Family in Wide Sargasso Sea Essay

Wide Sargasso Sea: War of the Family

Families can be the people that make a person. They can either let the person feel loved and accepted, or make him or her feel like an outcast, unloved and unwanted. Today, it is rarely heard that a family is perfect like it should be. There is divorce, child abuse, domestic abuse, poverty, and indifference. Parents leave their children to the care of others, children are abandoned and unwanted, and mothers and fathers separate, tearing the children apart when they leave. Antoinettes family in Wide Sargasso Sea isnt such a different story; it is not a fairytale about a perfect family, but it is a realistic story of a family that does fall apart, maybe in a different way than most, but it is, in fact, a battlefield and not a safe haven.

Antoinette's family is not near to being perfect. Antoinette doesnt feel loved by her mother, has no father, and has a brother with a disability. Her father left them a long time ago and her mother favors the little boy with the learning disability, rarely showing any love or affection towards Antoinette. She is practically raised by Christophine, a former slave who stayed with them after the emancipation. Christophine does love Antoinette and takes care of her, but cannot fix the problems in the family. In the beginning of the book, when Antoinette tries to sit on her mothers lap, she pushes her off, gently, but coldly, and tells Antoinette to leaver he alone. Antoinette feels unwanted, unloved, and like a burden.

Later on in the story, Antoinette becomes less and less wanted, until she no longer lives with her mother at all. The little family completely falls apart after her mother marries Mr. Mason. Antoinettes mother begins to go crazy, talking to herself and becoming paranoid. She tries to tell Mr. Mason that they must leave Coulibri, their home, and go somewhere else because everyone on the island wants to hurt them. Mr. Mason breaks the family up a little more when he decides not to listen to Annette and say that they will stay in Coulibri. Some time later, a mob of the island people burn down their home, killing Antoinettes little brother Pierre and forever scarring both Antoinette and her mother. From that day, Antoinette goes to live with their neighbor and her aunt, while her mother goes to live somewhere else. After about a month, Antoinette finally goes to see her mother, but is not wanted. Her mother wants Pierre, but he is dead, and Antoinette knows that her mother does not care that she is there and alive. At this point, Antoinette knows her mother is gone forever and will never come back to love her.

After growing up in a convent and being cared for by Mr. Mason, she is arranged to marry a man from England who wants to gain some of the money she has from Mr. Mason. She is married to Rochester and they go on their honeymoon and eventually move back to Rochesters home in England. This new family is, yet again, another battleground for her to conquer. She does not really love Rochester and knows that, deep down, Rochester does not really love her either, and so this love is fake. She thinks that she can never find someone to love her because she has never grown up in a family where she was wanted and loved. She dreams of killing the people in the house and hurting them, especially Rochester. She remembers that it is the fire in Coulibri that set her free from her mother that did not love her, and so she realizes that setting this home on fire will set her free from Rochester, who does not really love her either. All she wants is to be free so she can find a family or someone who can make her feel wanted, accepted, and truly loved for once.

Antoinette suffers through a lot in her life from when she was a child until the end of her life. Her first family, her mother and brother, do not make her feel accepted or wanted and she feels like an outcast and like she will never belong. When she marries Rochester, she has the same feeling of unwanted and unaccepted, as well as being used and treated like an object. When she begins to go crazy as well like her mother before her, she realizes that, to escape, she must win this war between the people in the house. She must beat Rochester if she ever wants to be free from this place and the only way she knows in her mind to become free is to set fire to the house. Throughout her life, all she could ever experience was a family that didnt want her, didnt accept her, and did not love her.