As I was reading Part 2 of Wide Sargasso Sea, I was reminded of this song I stumbled on a while ago. It's called "No Children", by The Mountain Goats. (yeah, weird indie music or whatever) When I first heard the song, I thought, "WTF is this? This is one of the most spiteful things I have ever heard in my life..." It's a song about a married couple who hate each other with a burning passion, don't expect it to ever get better, and seem to almost take masochistic pleasure in how terrible their relationship is. Kind of like Rochester at the end of part 2. Some especially fun relevant lyrics:
I hope it stays dark foreverI hope the worst isn't over
And I hope you blink before I do
And I hope I never get soberand,
I am drowning
There is no sign of land
You are coming down with me
Hand in unlovable hand
It's a really weird song, but I think it fits Antoinette and Rochester pretty well as the book goes on.
The first year I taught this course, for the Open Genre Creative Project a student put together a kind of original concept-album mixtape that featured all songs by Mountain Goats as an extended exploration of themes and characters from _Wide Sargasso Sea_. It sounded odd to me at first two, having a passing familiarity with the Mountain Goats, but it really worked nicely (there was a cool, collage-style CD booklet as well, to explicate some of the connections between the lyrics and the novel).
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