conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a plot for a book about Antoinette, Antoinette\'s, Englishman entitled Wide Sargasso Sea
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Wide Sargasso Sea: The novel opens a short while after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 ended slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834.\nThe protagonist Antoinette relates the story of her life from childhood to her arranged marriage to an unnamed Englishman (implied as Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre).\nAs their marriage progresses, Antoinette, whom he renames "Bertha" and confines to a locked room, descends into madness, in part from despair at being torn from her island home in the Caribbean and subjected to an alien culture and climate.\nThe novel is split into three parts.\nPart One takes place in Coulibri, Jamaica, and is narrated by Antoinette.\nDescribing childhood experiences, she reviews several facets of her life, including her mother\'s mental instability and her mentally disabled brother\'s tragic death.\nPart Two alternates between the points of view of her husband and of Antoinette during their "honeymoon" excursion to Granbois, Dominica.\nLikely catalysts for Antoinette\'s downfall are the mutual suspicions that develop between the aforementioned couple, and the machinations of Daniel, who claims he is Antoinette\'s (illegitimate) brother; he impugns Antoinette\'s reputation and mental state and demands hush money.\nAntoinette\'s old nurse Christophine openly distrusts the Englishman.\nHis apparent belief in the destructive accounts about Antoinette aggravate the situation; he becomes visibly unfaithful to her.\nAntoinette\'s increased sense of paranoia and the bitter disappointment of her failing marriage unbalance her already precarious mental and emotional state.\nPart Three is the shortest part of the novel; it is from the perspective of Antoinette, renamed by her husband as Bertha.\nShe is largely confined to "the attic" of Thornfield Hall, the Rochester mansion she calls the "Great House".\nThe story traces her relationship with Grace, the servant who is tasked with guarding her, as well as her disintegrating life with the Englishman, as he hides her from the world.\nHe makes empty promises to come to her more, but sees less of her.\nHe ventures away to pursue relationships with other women—and eventually with the young governess, Jane Eyre.\nExpressing her thoughts in stream of consciousness, Antoinette/Bertha decides to take her own life as she believes this is her destiny.
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conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
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conversations.value: \nExpressing her thoughts in stream of consciousness, Antoinette/Bertha decides to take her own life as she believes this is her destiny.\nThe protagonist Antoinette relates the story of her life from childhood to her arranged marriage to an unnamed Englishman (implied as Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre).\nAs their marriage progresses, Antoinette, whom he renames "Bertha" and confines to a locked room, descends into madness, in part from despair at being torn from her island home in the Caribbean and subjected to an alien culture and climate.\nThe novel is split into three parts.\nPart One takes place in Coulibri, Jamaica, and is narrated by Antoinette.\nDescribing childhood experiences, she reviews several facets of her life, including her mother\'s mental instability and her mentally disabled brother\'s tragic death.\nPart Two alternates between the points of view of her husband and of Antoinette during their "honeymoon" excursion to Granbois, Dominica.\nLikely catalysts for Antoinette\'s downfall are the mutual suspicions that develop between the aforementioned couple, and the machinations of Daniel, who claims he is Antoinette\'s (illegitimate) brother; he impugns Antoinette\'s reputation and mental state and demands hush money.\nAntoinette\'s old nurse Christophine openly distrusts the Englishman.\nHis apparent belief in the destructive accounts about Antoinette aggravate the situation; he becomes visibly unfaithful to her.\nAntoinette\'s increased sense of paranoia and the bitter disappointment of her failing marriage unbalance her already precarious mental and emotional state.\nPart Three is the shortest part of the novel; it is from the perspective of Antoinette, renamed by her husband as Bertha.\nShe is largely confined to "the attic" of Thornfield Hall, the Rochester mansion she calls the "Great House".\nThe story traces her relationship with Grace, the servant who is tasked with guarding her, as well as her disintegrating life with the Englishman, as he hides her from the world.\nHe makes empty promises to come to her more, but sees less of her.\nHe ventures away to pursue relationships with other women—and eventually with the young governess, Jane Eyre.Wide Sargasso Sea: The novel opens a short while after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 ended slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a plot for a book about Wide, Sargasso, Sea entitled Wide Sargasso Sea
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conversations.value: Wide Sargasso Sea (1993 film): For a full-length summary see: plot summary of Wide Sargasso Sea.
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conversations.value: the first four paragraphs for this book
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conversations.value: Wide Sargasso Sea
  The title of the novel refers to the Sargasso Sea, a vast area of the northern Atlantic Ocean which is home to sargassum, a kind of seaweed. The Sargasso Sea is legendary for being an oceanic black hole, where ships get ensnared by huge forests of floating seaweed, or drift helplessly when the wind ceases to blow.
  The title invites the reader to consider how the characters can be thought of as trapped in their own Sargasso Seas. They may be suspended in the murky passage between two worlds, between England and Jamaica, for example, or between racial identities, as Antoinette struggles with her white Creole heritage. By linking itself to this mythical tradition, the novel asks the reader to consider the role of stories and fictions in the characters' lives, particularly when it comes to encountering experiences that are foreign, alien, and strange. 
  It is certainly possible that Antoinette will set fire to Thornfield Hall, but this becomes only one possibility among others. For "passage," the very last word of the novel, asks us to consider all of the different ways that Antoinette is passing from one state to another - physically, certainly, but psychologically, culturally, even politically as well.
  Does Antoinette's appeal to black characters such as Tia and Christophine in her dream imply that she rejects her white Creole identity for a black Caribbean one, symbolized by her setting the house on fire just as the black rioters did to Coulibri earlier in the novel? Then why not show her actually doing this? Why keep it in a dream?
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conversations.value: Add another sentence about Sargasso, Sea.
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conversations.value: Wide Sargasso Sea
  The title of the novel refers to the Sargasso Sea, a vast area of the northern Atlantic Ocean which is home to sargassum, a kind of seaweed. The Sargasso Sea is legendary for being an oceanic black hole, where ships get ensnared by huge forests of floating seaweed, or drift helplessly when the wind ceases to blow. 
  The title invites the reader to consider how the characters can be thought of as trapped in their own Sargasso Seas. They may be suspended in the murky passage between two worlds, between England and Jamaica, for example, or between racial identities, as Antoinette struggles with her white Creole heritage. But the terrors of the Sargasso Sea are also largely mythical, the product of sailor lore rather than historical or scientific fact. By linking itself to this mythical tradition, the novel asks the reader to consider the role of stories and fictions in the characters' lives, particularly when it comes to encountering experiences that are foreign, alien, and strange. 
  It is certainly possible that Antoinette will set fire to Thornfield Hall, but this becomes only one possibility among others. For "passage," the very last word of the novel, asks us to consider all of the different ways that Antoinette is passing from one state to another - physically, certainly, but psychologically, culturally, even politically as well. 
  Does Antoinette's appeal to black characters such as Tia and Christophine in her dream imply that she rejects her white Creole identity for a black Caribbean one, symbolized by her setting the house on fire just as the black rioters did to Coulibri earlier in the novel? Then why not show her actually doing this? Why keep it in a dream?
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conversations.value: two more paragraphs
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conversations.value: Locked up in Thornfield Hall, Antoinette has no access to a mirror, part of Rochester's strategy for depriving her of a unique identity to call her own. The childhood mirror scene she describes here is reminiscent of the scene with Tia (see our discussion of Quote #2 above): her sense of alienation from the image of herself indicates her general lack of a sense of self. But this quote also brings up the larger question of whether Antoinette is in fact "mad" - has she really lost her mind? Or can we see her fractured sense of self as a consequence of her personal history? Perhaps we have to learn to "read" Antoinette in a way that Rochester, or any of the other characters, never could.
  Antoinette's tragic view of life and her deep suspicion of Rochester leads her to reject an open dialogue with him about her past, and with it the possibility of a genuine relationship.
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conversations.value: the last two paragraphs
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conversations.value: Our lively learning guides are written by experts and educators who want to show your brain a good time. Shmoop writers come primarily from Ph.D.
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conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, including.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Our lively learning guides are written by experts and educators who want to show your brain a good time. Shmoop writers come primarily from Ph. D. programs at top universities, including Stanford, Harvard, and UC Berkeley. 
  Want more Shmoop? We cover literature, poetry, bestsellers, music, US history, civics, biographies (and the list keeps growing). Drop by our website to see the latest.