Wide Sargasso Sea

Antoinette's isolation starts at home and continues in the nunnery, influencing her identity. She spends almost all time in the room and close people regard her as mad, although she acts in a rather normal way. As she claims at the beginning of the narration, no one came near us. I got used to a solitary life (Rhys 9). No one notices her and her family; instead people betray her trust and hopes. Antoinette’s isolation in childhood shapes her personality, negatively influencing her adult life and relations with people. This vulnerable and emotionally destroyed woman lives in her own created world, and when Rochester, a person whom she loves, alienates from her, she can no longer endure this isolation. Antoinette seeks love and attention, but her own husband fails to understand her.

As a result of Rochester's alienation, his attitude to Antoinette is sometimes negative, and gradually, she is transformed into a mad female, like her own mother, but Rhys opposes to the view that Antoinette inherits this madness from her mother. Instead, throughout the narration she stresses on the fact that isolation inevitably brings a woman to this psychological disorder. Antoinette's mind is split and she flees into the past, isolating herself not only from the outside world, but also from her present life. Such isolation appears to be really dangerous for such a sensitive woman, and Antoinette's moment of authenticity is also the moment of her destruction (Rhys 112). In pursuit of escaping this isolation, Antoinette commits a suicide.

As a naive and lonely girl, Antoinette finds comfort in her isolation, but deep inside she strives for attention and love. When she marries Rochester, she believes and trusts him, considering that he is her closest person. But when his attitude towards her changes, she isolates herself from him, destroying their relations. Antoinette remains a little child who is greatly depended on other people and who is unable to act independently. In this...