The Only Warmth She Knows in England

Rochester’s viewpoint of Antoinette’s homeland is drastically different from her own narrative.  As he stares at Amelie, Rochester reflects: "A lovely little creature but sly, spiteful, malignant perhaps, like much else in this place" (65). The sea creeps "stealthily forwards and backwards," Antoinette's eyes are "long, sad, dark alien eyes," and the "rain began to drop down the back of [Rochester's] neck adding to [his] feeling of discomfort and melancholy" (66-67). He is a spectator looking in, and he is consistently uncomfortable and intimidated by Antoinette’s world. "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. And the woman is a stranger" (70). 

In contrast, Antoinette’s descriptions of the Caribbean are full of admiration for its untamed life. She describes her garden as “large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible- the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown…Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched. One was snaky looking, another like an octopus with long thin brown tentacles…” (19). She speaks of bathing pools, eating with her fingers, and lying half-awake from the stimulation of the world around her. She feels safe in the protecting arms of the cliffs, high mountains, and sea. Even when her house is torched and Aunt Cora shields her eyes from the burning image of the parrot alight, she does not feel contempt for her homeland. “Nothing would be left, the golden ferns and the silver ferns, the orchids, the ginger lilies and the roses, the rocking-chairs and the blue sofa, the jasmine and the honeysuckle, and the picture of the Miller’s Daughter” (45). She feels remorse for the loss of so many beautiful things. 

In her article, "And it Kept its Secret: Narration, Memory,and Madness in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea” Kathy Mezei theorizes that at the core of Antoinette's first person narrative is the secret that she is telling her story in order to resist madness. "By her act of narration, she retains her tenuous fragile hold on sanity, on life itself, since to narrate is to live, to order a life, to 'make sense' out of it...Antoinette survives only as long as she creates narratives" (197). Her urgent need to preserve her memories is most prevalent in lapses into the present tense. Mezei uses the example of Antoinette saying: "Quickly while I can, I must remember the hot classroom" (53). She is afraid that she is losing her mind, forgetting. Mezei’s article may provide some explanation for Antoinette’s descriptions- dripping with color, nostalgia, and love. She is trying to recreate her home in the cold, dark attic in England where she is slipping into madness propelled by her ostracism. Rhys writes that there must be a “reason why [Antoinette] tries to set everything on fire, and eventually succeeds. (Personally, I think that one is simple. She is cold- and fire is the only warmth she knows in England)" (Letters, p. 157).