Cruelty and Insanity in Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Essay -- Wide S

Cruelty and Insanity in Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean RhysWide Sargasso Sea provides unique insight into the stepwisedeterioration of the human mind and spirit. On examining Antoinetteand her mother Annette, the reader gains a new perspective ofinsanity. One realizes that these two women are mentally perturbed asa end of numerous external factors that are beyond their control.The rigorousness of life and people drive Annette and her missy to rage. Neither mother nor daughter have a genetic predisposition tomadness, and their downfall is an inevitable result of the actions ofthose around them and the unbearable nature of their living situation.Antoinettes condition owes its beginnings to the solitude of herchildhood, so the cold, unfeeling treatment she receives from herhusband does not create her mental instability, moreover exacerbates it.At the beginning of the falsehood, it becomes apparent that solitude is aprimary set about of theCosway women?s insanity. Antoinette?s narrati onreveals that her mother is not accepted by other white people inJamaica because she originated from Martinique, and the Jamaicanladies in grouchy ?never approved? of her mother ?because shepretty like pretty egotism?. Her only friend, Mr. Luttrell, commitssuicide after he tires of waiting for monetary honorarium for theloss of his slaves. Annette is left with no one of her colour or clubto associate with. In describing her childhood, Antoinette only speaksof one friend, a Negro female child named Tia, but this was an ephemeralfriendship. Antoinette had no one belonging to her age convocation or classthat she could associate with. For the most part, the young girl is precise isolated and alone, quite like her mother. Utter lon... ...umstances of thelives that Annette and her daughter lead in Coulibri serve as thefoundation for their insanity. The reader cannot attribute theirdownfall to a genetic trait, but must instead understand that theprocess of dismission insane would not have started if their life at thebeginning of the novel was not so lonely and miserable. Fate is cruelto these two individuals, and the scratchiness of the Negroes is the onlyhuman cruelty inflicted on Annette and Antoinette at Coulibri, thustheir lunacy begins as a result of both sources. Antoinette?schildhood leaves her with wound up scars and prohibits proper mentaland personal growth, thus she marries her husband with these already completed problems, and her husband?s actions only serve to developthe existing fluent tendencies. Work CitedRhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. New York Norton, 1982.