heritage behind and assimilate into English culture.
On that note, I can see where Drew and Janna are coming from in regard to the ambiguity surrounding Antoinette’s—or should I say Bertha’s—madness. I like the connection to Hamlet as well—is it real insanity or a fictional mindset?
I think Rochester’s treatment of Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea reflects his treatment of Jane in Jane Eyre. While at first, Rochester is sweet to Jane, trying to seduce her and make her fall in love with him, he soon makes Jane uncomfortable as he objectifies her and seems to feel some sort of ownership over her. Jane wants to leave, but cannot gain the courage to do so; her escape comes only when she learns that Rochester is already married. In the past, Rochester had treated Antoinette very similar. While at first, he was attracted to her and really wanted her to be his wife, when her actions displease him for one reason or another, he cannot take it. Rather than have her leave, he decides to lock her in the attic and hire creepy Grace Poole to watch over her. Like Cora said, Rochester acts like a slave driver, as if Antoinette is his little “toy” wife that he can treat however he pleases. Much like he will try to later do with Jane, he objectifies Antoinette, making her feel uncomfortable and betrayed.
Finally, reading the part of Janna’s blog about the question “Have all beautiful things sad destinies?” made me think. (Kudos to you, Janna!) As she described that pervasive quality of beautiful things that acts as “some treacherous allure that draws a person in and never quite lets them go,” I was reminded of the old mythical sirens, that drew sailors into their gorgeous embrace only to force them to face utter destruction. Could it be that, despite the attraction and irresistible nature of beauty, it leads many to follow the wrong path? Maybe only those who are truly blind to beauty, ugliness, and plainness are those who can escape such a “sad destiny.” It’s definitely something to think about.
As I read part two I couldn’t help but notice Antoinette becoming more and more like her mother as she falls into her state of madness. I feel so bad for Antoinette and all that she has gone through. All she really wanted was to be loved and Rochester wouldn’t give her that, instead he does everything he can do harm her, maybe subconsciously, but he breaks her heard. The way Rochester treats Antoinette by calling her Bertha when she hated it, sleeping with Amelia, and making her into a prisoner drove her to insanity and Rochester blamed Christophines of making her mad when it was clearly his fault. She was already pretty unstable but he just gave her a little nudge. This reminds me of the criticism that talked about the sadist and masochist. The way Rochester desires control and power over Antoinette and the way he hurts her is exactly what a sadist does.
It gets me mad how Rochester tries so hard to control Antoinette and it is seen in Jane Eyre as well when he tries to make Jane his own by buying her nice things and dressing her up. I feel so bad for Antoinette. I understand the resentment he had towards marrying Antoinette because of money and he was tricked into it, but he could treat her just a bit better. He didn’t love her and that’s fine, but he doesn’t need to show it so strongly and try to completely own her. He already has her under his control because he has her inheritance. She has become nothing more than Rochester’s prisoner that he will lock up and forget. Rochester just strips her of her entire life and she becomes nothing more than a lifeless person. I don’t feel comfortable calling her Bertha anymore. It’s not her real name!
I also want to add that I agree with Janna that the change in narration really made the story more interesting because it was told from another perspective and it showed the other side of the story we thought we knew so well.
I agree with most of the comments here. Rochester is a jerk, etc. However, I also wanted to comment on an interesting moment on pages 165 and 166.
I think its an interesting passage because it shows the humanity that Bronte's Jane sees in Jane Eyre and that we only sometimes get glimpses of in Rhys's novel. He wants Antoinette to be human again because he thinks that it will make him love her. It's strange because he's been progressively dehumanizing her for the past fifty or so pages, but he really does want to love her. Rochester, while not a particularly nice person, is trying to reconcile his feelings about what a marriage should be with his current situation. Antoinette is mentally ill -- I think that much is apparent, but in this moment, Rochester is willing to try to make it work. He sees quickly that it never will, and his "mad girl" will never be capable of loving him again.
Ultimately, Rochester's bitterness over all those who have betrayed him prevents him from ever loving Antoinette. He cannot get over the fact that "they bought [him] . . . with [Antoinette's] paltry money." (170) At this point, he is, in his own mind, no better than the Cosway's slaves.
I agree with others and Julie that Mr. Rochester only cares for the money. Afterall, that is predominatly the reason why Mr. Rochester married Antoinette. There is absolutely no sense of love or intimacy between the married couple, except of course the physical intimacy in which they share. I feel much symphathy for Antoinette, because she is getting nothing out of the marriage, while Mr. Rochester is. she should atleast gain love from the marriage, but that seems impossible at this point. It was time for Antoinette to escape, but all of her money was in the hands of Mr. Rochester. He had complete control over her, which makes disturbs her comfort zone.
While reading this part of the book, I couldn't believe the difference in which Mr. Rochester treated Antoinette and Jane. Jane was treated as if she were the center of Mr. Rochester's life, but it was very different with Antoinette. He isolated her in her own home, whereas when Jane felt that she did not belong to Mr. Rochester, he pulled her closer.
In a way, the relationship between Mr. Rochester and Antoinette reminds me of that of Mr. Rochester and Ms. Ingram. Although there are slight differences, overall, when considering the two matches, money is an important factor in determining the each groups'existence. For example, Mr. Rochester married Antoinette knowing that he would gain wealth from it, but NOT knowing that she had a mental illness. Thus, he only stayed with her for the money, even when she rejected his first proposal. Likewise, Blanche Ingram was attracted to Mr. Rochester mostly for his wealth, since he was not portrayed as the handsomest man alive. They flirted and seemed merry, according to the accounts of Jane. However, when Ms. Ingram discovered the true wealth behind the man, she did not show as much interest. Thus, both Mr. Rochester and Ms. Ingram are "money-seekers."
While reading the second section of Wide Sargasso Sea, I was reminded a lot of social justice issues and the idea of oppression. The whole argument about whether madness runs in Antoinette’s family or if it is something her mother and her were driven to is a lot like the cause and effect issues that perplex people today and help spur misconceptions, stereotypes, and discrimination. Mrs. Clapp was right; I really don’t like Rochester anymore. Here was this defenseless girl who he CHOSE to marry and now he is treating her like he is stuck with her and that everything is her fault. I was so mad. But I’m getting off topic and I shall go back to the social justice aspect of it. It seems like Mr. Rochester was systematically breaking down Antoinette, by calling her “Marionette” and having that experience with Amelie right outside Antoinette’s room. He was, like Christophine said, trying to “break her up,” (154) and this type of mental breaking up is what society does to different groups of people. From a feminist perspective, the situation with Antoinette and Rochester is one that is common in society. By calling her Marionette, Rochester is objectifying Antoinette, but he does that more so by the way that he acts like she is just something he was stuck with when he decided to take this giant pile of money laying around in Jamaica. The cause and effect part comes into play because his breaking her up causes her to go mad and then he is like, “Hah, it is bad blood!” and dismisses all his part in pushing her to it. I think the closest modern example would be the idea of the “angry black guy” as one of the recent real world cast pointed out on the reunion episode the other day. NWA didn’t say f the police because they were born horrible people and were naturally bad; they did what almost anyone growing up in an area where there was a lot of crime and crooked cops would do.
I think it is interesting how this book really answers the question I had during the cultural criticism discussion, where I asked did Austen portray Bertha the way she did on purpose or was it just a subconscious view she shared of Jamaicans with the rest of society. Here it seems like the later is that case because Antoinette is a completely normal lady who Mr. Rochester from the very beginning treats horribly. He married her and then treated her like she was some type of inferior race. At one point, before the wedding, Antoinette almost breaks if off and doesn’t go through with it because she doesn’t know Rochester, and he indicates that he doesn’t want to go back to England as the guy rejected by this Creole girl. He promises her happiness and all that stuff and then he goes and refuses to even try and love her. She went to Christophine to get him to love her and she tried SO hard and I can’t understand why he would be so reluctant to even try and get along with his wife. He kept saying that they bought him and that they tricked him into marrying her, but he was the one who benefited from it and he was the one who convinced her to marry him. It just made me so mad.
I agree with Drew, I strongly dislike Mr. Rochester at this point. There is a big difference between lust and love. He made a lot of fake promises to Antoinette to make her feel as though he was in love with her, and actually cared for her. Before Mr. Rochester receives the letter from Daniel Cosway (which is what he call himself). I thought that he may have like Antoinette, not love, but appreciated her company or spirit. After the letter came, his attitude towards her change. That is when you can clearly see that this wedding arrangement was not for love but for money and done by connections.In the end of part three, Mr.Rochester clearly states that he does not love her and the thought anyone loving is not imagineable. He clearly in the end draws what his decision is and forshadows "the mad woman in the attic".Mr.Rochester's innocent and blind view of the ones around him changes by the end of part two to become strong, reluctant, and angry. He feels as if he has been decieved, betrayed and ridicule. Though I do not agree with the choices that he has made( like infidelity)I can understand where his choices in life and choices concerning Antoinette came from.
Something that connects the two books together and the pchycoanalysis criticsm is the idea of Mr. Rochester treating his woman like dolls. In the end of Part 2, he starts to call Antoinette, Antoinetta. Christophine even states that he would like for her to be as still as a doll and he even describes her physical appearance has doll like features.
With the book now taking the other side’s viewpoint, it does makes Mr. Rochester look bad. Obviously, no one here is a fan of Mr. Rochester anymore after reading this part. However, like Tania said, I can see that from his viewpoint, what he said in his explanation to Jane Eyre still holds true, he married a woman without knowing enough about her, and she turn out to be a woman who carried some kind of insanity genes. In his shoes, it is hard to see her in the same light that he first saw her at the beginning of the book when all the rumors and distrust filled his mind. However, I do find his actions too despicable to swallow to sympathize anymore than the acknowledgement that I can see the reasoning in his head.
He reasoning does not justify his actions, however, just that I can see he is not truly evil. Though, he could have reacted far better than he did. There was no justification in his action to name her “Bertha,” which is basically destroying her identity, cheating on her, or outright telling her he hates her and will never loves her.
One thing I can definitely see now is what Jane Eyre avoided by running away (though, don’t forget this book only explores Jane Eyre, don’t truly take this as canon to Mr. Rochester past) and then only returning when she pretty much have control over him, though I don’t like the idea of Eyre having that much power either, it is better then Rochester being the one in power.
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