WIDE SARGASSO SEADifferent settings

JAMAICANEAR SPANISH TOWN ….

COULIBRI ESTATE …

JAMAICAThefirstpartof thenovel isset in Jamaica, in a Estate nearSpanishTown in thesouthof the Caribbeanisland. At somepoinafter1934 .The novel starts a few years afterBritainpassed theEmancipationActin 1933. Thisled totheruin of manyslaveholders. Ontheotherhand, freedslaves, were stillstuckin theplace , altthoug theywerenotslavesanylonger. So theystartedhatingtheirformerowners evenmore.

At thatmomentmany English investors arrived at theislandlookingforgooddeals.

“Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible –the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest trees, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched. One was snaky looking, another like an octopus. Twice a year the octopus orchid flowered, then not an inch of tentacle showed. It was a bell-shaped mass of white, mauve, deep purples, wonderful to see. The scent was very sweet and strong. I never went near it.”

COULIBRI

ESTATE

In thisquotationthereisa clear referencetotheBible, in particular tothegardenin Eden. Howeverwecan perceivethat althoughAntoinettelikestheirgardenin CoulibriEstate, it is obviousthat at that momentthegardenisnotwhatit usedtobe. Shefeelsthatthingsin thegardenhadgonewild. That orderand disorder, beautyand decayare mingled. Shedescribes the flowersas snakesand as anoctopusas if she feels afraidof them.

DOMINICANEAR MASSACRE….

GRANBOIS - THE COSWAY ESTATE …

DOMINICA

Thesecondpartof thenovel is set at Granbois, in a Estate neara towncalledMassacrein Dominica.

Thecontrol of Dominica changed during the years betweentheFrench governmentand theBritish one.

The nameof the town is suposed to refer toa massacreof indigenous from the island., butin the novel nobodycan assertthat.

“The road climbed upward. On one side the wall of green, on the other a steep drop to the ravine below. We pulled up and looked at the hills, the mountains and the blue-green sea. There was a soft warm wind blowing but I understood why the porter had called it a wild place. Not only wild but menacing. Those hills could close in on you.

Everything is too much, I felt as I rode wearily after her. Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too near …”

THE COSWAY

ESTATE

In thisquotationwecan seethewayRochester fells whentheywere arriving at Cosway Estate. He feels overlwhelmed by allthe things he can see. He feels threatened by the beauty of theplace.

“”Oh England, England”, she called back mockingly, and the sound went on and on like a warning I did not choose to hear.”Soon the road was cobblestoned and we stopped at flight of stone steps. There was a large screw pine to the left and to the right what looked like an imitation of an English summer house –four wooden posts and a thatched roof. She dismounted and ran up the steps. At the top a badly cut, coarse-grained lawn and at the end of the lawn a shabby white house. “Now we are at Granbois.” I looked at the mountains purple against a very blue sky.””

THE COSWAY

ESTATE

In this quotation we can see that Rochester is alwaysmissing everything about Enlgalnd. He compares everythingto it. He cannot appreciate the beauty of the Caribean.

"Is it true," she said, "that England is like a dream? Because one of my friends who married an Englishman wrote and told me so. She said this place London is like a cold dark dream sometimes. I want to wake up."

"Well," I answered annoyed, "that is precisely how your beautiful island seems to me, quite unreal and like a dream.“

“But how can rivers and mountains and the sea be unreal?”

“More easily”, she said, much more easily. Yes a big city must be like a dream.”

“No, this is unreal and like a dream,” I thought.”

THE COSWAY

ESTATE

In this dialogue Antoinette and Rochester argue aboutwhich of the two countries is more unreal and dreamlike. Antoinette feels and dreams that England is just a dream so Rochester gets a bit angy when he hearsAntoinette s ideas.

“If she was a child she was not a stuidchild but an obstinate one. She often questioned me about England and listened attentively to my answers, but I was certain that nothing I said made much difference. Her mind was already made up. Some romantic novel, a stray remark never forgotten, a sketch, a picture, a song, a waltz, some note of music, and her ideas were fixed. About England and about Europe. I could not change them and probably nothing would. Reality might disconcert her, bewilder her, hurt her, but it would not be reality. It would be only a mistake, a misfortune, a wrong path taken, her fixed ideas would never change.

THE COSWAY

ESTATE

This quotation shows that no matterwhat Antoinettecould be told about Europe and England in particular she would not change her mind it. She would be delighted anyway.

I will be a different person when I live in England and different things will happen to me […] England, rosy pink in the geography book map, but on the page opposite the words are closely crowded, heavy-looking. Exports, coal, iron, wool. Then imports and Character of Inhabitants. Names, Essex, Chelmsford on the Chelmer. The Yorkshire and Lincolnshire wolds. Wolds? Does that mean hills? How high? Half the height of ours, or not even that

THE COSWAY

ESTATE

Here we see how Antoinette develops her image of England. In this quote she focuses on some different points about England. She even thinks herself as somebody different living there.

ENGLANDTHORNFIELD HALL

THORNFIELDHALL

The third part of the novel takes place in ThornfieldHall, England.

This isMr. Rochester s home.

However, as Antoinette is locked up in the attic of thehouse there are not so many descriptions of the place.

Antoinette believes that she is living in a cardboardworld. And she cannot believe that she is in England.

“Then I open the door and walk into their world. It is, as I always knew, made of cardboard. I have seen it before somewhere, this cardboard world where everything is colouredbrown or dark red or yellow that has no light in it. As I walk along the passages I wish I could see what is behind the cardboard. They tell me I am in England but I don't believe them. We lost our way to England. When? Where? I don't remember, but we lost it”

THORNFIELD

HALL

Here we can see that although Antoinette is now actually inEngland, she still thinks of it as an imaginary place. She cannotbelieve that she is really in England because all she has seen ofEngland is the interior of the house and a brief visit to a randommeadow. At this moment she is living at Thornfield. She eventhinks that they got lost while travelling there.

RATIONALE:

I have chosen to work with the different settings in Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys because while reading the book I tried to imagine those different places , especially those in the Caribbean countries.The main aim was to provide some extra geographical and historical characteristics of the different settings that appear in the novel, and particularly to try to understand how the characters feel about those places where they live during the different parts in the novel.It is difficult to find pictures of the places, because they seem to be small ones. However I think that it is quite clear to understand the way the protagonists feel about them while reading the quotations from the book.I chose to work with Power Point because in my opinion it is a very effective tool to prepare presentations like this one, in which you have to include different kinds of images and even audios.