The Strength of an Opening: How the Beginning of "Wide Sargasso Sea" Hints at Race/Gender Relations and Foreshadows Antoinette’s Fall into Madness

“They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.” So begins Wide Sargasso Sea, a backstory into the character of Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre who ends up insane. When a reader is willing to read the first few paragraphs of the novel carefully, the above sentence and the ones following offer a wealth of information into the world of Wide Sargasso Sea in addition to foreshadowing Antoinette’s (Bertha’s) demise.

Here is the full text of the first paragraph (page 9):
“They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks. The Jamaican ladies had never approved of my mother, ‘because she pretty like pretty self’ Christophine said.”

One of the most prominent points a reader can take away from this is the issue of race. Antoinette, as the narrator, states, “we were not in [the whites’] ranks.” However, she immediately follows up that statement with “The Jamaican ladies had never approved of my mother.” This suggests an uncomfortable in-between state: Antoinette’s family is clearly not considered white, but many Jamaicans find it hard or impossible to accept them as well. This racial ambiguity and the overall concept of racial hierarchies is a major theme throughout the novel, and introducing it here leads the reader to immediately grasp its importance in the world of Wide Sargasso Sea. Antoinette’s family would be later revealed to be Creoles, or alternatively “white [cockroaches]” (Rhys 13) or “white nigger” (Rhys 14). 

Another idea introduced in this opening paragraph is that of gender relations. Although Antoinette’s mother is very beautiful, she is scorned constantly by the Jamaican women for being so. Personally, I see this as not unheard of, but overall a foreign concept. It is the norm that a majority of people will admire and envy those who are beautiful instead of shunning them. To which I pose: is this cruelty due to jealousy? And how does race factor into the Jamaican women’s reaction towards Antoinette’s mother?

Although this is just the beginning of the book, there is strong foreshadowing throughout the first few paragraphs alluding to Antoinette’s loss of sanity and her descent into a dark world where she cannot depend on anything except herself. There are at least two places in the first paragraph with missing punctuation, which create a more flowing style that ignores the conventions of correct writing. This can be likened to and foreshadows the use of stream of consciousness in Part Three of Wide Sargasso Sea, where Antoinette, now ignoring set concepts of correct and incorrect behavior loses her grip on sanity altogether and adopts a more freewheeling narrative style that mirrors the chaos in her mind.

The second and third paragraph offer farther foreshadowing into Antoinette’s future: after discussing the ostracizing of her family in greater detail, Antoinette concludes the second paragraph with “(My father, visitors, horses, feeling safe in bed—all belonged to the past.)” This last sentence’s meaning is clear: Antoinette is implying that riches and security—the things she took comfort in growing up—no longer exist for her, that the world she lives in now is different, darker, and more dismal. Again, one can see the use of foreshadowing, even though the novel is just beginning. Additionally, in the third paragraph Antoinette discusses Mr. Luttrell, the family neighbor and only friend, who suddenly disappears at sea without volition after shooting his dog. Mr. Luttrell’s sudden and unexplained exit from the narrative forecast the lost sense of self that Antoinette feels in the latter half of Wide Sargasso Sea as the people and things she could depend on in the past no longer become trustworthy, making her lose her grip on sanity.

Although initially just a beginning to a novel, Jean Rhys is already slipping hints to the reader as to understand the setting of 1840s Jamaica and the complex race and gender relations that encompass society during that time, as well as dropping frequent implications regarding Antoinette’s descent into an undependable and hellish world, where order and control do not exist.