What is the symbolism of the title Wide Sargasso Sea?

The title of the novel refers to the Sargasso Sea, a vast area of the northern Atlantic Ocean which is home to sargassum, a kind of seaweed. The Sargasso Sea is legendary for being an oceanic black hole, where ships get ensnared by huge forests of floating seaweed, or drift helplessly when the wind ceases to blow.

What is the mood of Wide Sargasso Sea?

There is a physical as well as a psychological mood in Wide Sargasso Sea. The physical mood is sensual and exotic with sweet and intense descriptions of tropical beauty. Nature overgrows all that is untended. The psychological mood is nightmarish.

What does nature represent in Wide Sargasso Sea?

The Natural Landscape: Gardens, Jungle, Trees Symbol Analysis. Throughout the novel, the natural world reflects Antoinette’s and the husband’s respective feelings of comfort and/or alienation.

What kind of novel is Wide Sargasso Sea?

Novel
Romance novelHistorical FictionPostmodern literatureParallel novel
Wide Sargasso Sea/Genres

What does the parrot symbolize in Wide Sargasso Sea?

Coco, Annette’s pet parrot, enacts Antoinette’s own doom. With his wings clipped by Mr. Mason—notably, an Englishman—the bird is shackled and maimed, mirroring Antoinette’s own flightless dependency. As omens and warnings, birds invite Antoinette to invest meaning and significance in the natural world.

What does fire mean in Wide Sargasso Sea?

Fire is the ultimate destructive and redemptive force in the novel. The fire at Coulibri is an act of retribution and defiance on the part of the nearby black community, but it destroys the life that Antoinette has known as a child.

How do the characters in Wide Sargasso Sea discuss madness?

Madness. Madness in Wide Sargasso Sea is intricately linked with images of heat, fire, and female sexuality. It is significant that women like Antoinette and her mother are the most susceptible to madness, pushed as they are into childlike servitude and feminine docility.

What is the climax of Wide Sargasso Sea?

Climax. The climax does not occur until the absolute end of the novel. The problems between Antoinette and her husband are resolved when Antoinette decides her purpose and descends from her prison in the attic to set the English house on fire. She is prepared to act out the dream she had just described.

What does fire represent in Wide Sargasso Sea?

Why did Rhys write Wide Sargasso Sea?

Rhys aims to restore this voice with her text. She intended Wide Sargasso Sea to stand on its own, apart from Brontë’s novel, as a challenge to the canon. As a postcolonial work, the novel indicts England’s exploitative colonial empire, aligning its sympathies with the plight of the black Caribbeans.

Why was Wide Sargasso Sea written?

Wide Sargasso Sea was written as Rhys’s attempt to explain the character of Bertha Mason in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Rhys wanted to explore the reasons why Bertha Mason went mad. In doing so, Rhys fills her story with conflict.

What does fire symbolize in Wide Sargasso Sea?

Fires recur throughout the novel, representing destruction, damnation, and smoldering passions. In Part One, Antoinette describes the fire that burned down Coulibri Estate and triggered her mother’s collapse into madness.