JEAN RHYS, WIDE SARGASSO SEA: GENDER AND RACE IN BERTHA MASON

1. INTRODUCTION: WHO IS BERTHA MASON?

To know who is Bertha Mason, first, we need to say that in Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys seems to

propose a past for Bertha and her husband, who are Charlotte Brontë’s characters from the novel

Jane Eyre. As it is stated in an article, Wide Sargasso Sea could be a prequel in which gender and

race issues are questioned:

“ Jean Rhys’ novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, was written as a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre.
Although both the novels heavily critique male control over the female experience, Rhys’ novel also invites
us to question the issues of race and gender” (Ahmed 2020: 111)

Some others think that Wide Sargasso Sea could be an alternative version of the story written by

Charlotte Brontë too. Either way, this gives us the clue to understand who is Bertha Mason.

Bertha is the name given for Antoinette Cosway by her husband in Wide Sargasso Sea. The name of

Bertha comes from the character of Jane Eyre, who was described as a madwoman.

Bertha or Antoinette, is the daughter of ex-slave owners, they were a wealthy family until the

Emancipation Act and she is the main character of this story. She is of Creole descent whose family

lived in Coulibri State and they don’t fit in their neighbourhood near Spanish Town.

Bertha was described as a beauty, however, her husband finally thinks that she is mentally insane

like her mother was, so he took her with him to England and locked her in his house attic. Not only

the name of Bertha is the connection with the novel Jane Eyre, but the fact that she was locked in

the attic as well. In Brontë’s novel, Rochester’s wife from creole heritage, was enclosed in the attic

because of being a madwoman too, Jane didn’t know about her living there and the first time she

sees Bertha she describes her as a ghost:

"Fearful and ghastly to me—oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was a discoloured face—it was a savage
face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!”
(Brontë 1847 :432)

2. BERTHA MASON: GENDER FEATURES

Wide Sargasso Sea deals with the Caribbean and English society, there are British and French

colonies that have seen slavery abolished. However, we find the character of Bertha who, despite

of being a descendant of ex-slave owners, she feels imprisoned in her marriage and because of the

fact of being a woman.

“The relationship between Antoinette and Rochester can also be seen as representing the relationship
between coloniser and colonized” (Crossref-it info, 2020)

This relationship stated before between coloniser and colonized can also be seen as a criticism of

male’s control over the female. This is visible in their races as Rochester is from England and

Bertha is Creole, but this coloniser and colonized relationship is also visible when she marries

Rochester and her properties become her husband’s due to the English law. Before getting married

Bertha was able to enjoy her fortune and properties, but when marrying an Englishman, she was left

with nothing and she also became a property of her husband. Therefore she is somehow colonized,

the English law didn’t recognize women as independent so females couldn’t have any properties of

their own.

“You must understand I am not rich now, I have no money of my own at all, everything I had belongs to
him.’ […] That is English law.” (Rhys 1966: 70)

There is also a big contrast in this novel because unlike Bertha, we find that Christophine who

despite of being a black woman and an ex-slave, she lives by her own in her house, has her

properties and she can do as she wishes where she lives.

“ -You think the men here touch me? […] This is free country and I am free woman.” (Rhys 1966: 107)

3. BERTHA MASON: RACIAL FEATURES

To explain Bertha Mason’s racial features it is important to pay attention to the first chapters of the

novel. She described her childhood at the beginning and that is when we can see her racial features.
Her mother who was called Anette, was a young lady from Martinique, a French colony in the

Caribbean, Bertha and her family weren’t accepted by society from Spanish Town because of their

skin colour but also for being from a French colony and not an English one.

“She have no money and she have no friends, for French and English like cat and dog in these islands
since long time” (Rhys, 1966:58)

Bertha who was a white creole from the Caribbean faced another problem like her family, they were

descents from plantation families who owned slaves. This caused trouble in the place they were

living because they were still seen as colonizers by the black community which has suffered the

consequences of slavery. No one wanted to establish contact with the Cosway family, people

around them thought they were bad, but the truth is that they were being judged by their past.

“ They don’t tell you what sort of people were these Cosways. Wicked and detestable slave-owners since
generations – yes everybody hate them in Jamaica and also in this beautiful island” (Rhys 1966:58)

“Antoinette grows up in a period when slavery has been abolished but its memory is still fresh. This memory
is used against her by both blacks and whites, especially the new white elite which despises the older
slaveowners because its basis of profit, though as exploitative in many ways, is based on the obfuscating
control of capital, not of human bodies directly.” (Riggaard 2017: 216)

The white people considered Bertha inferior to them for her mixed-race, which means being a

Creole, so she wasn’t accepted either by them. All of their black and white neighbours used

derogatory words towards them to show Bertha’s family their disrespect and their hate. Some of

these words were “white nigger” and “white cockroach” which made reference above all to their

racial features.

“ They hated us. They called us white cockroaches “ (Rhys 1966: 6)

“Look the white niggers! Look the damn white niggers!” (Rhys 1966:20)

Bertha is stuck between both the black and the white culture, she finds some empathy with the black

people that are around her like Christophine, but she’s not able to fully identify with them. Her skin

colour was not as dark as those around her and she was educated with superiority and dominant
values due to her family background. All of this makes her to marginalize herself from everything

and everyone, feeling like she does not fit anywhere and many times wondering who she really is

and where she belongs to.

“I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all”
(Rhys 1966: 63)

4. HOW DOES GENDER AND RACE AFFECT HER SOCIAL STATUS?

Bertha’s gender and race negatively affects her social status as we have seen previously.

She came from a wealthy family thanks to slavery, so back then she had a high social status.

However, once slavery was abolished her family lost the source of money and they were seen by

society as wicked, everyone hated them so Bertha’s social status was damaged. Being Creole also

affected her social status since she wasn’t accepted by either the white or black race, she had to deal

with daily hate from others and she was marginalized.

Besides, the fact of being a woman in the West Indies hasn’t been a problem for Bertha until she

married Rochester, because she ended up being economically dependent of him when he got all her

properties. All this coupled with loneliness, not knowing who she was and not feeling the love of

her husband later in the novel really drove her to madness.

With her social status damaged, any properties of her own and a failed marriage at the end of this

novel, she is taken to England by Rochester and enclosed in the attic with the pretext of becoming a

madwoman. He is able to do as he pleases with her:

“Antoinette is his possession in the same way as a doll would be and he can do what he pleases with his
possessions. In the end, Rochester must remove the threat to his identity by leaving the West Indies and
taking Antoinette/Bertha with him. In order for him to be correct, he must cast Antoinette in the role of the
madwoman who is as vain and free with her affections as the black whores” ( Parvela 2015:68)

References:

- Ahmed Borah, Sarif. 2020. “Wide Sargasso Sea: A Restoration of the Marginalized Voice of
Bertha Mason”. UGC Care Journal. 40: 111-115. Available from
https://archives.tpnsindia.org/index.php/sipn/article/view/6719/6467 [03.05.2020]
- Brontë, Charlotte. 1847. Jane Eyre. Planet Ebooks. Available from
https://www.planetebook.com/jane-eyre/

- Cross ref it info (2020): Race and Colonialism: Antoinette, women and slavery. Available from
https://crossref-it.info/textguide/wide-sargasso-sea/29/1984 [09-05-2020]

- Parvela, Satu. 2015. “Feminine Beauty in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys’ s Wide
Sargasso Sea”. (Master’s Thesis, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland) Retrieved from
https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/96685/GRADU-1424245380.pdf?
sequence=1&isAllowed=y

- Rhys, Jean. 1966. Wide Sargasso Sea. UK, London: Penguin Classics

- Riggaard, Dan. 2017. Literature: An Introduction to Theory and Analysis. Bloomsbury

Publishing