Wide Sargasso Sea

Some authors are defined by one particular work which overshadows the rest of their output:

• Joseph Heller will forever be identified with his satirical masterpiece, Catch 22
• J. D. Salinger is known primarily as the creator of Holden Caulfield, narrator of The Catcher in the Rye
• Margaret Mitchell did write another novel, but nothing to match Gone with the Wind.

Until the late 60’s few people would have heard of Jean Rhys, who had produced a few collections of short stories and novellas in the 1920s and 30s. By the end of the 1950s many were not even sure if she was still alive. Then in 1966 Wide Sargasso Sea appeared.

For all sorts of reasons Wide Sargasso Sea became the work with which Rhys is for ever identified. It had a huge impact:

• With its multiple viewpoints and disjointed narrative, it echoed the multilayered interpretations of modernism, yet was also post-modern before the term had become recognised.
• Its perspective on a ‘colonial’ account (Jane Eyre), from the viewpoint of the colonised, helped to wake literate Britain up to the role of Britain’s economic world dominance within its literature
• It was revisionist in its handling of a well loved cultural icon, Mr Rochester, shaking forever the unthinking adulation of Brontë’s romantic hero
• It created a woman’s narrative voice at variance with the clear female voice of Jane Eyre herself, whom generations had learnt to love.

All these reasons and more make Wide Sargasso Sea a distinctive novel, and a popular choice on A Level syllabuses, especially when set in conjunction with Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

At Crossref-it.info a comprehensive guide to Brontë’s classic has already been available for a couple of years. Now we are about to launch one to help students studying Rhys’ most famous work.

Watch this space!