Wide Sargasso Sea Themes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 81 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Wide Sargasso Sea.

Wide Sargasso Sea Themes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 81 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Wide Sargasso Sea.
This section contains 991 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the Wide Sargasso Sea Study Guide

Race Relations and Prejudice

How people of different races get along and what prejudices they hold are major themes in this book. As the book opens, the former slaveowners and the newly freed slaves await compensation from the British government. In this time of change— the novel begins in 1839, five years after slavery had ended and one year after the apprenticeship system of forced black labor had ended—the relations between black and white West Indians were tense. This tension erupts as the fire at Coulibri. The black workers burn the symbol of white oppression, the plantation house. Further, the newly arriving English colonists—represented in the book by Mr. Mason and Edward Rochester—are prejudiced against blacks. Mr. Mason calls them children and believes blacks make bad workers. Rochester describes blacks through racist characterizations. Both Mr. Mason and Rochester want Antoinette to disown her...

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This section contains 991 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the Wide Sargasso Sea Study Guide
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Wide Sargasso Sea from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.