Year: 1977
Type: article
Abstract: HE crucial question Wide Sargasso Sea, as a work of art, might seem to pose is whether it can stand and be judged alone, or whether in the view expressed by Walter Allen it is only "a triumph of atmosphere [which] does not exist in its own right, as Mr. Rochester is almost as shadowy as Charlotte Bronte's Bertha Mason." 1 Jean Rhys's own comment, "She seemed such a poor ghost, I thought I'd like to write her life," 2 might seem to lend support to Allen's generalization, suggesting as it does that Rhys expended her whole creative effort upon an act of moral restitution to the stereotyped lunatic Creole heiress in Rochester's attic.Certainly, Rhys's Antoinette (Bertha), who tells Edward (Rochester) "There is always the other side, always" (p.106), 3 is given a passionate voice to make "the other side" felt.Yet hers is still only one side and, though it might be argued of her creator's earlier novels between the wars that Rhys was more concerned to do fictional justice rather to her women than their men, Wide Sargasso Sea stands out as her most balanced novel in its even-handed treatment of the sexes.Her inward presentation, in the second part of the novel, of Rochester's viewpoint -complex but not "shadowy" -is unmatched in her earlier work, and its strength is enhanced by our contrasting recollections of Jane Eyre.It is not Rhys's manner to spell out her characters' viewpoints, or to eke them out with detailed authorial commentary on background or theme.For her, as for Hardy, a novel is "an impression, not an argument."4 Though I have seen people ignorant of Jane Eyre respond to this novel as a self-sufficient work, it would be foolish to deny
Source: Ariel
Author: M. F. Thorpe
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2141977563