Even though we are only being given the initial parts of Rochester’s and Antoinette’s marriage (of which we know will eventually go south because of Jane Eyre) and that Rochester will eventually lock Antoinette in the attic in Jane Eyre (sorry about the spoilers, but this was already given in class today), after reading a few pages of part 2 of Wide Sargasso Sea, I find myself sympathizing with Rochester and, in turn, disliking Antoinette more and more.
In the beginning, I sympathized with Antoinette because of her background. I mean, she’s basically lived her life alone and isolated from those around her, including even her own mother. She longs to find a place to fit in; a place where she’s wanted. Her only true friend in the beginning is Christophine, who is older and knows how to assert herself so she isn’t walked all over. With Christophine’s help, Antoinette is able to find her first friend, Tia, who proves to be a very sisterly figure in Antoinette’s life. Until things went south in their friendship, Tia was a very important in the development of Antoinette because she found out what it was like to have a true friend. With all of this in mind, I find myself still feeling sorry and sympathetic towards Antoinette and her unfortunate childhood. No one, besides Tia and Christophine, has really gotten to know her. The villagers only assume that her mother’s insanity will be genetically passed on to Antoinette and that it’s only a matter of time before she turns mad too. If we were only given Antoinette’s perspective throughout the novel, I may still have the same impression of this poor girl who’s lived a life of judgements and a series of unfortunate events. But we don’t stick with Antoinette’s perspective, we instead get Rochester’s point of view, a man whom Antoinette has been arranged to marry because of the fortunes left to her by her father.
Rochester is a character who would seem to be a not very understanding and judgemental on the outside, but as readers, we are aware of the internal struggles in his life. First, Rochester feels forced to marry. Since he isn’t the first born son of his family, he isn’t entitled to his father’s inheritance. Instead, he is forced to go out into the world and find his own means of income. Because of this feeling of being cut off from his father, he ultimately feels as if he is the deprived, unloved child of his family. When thinking of a letter to write to his father, he mentions “I have a modest competence now. I will never be a disgrace to you or to my dear brother the son you love. No begging letters, no mean requests. None of the furtive shabby maneuvers of a younger son” (41). Rochester feels the need to prove that he can survive independently and that he’s living substantially well without the financial support of his folks and that he doesn’t need to beg for money. I’m guessing that Rochester also had a very unfortunate childhood (probably not to the extreme of Antoinette’s case), having to constantly prove himself to be as good as his older brother to no avail, since his father only seemed to openly show his love for his firstborn son and not Rochester.
So it’s no wonder that Rochester gets angry when Antoinette suddenly decides not to marry him. “I did not relish going back to England in the role of rejected suitor jilted by this Creole girl” (46). Although that is a very demeaning statement, it still shows how Rochester is used to being rejected his whole life by those at home. And when he finally believes things will work out, he’s about to be rejected again, not knowing entirely why. It’s most likely that fear of rejection that drives him to marry Antoinette even after being bed sick with a fever for the days leading up to the wedding.
One of the complains about Rochester has been that he doesn’t try and understand Antoinette; he just disregards her familiarity of her homeland, similarly to how Mr. Mason acted in part one. But, what Antoinette fails to realize is that this whole situation is new to Rochester. Yes, he agrees that the land and Antoinette herself are beautiful, but there’s just something eerie about the whole situation. First, as stated before, the weeks leading up to his marriage to Antoinette, he had a serious fever and was on bed rest until basically his walk down to the alter. So, having spent that entire time in bed, he’s basically meeting and getting to know his own wife on their honeymoon. In his initial descriptions of her, he states “she wore a tricorne hat which became her. At least it shadowed her eyes which are too large and can be disconcerting. She never blinks at all it seems to me. Long, sad, dark alien eyes” (39). Rochester’s choice of word “alien” isn’t referring to the modern definition, he literally means that her eyes are foreign to him because he really doesn’t know her at all. He isn’t even aware of her family history, which is so well known and frowned upon throughout the lands, until Daniel Cosway informs him of it in a letter. Rochester has basically been cheated to marry a woman whom he knows nothing about. He’s been cheated by Richard Mason and by Antoinette because of how unaware he is of the whole situation involving Antoinette’s past and imminent future.
All in all, I just feel sorry for Rochester. He’s been rejected by father, a figure in his life that he is supposed to be able to look up to and count on for support and guidance, and now, he has done well by marrying a woman that comes with thirty thousand pounds and an estate in Jamaica, but... Just like Rochester says “the girl is thought to be beautiful, she is beautiful. And yet...” (41). Rochester seemingly has it all: the girl, the money, the estate. But something just isn’t right. He constantly feels like he’s being watched and laughed at for something he has yet to completely figure out. Although he may want to, he can’t seem to fit in and he doesn't necessarily know why. He is definitely not in England anymore and for sure hasn’t married the pure English girl of his dreams. It will be interesting to see how his and Antoinette’s relationship will begin its downward slope as we learn more and more of their conflicting backgrounds and characteristics.
I too voiced some pity for Rochester in class today, although I don't extend it to dislike of Antoinette, as you do. I think Antoinette is a similarly unfortunately passive character in the whole affair. If there is any villain here, it would probably be Richard Mason.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, I particularly feel bad for Rochester not only because he is in an unfamiliar place, but he gets the sense that he is purposely left in the dark (furthering his feelings of outsiderness) by the locals, who seem to want to do nothing but laugh behind his back. Combine the fact that everyone knows something that he doesn't with his confusion about obeah, and he is not only physically confused, he is psychologically tormented as well.
Personally, I like Rochester a little bit better than Antoinette. It probably has something to do with the fact that I can understand his chapters a little easier. Yet, there's also his background that makes me sympathize with him. Like you said, his relationship with his family and his eagerness to become someone that his father can approve of makes his actions easier to understand. Similarly, his awkwardness with his new environment especially speaks to me since I have moved around so much in my life and had to adapt to the new "languages" (mannerisms, slang, etc.). In addition, Antoinette's personality annoys me (I know that sounds kind of rude) and her inability to help Rochester with his transition reminds me of the difficulties I've had adapting in some places. All in all, while Antoinette is supposed to be this sympathetic character that everyone supports, I find myself struggling to relate to the "right" characters.
ReplyDeleteThese comments are interesting to me, in part because I've been in so many sections of this class where everyone is SO hostile to Rochester that I have to do a lot of work to try and get them to see things more charitably from his perspective.
DeleteBut I don't know that the novel treats Antoinette's as the "right" view (although Rochester does get rather villainish at the end). I don't know that we're compelled to take sides. Rochester narrative is longer than Antoinette's--he's a more consistent and fully developed narrator than she is (even though, when I think of the novel, I always think first of her voice, and her sections). But Rhys pointedly has us look at this relationship from both sides, and it's certainly possible not to "pick" a side--to understand both points of view, to see the whole situation as tragic and not any one person's fault. If there's a true "villain" in the novel, it seems to be old Cosway, and he's dead and gone before the plot even starts. In many ways, Antoinette's whole ordeal is a result of his bad behavior. Rochester and she are both caught up in his legacy.
Rochester definitely deserves our pity. Based on that one letter to his father, it can be inferred that his family doesn't think too much of him and he has to prove that he is up to their standards. He also marries into a family that, while it has money, also has a sketchy past that will cause him a lot more drama than I think he wanted or deserves. All that combined with the fact that he is in a place where he is surrounded by Obeah magic and other spooky goings-on, one can expect that he isn't very happy.
ReplyDeleteI do feel somewhat sorry for Rochester, that does not mean that i dislike Antoinette. Particularly in the scene where he is imagining what kind of letter he will wright to his father. I felt quite a large amount of pity for him. Especially because the letter is almost saying "Hah! Father I succeeded even though you didn't think I would because im not your favorite child!" He is also alone in a new place where he linguistically, and culturally cannot communicate with the locals causing him to have intense paranoia.
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ReplyDeleteI think what threw me off about Rochester from the beginning was that yes, he's in this new place with a new wife and he feels like everyone is laughing at him and he's been cheated by Richard Mason, but he acts like somehow this marriage is so completely off base from what he expected; e.g., trying to call Antoinette "Bertha" was a definite red flag to me. I guess my point is that you'd think he'd know what he was getting into by agreeing to an arranged marriage to a woman from the West Indies, but instead he showed up expecting—as you said—the English girl of his dreams, in an English house, on an English street.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, before last night's reading I think I did still hold some degree of sympathy for Rochester. I was more frustrated by him than anything, but I understood the culture shock that he must be going through. Since then, however, he's just started to become more and more like old Cosway, and I'm off the Rochester train.