WIDE SARGASSO SEA – SUMMARY

PART ONE

Narrated by Antoinette, Part One of Wide Sargasso Sea focuses on her childhood in Jamaica.

Section one (p3 to 7)

In this section Antoinette tells how her family and herself grow more and more isolated, after her father’s death. She lives in a place called Coulibri Estate with her mother, her handicapped brother Pierre, and three servants, Christophine, Godfrey and Sass. The Emancipation Act of 1833, i.e. the abolition of slavery, has left the family, like other slave owners, waiting for financial compensation from England (compensation that apparently will never come). They are therefore in a difficult financial situation: Coulibri Estate is in a poor state of repair, Annette’s clothes become increasingly shabby and the only horse left on the estate is poisoned (probably by angry former slaves). Antoinette’s mother is rejected by everybody. The white people, who are mostly colonials and not native of Jamaica, reject her because she is a white Creole from Martinique. The Jamaican ladies do not accept her either because they think that she is too young and pretty and “worse still, a Martinique girl”. The black people laugh at her and do not respect her because she is now penniless. One day a doctor comes to visit Pierre. The diagnosis is not described but when he leaves, Antoinette’s mother changes; she becomes silent, she never leaves the house and she is cold and frightening to her daughter. As a consequence Antoinette spends her time in the garden or in the kitchen with Christophine who sings her songs from Martinique. In this section we learn that other women are terrified of Christophine. When Antoinette asks her mother about her, she replies that Christophine was a wedding present from her husband. She assures her daughter that she has been with them a long time and that her presence has protected them in many ways. Unlike other servants she has decided to stay with them after the Emancipation Act was