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A review by sookieskipper
The Complete Novels: Voyage in the Dark / Quartet / After Leaving Mr Mackenzie / Good Morning, Midnight / Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
3.0
Jean Rhys takes a plunge into the life of the ignored woman from Jane Eyre - Bertha. Bertha, whose name is Antoinette, is slowly stripped of everything she holds dear including her own name. As a child she loses her father and the step father that takes her away from what little affection she had from her mother. From then on her life takes a route that she has very little control of.
Rhys prose is an amalgamation of elegant beauty and crude brutality. Her narration is provoking and the setting is often contrasting to the scene unfolding. The misery of Rochester fails to droop the brightness of his surroundings. Rhys celebrates contradictions; Antoinette is everything Jane isn't. The bleak cold England and its culture is foreign to Antoinette who is used to heat and bright colors around her. Rhys doesn't hold back in insinuating how Rochester is Antoinette undoing in the way he treats her, ignores her and locks her up. Its a bastardized reflection of colonial rule and absurd patriarchal values.
Its heartbreaking to see Antoinette watch Jane around the house and on grounds with Rochester and their blossoming romance in wet English weather. The flapping red scarf is the only sign of the heat, the beauty of the colony and of Antoinette. The inevitable tragedy occurs more quickly than one imagines and its every bit hurtful.
"Have all the beautiful things sad destinies?" She asks.
Maybe.
Rhys prose is an amalgamation of elegant beauty and crude brutality. Her narration is provoking and the setting is often contrasting to the scene unfolding. The misery of Rochester fails to droop the brightness of his surroundings. Rhys celebrates contradictions; Antoinette is everything Jane isn't. The bleak cold England and its culture is foreign to Antoinette who is used to heat and bright colors around her. Rhys doesn't hold back in insinuating how Rochester is Antoinette undoing in the way he treats her, ignores her and locks her up. Its a bastardized reflection of colonial rule and absurd patriarchal values.
Its heartbreaking to see Antoinette watch Jane around the house and on grounds with Rochester and their blossoming romance in wet English weather. The flapping red scarf is the only sign of the heat, the beauty of the colony and of Antoinette. The inevitable tragedy occurs more quickly than one imagines and its every bit hurtful.
"Have all the beautiful things sad destinies?" She asks.
Maybe.