As we’ve finished Wide Sargasso Sea, I’ve found it interesting how both Rochester and Antoinette turn towards seeking revenge to solve their problems. Although the act of taking revenge is seen as very sinister and unjustifiable in society, by knowing both Antoinette’s and Rochester’s upbringings, we can see their acts of revenge as almost acceptable, or at least we can understand the motives behind them.
Rochester has lived a life that is always been second best (if that) to his father, never being able to live up to his father’s standards. He’s always had to prove himself to his father, but has never been enough. Because of this, Rochester has a deep insecurity of being rejected and laughed at. Being a pure England man, the idea of rejection scares him because it shouldn’t be what he’s used to, because of the kind of environment he grew up in. He chose marrying Antoinette for her money and for a safe option but, because of this, he is forced to move to a house in Antoinette’s homeland and to assimilate the foreign culture around him. Because he is obviously an outsider and is unaware of his own wife’s shady past, many of the locals laugh at him, while refusing to explain why. Rochester has been thrown into a dark world of lies, confusion, and many more things he doesn’t completely understand. He’s left in the dark during his stay in the Windward Islands. He’s doesn’t feel love for his own wife because she is a complete stranger to him. Antoinette can sense this lack of emotional connection, so she consults Christophine and has her give her a love potion to fix her marriage. Leading up to when Antoinette gives Rochester the potion, the two sit down and Antoinette tells Rochester part of her dark past. During this conversation, Rochester even admits to feeling more connected to his wife. He decides to open up as well, sharing the insecurities he’s had from the start when they came to this estate. “I feel very much a stranger here...I feel that this place is my enemy and on your side” (78). This is the first time Rochester has shared true feelings with anyone in the book so far. Rochester has taken a step down and striped himself of his English title, talking to Antoinette just person to person. But Antoinette stills decides to use the love potion, in which she just poisons Rochester, pushing him further away from ever loving her. With this, Rochester feels betrayed; he’s been taken advantage of at a time when he was most vulnerable.
In response to Antoinette’s actions, Rochester decides to punish Antoinette for eternity by making sure she can never escape his control. He kidnaps her and takes her to his estate in England, where she is imprisoned in his dark attic and made to stay up there for eternity. For his entire stay in the Windward Islands, Rochester has felt like he was being tortured in the dark. So, to make up for this, Rhedecides to trap Antoinette in the dark to repay for her vengeful acts. Now, although his actions are very cruel and menacing, because we are aware of his troubled upbringing and stay in the Windward Islands, we can understand his reasoning. (Whether or not some people agree with them is a totally different story). By knowing the reasoning behind Rochester’s thinking, we can see the reasoning behind the madness.
In Antoinette’s case, she has lived the life of a total outcast. Being part of the Cosway bloodline, she has always been considered tainted and avoidable. With the fate of her mother being very well known throughout the land, the question of when has always been asked. When will she turn out like her mother? When will she go mad? She has never had the chance to live an individual life. She has also rarely felt the feeling of ever being loved by anyone. With the exception of Christophine, no one has stopped and taken the chance to get to know Antoinette. They all base their opinions off assumptions and not truth. And then Rochester comes around, a man who, in Antoinette’s mind, is the first outsider to ever show some kind of love towards her. She falls in love with Rochester because, since he is unaware of her troubling past, he treats her as a human being and not a tainted soul. (With respect to his need to embrace the England way of being dominant in their relationship, but that was the norm back then). But Rochester doesn’t seem to show the same interest in her; to her, he has fallen out of love with her. So, as a last resort, Antoinette turns to Christophine and her obeah to fix her marriage. But, things go south for Antoinette as she tries to give Rochester a love potion, but ends up poisoning him, causing him to lose trust in Antoinette and any potential love for their marriage. To punish her, Rochester forcefully takes her to England and locks her in his dark attic. He keeps her in the dark to pay for the pain she caused him in the Windward Islands.
In response to his punishment, Antoinette, while in her mad state, decides to burn the house down. Although this scene is in Jane Eyre, Jean Rhys gives us some insight to Antoinette’s thought process during this climactic scene. In Antoinette’s mind, the burning of the house portrays a sense of justice, which shows how crazy the people around her have made her. In many tales, the act of setting something on fire is seen as a cleansing and purifying process. In Jane Eyre, the fire that Antoinette causes ends up humbling Rochester, bringing him down to a level where he can live a happy life with Jane. Although committing arson is a serious crime, by knowing Antoinette’s background and how she was driven to madness, we are able to understand her reasoning behind her actions.
It’s interesting how Jean Rhys is able to gives us a clearer perspective and we are able to reason why both Rochester and Antoinette choose to take things into their own hands in very destructive manners. Although both of their vengeful actions are very cruel, they both have valid (but not completely pardoning) reasons behind them. It makes one wonder just how blurred the lines can be between justice and a vengeful crime.
Antoinette's sense of "justice" at the end does seem to be there at some level, but it's hard to say how conscious she is of it (or anything, really, at this point). There's just that refrain of "what I must do," which implies a duty, and the sense of righteousness implied in the flickering flame that lights her way down the hall. It's less an effort to resolve her problems than to assert herself at all--not a means to an end, but more of a final act of self-assertion, rebellion (see Clara's recent post on Antoinette and Meursault's analogous ends on her blog "20th Century Squabble" (4th period)).
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