This is Madness. This is...

Prompt- Discuss the portrayal of insanity in Wide Sargasso Sea.

Thesis: 

Through the actions of her characters and the environment in which they are set, author Jean Rhys reflects on the critical nature of insanity and suggests that it is not an inherent quality, inasmuch as it is a byproduct of the world one is in.

Topic Sentence 1:

In using Antoinette as her novel’s protagonist, Rhys is able to candidly expose madness as a consequence of patriarchal oppression and negligence, and not mental illness. 

Evidence:

Antoinette’s disposition and character serve as counter-argument to the view that women are inclined to fits of hysteria and rage.

Antoinette’s shares the nightmares she has with the people around her, an attempt to escape the future they present i.e. she tells Sister Marie Augustine that she dreamt she was in Hell (2nd nightmare).

Antoinette tearfully asks Sister Marie Augustine, why terrible things happen in the world. The nun tells her sadly not to concern herself with such a question, because “We do not know why the devil must have his little day. Not yet,” and puts her back to bed to wait for her stepfather’s arrival.

Scene represents the ultimate failure of religion (and by extension the failure of inclusion in a religious group) to provide order and answers is expressed with finality in Sister Marie Augustine’s sad and inadequate answer to Antoinette’s question. Overarching mentality to give into your circumstance (lack of closure cultivating in madness), a mentality Antoinette is steadily being imbibed with.

Rochester’s cruel actions towards her - on the basis of her gender and ethnicity -provide her with ample reason time and time again, to descend into madness.

Further exemplified by Rochester’s constant criticisms of Antoinette’s appearance, and the superficial lens with which he regards her; subaltern/ substandard.

“Too large” and “disconcerting... long, sad, dark, alien eyes.” Her language (French patois) which he thinks of as “debased.”

Antoinette offers him a drink of water, remarks to himself that she “might have been any pretty English girl.” 

Rochester denies her even her own identity by repeatedly calling her “Bertha,”

When they leave Jamaica he even says to her, “I have made a terrible mistake. Forgive me.” 

What’s more, the use of analepses corroborates the notion that insanity is not unique to a specific gender, person or ethnicity- Both Antoinette’s parents beset similar life occurrences.

Her father is revealed to have been mad, according to Antoinette’s half brother Daniel (Part 2) and the mental demise of her mother was a widely known fact.

Likens Rochester to her mother’s abusive caretaker, the “black devil kissing her sad mouth.” 

When he sees that she looks at him with hatred, he feels in himself “a sickening swing back to hate”. He vows to himself that his hatred will be stronger than hers, that she will be left with nothing.

Topic Sentence 2:

The characters of Christophene and Annette bear direct testament to the view that “language conjures up reality,” and that Antoinette’s instability was a result of the words spoken over her life.

Evidence:

“They drive her to it. When she lose 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…” – Christophene

Christophene understood how powerful the word could be, how language could create and event. "They tell her she is mad," and language conjures up the reality.  

On the way to school on her first day, she is bullied by two children, one black and one mixed race. The girl mocks her, saying, “Look the crazy girl, you crazy like your mother,” and goes on to harass her by saying that her mother had tried to kill Mr. Mason, had tried to kill Antoinette as well, and that they both have eyes “like zombie.”

It is Daniel Cosway and his malign influence (obsessed with avenging his marginalized existence and exclusion from the Cosway family) that disturbs Rochester, and form the catalyst for his ultimate distrust and distaste for Antoinette.

Grace Poole’s narrative at the end of the novel implies that Antoinette is being held against her will

Antoinette’s upbringing and environment exacerbate her situation, as she feels rejected and displaced, with no one to love her.

As such it was only a matter of time before she became paranoid and solitary, prone to vivid dreams and violent outbursts, acting as human presumably would if placed in similar circumstances.

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.

Her experiences and ensuing madness consign her, as it did her mother to live an invisible and shameful life.

Topic Sentence 3:

Rhys cements this notion of insanity being the symptom and not the disease, through her manipulation of the setting in which her story unfolds, in that it reflects the mental standing of Antoinette and her husband as the narrative unfolds.

Evidence:

Attic emblematic of mental deterioration 

Constant referrals to the destructive nature of the Caribbean. (Rochester & the hills, the potters)

“What am I doing in this place and who am I?” - Speaker: Antoinette Cosway (Part 3)

“The ghost of a woman they say haunts this place,” unaware that she is referring to herself. Madness is not imbibed with a person but is an external influence that distances the individual from their true person.