Quotes from bookWide Sargasso Sea
Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 novel by Dominica-born British author Jean Rhys. It is a feminist and anti-colonial response to Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre , describing the background to Mr Rochester's marriage from the point-of-view of his mad wife Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress. Antoinette Cosway is Rhys' version of Brontë's devilish "madwoman in the attic". Antoinette's story is told from the time of her youth in Jamaica, to her unhappy marriage to a certain unnamed English gentleman, who renames her Bertha, declares her mad, and takes her to England. Antoinette is caught in an oppressive patriarchal society in which she fully belongs neither to Europe nor to Jamaica. Wide Sargasso Sea explores the power of relationships between men and women and develops postcolonial themes, such as racism, displacement, and assimilation.
“Only the magic and the dream are true — all the rest's a lie.”
Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea
Source: Wide Sargasso Sea
“If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic.”
Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea
Source: Wide Sargasso Sea
“Blot out the moon,
Pull down the stars.
Love in the dark, for we're for the dark
So soon, so soon.”
Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea
Source: Wide Sargasso Sea
“I have been too unhappy, I thought, it cannot last, being so unhappy, it would kill you”
Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea
Source: Wide Sargasso Sea
“They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.”
Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea
Source: Wide Sargasso Sea
“There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.”
Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea
Source: Wide Sargasso Sea
“And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?”
Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea
Source: Wide Sargasso Sea
