Wide Sargasso Sea
This Sunday Bookshelf begins an eight-part series on notable Caribbean women writers. We start with Jean Rhys, the Dominican-born author who redefined the Caribbean woman’s voice in literature. “They say when trouble comes, close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks.”–Wide Sargasso Sea.
Jean Rhys, born in Dominica in 1890, is a literary enigma. Her work cuts through the fog of colonial nostalgia, revealing the realities of alienation and displacement that come from existing between worlds— both geographically and culturally. Rhys’ most acclaimed novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, reimagines the story of the “madwoman in the attic” from Jane Eyre, offering a voice to a character previously cast aside. With this, she secured her place as a vital, if often overlooked, Caribbean literary icon. Born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams, Rhys left Dominica for England at 16. Her mixed-race heritage and foreignness made her an outsider in both places, a theme that dominates her work.
Jean Rhys’ life in England was far from the literary dream many might imagine. After arriving at 16, she faced a series of personal struggles that deeply influenced her writing. She worked as a chorus girl and model and eventually fell into a series of destructive relationships, often with older men who mirrored the emotionally distant, controlling figures in her novels. Rhys drifted through various parts of England and Europe, never quite finding a sense of home or stability, which added to the themes of displacement and alienation that mark her work.
Her battles with alcoholism and depression were constant companions during these years, and it’s said that she even disappeared for long stretches, living in near obscurity. Her writing during this period reflected the reality of her existence— rootless, financially unstable, and always on the margins. Rhys’ earlier novels, such as Voyage in the Dark and Good Morning, Midnight, centre on women struggling to survive in Europe, often dealing with isolation, poverty, and emotional vulnerability. These works, set against the backdrop of a Europe that could be as cold and indifferent as the men her characters interacted with, portray a world where survival often meant navigating a series of personal and emotional crises. England wasn’t a place of success for Rhys for many years—her literary genius went largely unnoticed until her late-career revival with Wide Sargasso Sea.
Her early novels, Voyage in the Dark (1934) and Good Morning, Midnight (1939), made waves, but it was Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) that put Rhys firmly on the map. A prequel to Jane Eyre, the novel tells the story of Antoinette Cosway (later Bertha Mason), a Creole woman of mixed descent navigating a hostile, post-emancipation Jamaica. Antoinette’s marriage to an Englishman (hinted at being Mr Rochester) is the trigger for her descent into madness, the result of being stripped of her identity, both by her husband and a world that views her as “other”. The themes of colonialism, identity, and psychological disintegration are pervasive. Antoinette’s struggle with her mixed-race heritage mirrors Rhys’ sense of displacement: “They tell me I am in England, but I don’t believe them. We lost our way to England. When? Where? I don’t remember, but we lost it. No one would believe it now, but we lost it.”
Through Antoinette’s deteriorating marriage, Rhys draws sharp parallels to colonial domination, where the erasure of identity becomes the most brutal act of control. “He never looked at me. He spoke very quickly and not very clearly, and I wondered if he was nervous, too. The sadness was there all the time … My sadness and his sadness—often it seemed to be part of the night, and the wind, and the rain.” The landscape of post-emancipation Jamaica adds another layer. Antoinette’s place is unstable, caught between the decaying grandeur of the white planter class and the anger of the newly freed Black population. The burning of Coulibri, the Cosway estate, is a turning point in both the novel and Antoinette’s mind: “I ran, I ran, then I stopped. I stopped because I was very frightened. And it was as though I had a mask, and I was going to be pulled down into something that was waiting. Something that was waiting for me.”
Antoinette’s transformation into “Bertha” symbolises the final act of cultural erasure. Her English husband renames her, a chilling metaphor for stripping someone of their heritage and identity. “Bertha is not my name. You are trying to make me into someone else, calling me by another name. I know, that’s obeah too.” While Wide Sargasso Sea is her best-known work, Rhys’ earlier novels— Voyage in the Dark and Good Morning, Midnight—are equally compelling. They deal with the same themes of alienation, exile, and female fragility, often in a European setting. Rhys broke new ground in feminist and post-colonial literary traditions, portraying characters on the margins of society who struggle to find a sense of self in worlds that deny them autonomy.
Rhys was eventually recognised for her groundbreaking work. In 1967, she won the W H Smith Literary Award for Wide Sargasso Sea, and in 1978, she was made a CBE. Despite these honours, she remained a private and elusive figure, more comfortable in the shadows than in the literary limelight. Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea resonates deeply with the works of Trinidadian writers Merle Hodge and Dionne Brand, each exploring the weight of identity and the sting of cultural displacement. In Crick Crack, Monkey, Hodge’s protagonist Tee, much like Antoinette, is caught in a tug-ofwar between worlds—her Afro-Caribbean roots and British colonial influence. Both Hodge and Rhys paint vivid pictures of young women fractured by external pressures, their sense of self slipping away as they’re forced to reconcile competing identities. The emotional toll of being caught between two worlds, where neither fully accepts you, is a shared theme, highlighting how colonial legacies eat away at the individual. Dionne Brand, with her razor-sharp exploration of exile and displacement in In Another Place, Not Here, taps into the same undercurrents that Rhys navigated.
Like Antoinette, Brand’s characters are exiled from home and parts of themselves. Rhys, Hodge, and Brand dig into what happens when women are pushed to the edges—by race, history, and gender—and left to grapple with who they are when everything around them denies their place. In their hands, identity isn’t just a personal struggle; it’s political, raw, and carries the weight of colonial scars, making these works timeless and resonant. Rhys’ body of work includes five novels and four short story collections. Her writing was deeply personal, blending autobiographical elements with broader explorations of identity, exile, and the struggles women face under patriarchal systems. Key works include: Quartet (1928) After Leaving Mr Mackenzie (1931) Voyage in the Dark (1934) Good Morning, Midnight (1939) Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) Jean Rhys remains a towering yet often misunderstood figure in Caribbean and global literature. Her work captures the complexities of identity, belonging, and female experience with precision and intensity, making her one of the 20th century’s most influential writers. Through Wide Sargasso Sea and her other works, she continues to challenge readers to reconsider whose voices we hear—and whose we silence.
Ira Mathur is a Guardian Media journalist and the winner of the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction for her memoir, Love The Dark Days. Author inquiries: irasroom@gmail.com Website: www.irasroom.org.