Antoinette's mother and her relationship with Antoinette
really sets the stage for Antoinette's actions in the last two sections of the
book. It seems like people never stop talking about how Antoinette will
unavoidably turn out just like her mother. When I hear that, my first instinct
is to go, "No, she can change and become her own person, she isn't doomed
just because of her family." However, as the book goes on Antoinette's
life mirrors her mother's and the predictions start coming true. I really wish
we could learn more about Annette, or see her from a point of view that isn't
Antoinette or villagers who hate her. Why did she leave Martinique to get
married? What was her relationship with Cosway like? What kind of person was
she before the events of the book? How are she and Antoinette similar, and how
are they different?
Both women are very emotionally isolated throughout Wide Sargasso Sea. When we first meet
Annette, she is fixated on the past and everything she's lost. After the
burning of Coulibri, Antoinette too is haunted by the past. However, their
losses are very different: Annette misses her acceptance and status in society,
but Antoinette, who has been ostracized her entire life, misses the beauty of
Coulibri. For both women, their perceived madness comes from their past.
Annette talks to herself out on the glacis because she's remembering days gone
by, and Rochester thinks Antoinette is going mad because of her family history
and because she sticks with the ways of her childhood (belief in obeah,
familiarity with black culture, etc.)
Annette seems to show more agency in her decisions than
Antoinette does. Maybe it's because she's older, or maybe it's just a
difference in personality. We don't know the circumstances of her marriage to
Mason, but it seems like a deliberate decision on her part. She married him
purposely to regain social status. It seems like she was also into the
marriage, at least at first (the scene where Antoinette sees them together on
the glacis seemed romantic). In general, it seems like more of a decision on
her part than Antoinette's marriage to Rochester. Antoinette doesn't seem to
know why she married him, and even when she tried to express her wish not to
marry him she let herself be talked into it easily. Most of her actions seem
dreamlike, and she spends a lot of time being shepherded around by other
characters. Antoinette regains her agency at the very end of the book, when she
decides to burn down Thornfield Hall. This echoes both the fire at Coulibri and
the time Annette tried to kill Mason.
Both women's eventual madness comes more from isolation and
oppressive social mores than anything else. While there may be some genetic
component as well, I know that being ostracized and stuck in a decaying house for
years with no friends/being alienated your whole life and then powerless in a
marriage of mutual hatred (pick one) would definitely be enough to drive me crazy. The same gendered power
dynamics affect them both: even though they come to hate their husbands/situation
in life, they can't leave. Rochester and Mason hold all the power, and lock
their wives up in their perceived madness. As mentioned, both Antoinette and
Annette try to get revenge (free themselves?) by killing their husbands; while
Annette fails completely, Antoinette is nearly successful. (Sorry if this post
seems kinda disjointed, I'm trying to work through a bunch of different
thoughts on Annette and Antoinette.)
