Wide Sargasso Sea: Foreshadowing 4 key examples

Antoinette explains that, after they have been married for over a year, her mother and Mr. Mason would frequently have arguments about whether to leave Coulibri. During one of them, Annette says that "the people here" hate her. Mr. Mason doesn't take this seriously. After he says that she imagines "enmity which doesn't exist," she tells him that "they can be dangerous and cruel for reasons you wouldn't understand." The reader begins to feel that Rhys would not include such comments unless they would be confirmed in some way. 

That same evening, on their return home, Mr. Mason comments on "How deserted the place looks" when he pulls up to the empty huts in which the local Black people live. Antoinette recalls that "the sky and the sea were on fire." The eeriness of the silent neighborhood paired with the vividness of the sunset foreshadows that something perilous is brewing. Mr. Mason assumes that everyone has gone to "those dances" or a wedding, but Aunt Cora remarks that "There is never a wedding." In a parenthetical, Antoinette recalls Godfrey telling her one day that they "were all damned and no use praying." Earlier in the novel, Annette makes it clear that Godfrey is positioned between the Black population and his white employees. Although his comments could on one level be related to religion, hell, and eternal damnation, they also sound like an explicit warning that something bad will happen to the Cosways. On the following page, Antoinette recalls a similar comment from the servant Myra, who smiles as she tells the girl about hell—and explains that everyone besides the members of her own sect will end up there.

The foreshadowing continues after they make it back to Coulibri for the evening. Antoinette listens to the adults talking, but also notices "the bamboos shiver and creak though there was no wind." The unnatural creaking of the bamboos persists in the background as Annette repeats that Coulibri "is not safe." Before bed, Antoinette goes to kiss her little brother Pierre goodnight. Again, she hears the bamboos creak as well as "a sound like whispering." She forces herself to look out the window, but sees "nobody, nothing but shadows." As she gets ready to sleep, "the safe peaceful feeling" leaves her.

All of these details come together to foreshadow the impending violence of the mob scene. The mood is shaped by Annette's comments about the danger of Coulibri as well as by the attention Antoinette pays to the sounds outside. Her inkling that there is someone in the darkness spreads to the reader. As a result, it does not come as a surprise when Annette wakes Antoinette in the middle of the night. Mr. Mason still believes a resolution can be reached, but Aunt Cora delivers the ultimate prognosis: "Tomorrow will be too late." At this point, it is clear that the Cosways' life at Coulibri is over.

When her horse dies, Annette lashes out at Godfrey, the butler at Coulibri. She tells him "You're blind when you want to be blind, [...] and you're deaf when you want to be deaf." With this accusation, Annette claims that Godfrey allowed the Black neighbors to poison her horse. Caught between the Black community and the White Cosway family, Godfrey is not entirely loyal to either side. Annette is tuned into this impartiality. Later complaining to Antoinette about their various servants, she once again invokes deafness when she brings up Godfrey: "He isn't deaf—he doesn't want to hear. What a devil he is!"

In the second part, blindness and deafness come up as metaphors for unawareness and bad judgment. When the husband finally goes to visit Daniel Cosway, Daniel says "Must be you deaf you don’t hear people laughing when you marry her." As the husband grows upset to hear his stories about Antoinette and her family, Daniel tells him not to direct his anger at him: "it's I wish to open your eyes." Whereas Annette uses blindness and deafness to figuratively charge Godfrey with being implicated in her horse's death, Daniel uses them to charge the husband with naïveté.

Perception and the sense of sight figure prominently in the entire novel, and Rhys pays significant attention to people's facial expressions, gazes, and eyes. The narrators repeatedly describe the uncomfortable sensation of being stared at by unwanted audiences. In the exposition, for example, Antoinette recalls that Black people would stare and jeer at her mother when she went riding. She mentions that she avoided looking at Black strangers, and repeatedly mentions withholding her gaze or looking away throughout the first part. Staring faces figure prominently in Antoinette's memory from the night Coulibri burned down: "They all looked the same, it was the same face repeated over and over, eyes gleaming, mouth half open to shout." Perception thus takes on an ambiguous undertone; in order to feel safe, Antoinette deliberately diverts or interrupts her own gaze. Both seeing and being seen can be troubling and dangerous. 

Within this context, the motif of blindness becomes especially notable. Although perception is in certain instances associated with uncovering the truth, the act of looking is also associated with exposure and vulnerability. Spending her childhood cut off from other children and the rest of the world, Antoinette takes comfort in a sort of sheltered blindness. In the second part, perception gives the husband a similar dread. When he serves as narrator, he makes frequent mention of people's gazes: inquisitive faces, sidelong looks, sly knowing glances, and cool testing eyes. In certain moments, he describes being watched as a physical sensation. 

In his final conversation with Christophine, at the end of the second part, the husband says "I would give my eyes never to have seen this abominable place." This gives rise to a sort of intertextual foreshadowing and dramatic irony. In Jane Eyre, Rochester goes blind in a fire. For readers who are familiar with this outcome, the husband's statement is ironic, because he will indeed go blind one day. Although the husband has yet to go blind in Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys foreshadows what will happen to him beyond the scope of the plot.

The evening before this nightmare, Annette is hard at work ingratiating herself with their new neighbors—which marks the beginning of her courtship with Mr. Mason. The parallel between the mother's blossoming romance and the daughter's nightmare is notable, as Antoinette's dreams all appear to be related to courtship, marriage, and men. Through this dream, Rhys foreshadows that Antoinette will end up in a relationship that is mired in hostility and fear.

At the end of the first part, Antoinette recounts her second dream, which she had when she was a teenager. When Mr. Mason's son Richard visits her at the convent, he says that he has "some English friends" visiting him next winter and implies that one of them plans to pursue her. She remembers feeling almost choked by "dismay, sadness, loss." That night, she dreams that she is following a man through a forest.

He turns and looks at me, his face black with hatred, and when I see this I begin to cry. He smiles slyly. 

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In the second dream, Antoinette wears a long white dress that trails in the dirt. Although she feels "sick with fear," she doesn't want to be saved. Rather, she feels that "this must happen." It seems that she's being led into a house, which the reader assumes is Thornfield Hall. It would make sense that she's foreseeing her future life in England, as she notes that the trees are unfamiliar to her. 

During their honeymoon, Antoinette asks the husband about England. She asks him whether it's true that "England is like a dream." The husband seems annoyed, arguing that Jamaica is more like a dream than England. (In multiple instances during the honeymoon, he compares his present to a nightmare and even expresses a hope that he'll wake up.) Despite the husband's annoyance, Antoinette continues to associate England with dreams and has visions of specific aspects of her future life.

For I know that house where I will be cold and not belonging, the bed I shall lie in has red curtains and I have slept there many times, long ago. [...] In that bed I will dream the end of my dream. But my dream had nothing to do with England and I must not think like this.

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For a reader who is familiar with Jane Eyre, it seems clear that Rhys is foreshadowing Antoinette's fate at Thornfield Hall. Details like the cold, the red curtains, and Antoinette's looming death contribute to this. In fact, the dream motif unites the two novels, as both Rhys and Brontë give their heroines prophetic dreams. In Jane Eyre, Jane dreams of fire the night before she is supposed to marry Mr. Rochester. Antoinette has a similar dream at the end of the third part, which makes her decide to light Thornfield on fire.

Almost right away, the reader feels that the relationship between the husband and Antoinette is ill-fated. To begin with, the second part opens to heavy rain, which adds to the husband's "feeling of discomfort and melancholy." Because he serves as narrator in this section, his emotional state has a direct bearing on the reader's mood. Additionally, the town's violent name sharpens his sense of alienation. The dialogue also contributes to the gloomy foreshadowing. Amélie, for example, laughs at the husband while she wishes him happiness in his "sweet honeymoon house." A little later, a porter who calls himself the Young Bull tells him, "This is a very wild place—not civilized. Why you come here?"

As they leave Massacre and begin to ascend the hills, the husband hears something that sharpens the foreshadowing.

A cock crowed loudly and I remembered the night before which we had spent in the town. Antoinette had a room to herself, she was exhausted. I lay awake listening to cocks crowing all night.

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The crowing rooster has biblical associations. In the Gospels, Jesus predicts that Peter the Apostle will abandon him before the crowing of the rooster in the morning. Peter says that he will stand by Jesus's side even if it means dying with him. After Jesus is arrested, however, Peter denies knowing him three times. After the third time, he hears a rooster crowing. Reminded of Jesus's prediction, Peter weeps bitterly. Based on this, the sound is often associated with betrayal and considered inauspicious. 

Later in the second part, Antoinette hears a rooster after she has visited Christophine. Rather than simply remarking on the sound as the husband did earlier, she explicitly identifies it as a symbol of betrayal.

Nearby a cock crew and I thought, "That is for betrayal, but who is the traitor?"

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Knowing that Christophine is a practitioner of obeah, Antoinette has asked her former nurse for a love potion. When she wonders who the traitor is, the possibilities include Christophine, the husband, and herself. She feels guilty for bringing money into her relationship with Christophine, as well as for inviting her to practice obeah on her husband. This self-probing distinguishes her internal monologue from that of the husband. Typically taking it for granted that he's the victim in a given situation, he rarely wonders whether he's doing the right thing. Antoinette, on the other hand, is open to the possibility that the traitor is herself. She doesn't reach a clear conclusion, however, raising the rather broad question "And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?"

The couple's honeymoon is bookended by a rooster crowing. When the husband sits down to write a letter to his father explaining their departure from Dominica, he hears "a cock [crow] persistently outside." Haunted by the sound, but not curious whether it may be a signal of his betrayal of Antoinette, he throws a book at the rooster. He asks Baptiste what "that damn cock crowing about," and Baptiste responds that it is "crowing for change of weather."

The evening before this nightmare, Annette is hard at work ingratiating herself with their new neighbors—which marks the beginning of her courtship with Mr. Mason. The parallel between the mother's blossoming romance and the daughter's nightmare is notable, as Antoinette's dreams all appear to be related to courtship, marriage, and men. Through this dream, Rhys foreshadows that Antoinette will end up in a relationship that is mired in hostility and fear.

At the end of the first part, Antoinette recounts her second dream, which she had when she was a teenager. When Mr. Mason's son Richard visits her at the convent, he says that he has "some English friends" visiting him next winter and implies that one of them plans to pursue her. She remembers feeling almost choked by "dismay, sadness, loss." That night, she dreams that she is following a man through a forest.

He turns and looks at me, his face black with hatred, and when I see this I begin to cry. He smiles slyly. 

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In the second dream, Antoinette wears a long white dress that trails in the dirt. Although she feels "sick with fear," she doesn't want to be saved. Rather, she feels that "this must happen." It seems that she's being led into a house, which the reader assumes is Thornfield Hall. It would make sense that she's foreseeing her future life in England, as she notes that the trees are unfamiliar to her. 

During their honeymoon, Antoinette asks the husband about England. She asks him whether it's true that "England is like a dream." The husband seems annoyed, arguing that Jamaica is more like a dream than England. (In multiple instances during the honeymoon, he compares his present to a nightmare and even expresses a hope that he'll wake up.) Despite the husband's annoyance, Antoinette continues to associate England with dreams and has visions of specific aspects of her future life.

For I know that house where I will be cold and not belonging, the bed I shall lie in has red curtains and I have slept there many times, long ago. [...] In that bed I will dream the end of my dream. But my dream had nothing to do with England and I must not think like this.

Cite this Quote

For a reader who is familiar with Jane Eyre, it seems clear that Rhys is foreshadowing Antoinette's fate at Thornfield Hall. Details like the cold, the red curtains, and Antoinette's looming death contribute to this. In fact, the dream motif unites the two novels, as both Rhys and Brontë give their heroines prophetic dreams. In Jane Eyre, Jane dreams of fire the night before she is supposed to marry Mr. Rochester. Antoinette has a similar dream at the end of the third part, which makes her decide to light Thornfield on fire.