Please complete all blog posts pertaining to The Wide Sargasso Sea in the comments section of this thread. Blog posts are assigned weekly for the duration of the Lit Circle, and are due by 10pm on Thursday nights.
Students posting in this thread will be: Cynthia, Nina, Sarah
Happy Reading!
11 comments:
Just wondering how you guys feel about the book so far - do you like it? Is it better than the traumatizing All the Pretty Horses from last year? Personally, I read the book fairly quickly, and I found it very admirable stylistically even though it travels a bit too quickly at times. And in case you guys didn't know, (spoilers here!) the main character is actually the madwoman from the attic from Jane Eyre. So... just some background information there.
Yeah I like it so far. I'm not really sure about the main characters...well, race I guess. Is she white? Or half white and half black? They mentioned something about Creole. So does that make her half Jamaican and half English? I am really confused on this because the mob referred to them as "white niggers". So confuzzeled.
Hm - interesting new perspective here, this time from that of the guy Antoinette marries. What do you guys think of his comparisons of her to a child? I think that they kind of make sense, as Freudian psychology states that a screwed-up childhood - which Antoinette most certainly had - make a screwed-up person. Thus, just as the environment shapes our views on race, nurture wins over nature in terms of personality.
As a side note, I am really enjoying the prose here - it's so post-modern and poetic it makes me smile. What do you guys think of it?
It's such a wonderful breath of fresh air. Although I also like the Canterbury Tales prose. What I'm really confused about is that the husband doesn't have a name...or is it mentioned later?
I know that his name is Rochester because I Wikipedia-ed Jane Eyre, but I think it might not be mentioned yet because the author assumes the reader will be familiar with Jane Eyre. Which is rather confusing and not cool :/
I have a question about the change in narration. Do you think the narrator in part II will end up being just as important as the main character? And I don't really like how she changed so drastically from the end of Part I to the begining of Part II. It was so confusing!
How do you think she changed drastically? In that she was suddenly happy and cheerful for a while? I think that can be chalked up to post-marital bliss; they just got married, he's giving her attention (something which she hasn't had for a while), and he's one of the few people who treats her (at least initially) with some kind of respect.
Hm, Rochester, yes...well, he was kind of one of the "good people" in Jane Eyre, of which this book is based on, so I would say that, yes, he's important. I think his role is kind of like that of Beowulf in Grendel in that he was originally a hero but now is someone with a role which is much darker - perhaps he'll end being instead an antihero or anti-villain? It is implied, after all, that he doesn't like Antoinette's home - which she loves - and that the two of them don't really understand each other ... nevertheless, I'd say yes, his role is definitely a pivotal one. At the same time, however, I think the story is still Antoinette's - she's still the main protagonist, and Rochester is more an important supporting character.
I agree. I have noticed that she is still the main focus even with a change in narration.
So...the book's over. And okay, if read on its own, the end is kind of unsatisfactory - if taken in context. Wide Sargasso Sea was, from the start, the response to another book, not a one book adventure, but rather a two book one. In Jane Eyre, Antoinette's lighting of the candle in WSS would signal the burning down of Rochester's house - an event that kind of parallels the burning of Antoinette's house earlier in the book (essay prompt 1977 asks about parallelism in stories - my prompt!) Knowing that, then, what do you think? Do you think the book ended effectively? Personally, I do - what about you?
I thought the ending was effective. It wrapped up the symbolism used throughout the novel very well.
I really liked this book, even though I did not know very much background information about it at first. I think the characters were sort of relatable, at least I felt sorry for them.
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