Chapter Part One of Wide Sargasso Sea - Study Guide by Jean Rhys

they leave silently "They were not laughing anymore" (p.36). Mason's prayer and the crowd's superstitious beliefs highlight the clash of faiths and religious customs between the islanders.

Faced with the end of life in Coulibri Antoinette runs towards Tia as something of her old life to grab hold of:

"[W]e had eaten the same food, slept side by side, bathed in the same river ... I will be like her... . I saw the jagged stone in her hand ... I looked at her and I saw her face crumple up as she began to cry. We stared at each other, blood on my face, tears on hers. It was as if I saw myself. Like in a looking- glass" (p.38)

Antoinette as a white Creole child growing up at the time of emancipation is caught between English imperialism which she does not subscribe to and the black native who will never fully accept her. It is a tragic moment of mutual recognition and similarity coupled with the understanding of their irreparable divisions. Tia is an 'Other' that is also part of Antoinette's own identity and self, but they can never be reconciled because of the fractures caused by imperialism.

The End of Coulibri: Antoinette is left with a scar, a physical reminder of the turbulence of imperialism on personal lives. Ironically, her Aunt Cora believes that it will not ruin her wedding day (p.39) but Rhys emphasises throughout Wide Sargasso Sea the destructive effects of money, power and culture on the individual psychology and human relationships. Antoinette retells the period of her sickness and her memory of her mother's insanity, Annette' screams of, "Que est la? Que est la?", and terrible threats at the death of Pierre. On her visit to her mother there is a cruel play of contrasting emotions as her mother holds her close and shows her affection and then throws her away from her at the absence of Pierre. She is left hurt again by her mother's rejection. But again her desolation is left unsaid. However, her feelings that are left inarticulate almost resound behind the nurse's dialogue "Why you bring the child to make trouble, trouble, trouble?" and the significant silence that follows; "All the way back to Aunt Cora's house we didn't speak" (p.40)

The Convent: On her first day of school she is chased by a girl and boy who taunt her with her mother's madness and her own insanity "She have eyes like zombie and you have eyes like a zombie too" (p.42). She is saved by Sandi, who she is shy to acknowledge as part of her family, appropriating Mason's pretensions and attempts to wipe away the past and family scandals. The convent becomes her school and her refuge and finally her home when Aunt Cora moves to England. It is a place of smiling nuns with soft eyes and the pretty and elegant de Plana sisters. It is a convent of a rather odd ethos as Mother St Justine, who Louise notes is not very intelligent, teaches them the romantic side of the martyrs' tales, beauty tips and deportment. Perhaps this infers another example of female frustration and narrowed potential.

It is a place where she finds enough tranquillity and insulated against the world to inscribe her identity: "I will write my name in fire red, Antoinette Mason, nee Cosway". Perhaps here we can see a harbinger of her final act of asserting her identity in the fire at Thornfield and also her admiration for Tia who could always light fires. Fire becomes an important motif in the novel as a source of light and warmth but also destructive. It reflects her passionate nature as it becomes associated with Antoinette and later Christophine says of her burning nature: "She have the sun in her" (p.130)

"Here, in here" (p.50): The novel, built on contrasts is in the convent scenes particularly graphic in its distinct choices; it is an insulated forum for Antoinette to experience and appropriate these polar opposites. Antoinette sees the convent as a place of "sunshine and of death" (p.47), she picks out light and shadows, ponders on Heaven and Hell, plays between the safety of religion and the freedom of not praying (p.48). This enclosed life though comes to a close with the arrival of Mason and he talks to her about leaving the convent, makes suggestions about living in England and mentions a particular visitor which leaves Antoinette with a sinking feeling: