Pamela J. Francis, PhD, has forty years of teaching experience on both the high school and college level. Presently, she teaches at a public, selective admissions boarding school that provides college-level classes in all disciplines.

I make a point in my high school British literature survey to read at least one novel. It is important for students to follow the development of characters and plot that is not often found in the short story or epic poem. Through the years I’ve covered aspects of the transatlantic slave trade in Oroonoko, the concept of the “other” in novels such as Grendel, and the effects of imperialism in A Passage to India. Frequently, I cover Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, which brings together all of these issues through a historically silenced voice. I find the Norton Critical Edition of the text provides a sort of “one-stop shop” for several approaches to this multilayered text. I’d like to share some of the ways I’ve used this text in my classroom. 

There are two “angles” to the text that are relevant to a British literature survey particularly: the postcolonial and the feminist. Fortunately, the Norton Critical Edition provides support material that allows students to pursue the connection between these approaches in Wide Sargasso Sea (WSS). 

Clearly, both approaches tie back to how WSS “speaks” to Jane Eyre. Fewer and fewer students have read or viewed Jane Eyre. Certainly, Rhys’s novel can be read and appreciated without its relation to the earlier novel, but emphasizing its backstory makes the text richer and more appealing to high school students, who tend to provide backstories and after-stories when they don’t exist. The Norton Critical Edition includes the relevant passages from Jane Eyre ( “Jane Eyre and Bertha” and “The Ruined Wedding”). I have students read those passages before we begin WSS.  Then, I show clips of the wedding and attic confrontation scenes from several different film and series versions.  

At this point, I ask students to identify how the different versions have portrayed Bertha and her brother. For instance, in the 1970 version, Bertha’s insanity seems to be linked to sexuality, as after she attacks Rochester, she touches him sensually. This seems to be the case in the 2006 miniseries version as well. This contrasts to the 1996 version, in which Bertha’s congenital insanity (as the result of three generations of madness) is emphasized by a rather sympathetic Rochester. Interestingly, this one also portrays Bertha’s brother as biracial, inviting questions on the perceived connections between race and insanity. There are more than twenty film and television versions of Jane Eyre, and once students know what they are looking for, they enjoy this activity. While we can cover only four or five clips during a class period, some continue to view and analyze even more in their own time. I tell them we will return to these scenes after we have read WSS and will reinvestigate them in light of the “new” layer of Bertha’s character, as portrayed in WSS. 

After—or alongside—reading WSS, I divide students into two groups: the “feminist” group and the “postcolonial” group. I explain that this exercise will allow each group to practice literary criticism, and that they will present their respective readings and understanding of what it means to do a feminist reading or postcolonial reading of a text. Before they begin the critical texts, I give each group a sort of “cheat sheet” for their respective approaches. There are several high school guides to literary criticism on the web. I have made my own bullet point sheets, extracted from several sources, including The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (5^th ed., 2015) and the ever useful A Concise Glossary of Cultural Theory by Peter Brooker (3^rd ed., 2013). (The Norton Introduction to Literature, ed. by Kelly J. Mays also supplies an appendix on critical approaches, pp. A1 – A26.)

The feminist group reads portions of Mary Lou Emery’s essay “Modernist Crosscurrents,” specifically the section of the article referring to Rhys’s earlier novels, which identifies “the violence of feminized poverty and sexual barter” (163). The postcolonial group reads Sandra Drake’s “Race and Caribbean Culture. . ..” I also have both groups read the Spivak selection, as well as Benita Parry’s response to Spivak, since they speak to the way imperialism doubly oppresses the marginalized female.  

The groups work among themselves to extract a feminist or postcolonial “reading” of WSS. When we finish the text, each group presents to the other how the text can be read through their respective critical lenses. Each group produces a slide deck that identifies important points of their critical approach and notes its presence in the text. For instance, one focus of feminist literary criticism—that male dominance is enforced through economic systems—is illustrated in WSS specifically when Antoinette tells Christophine that she no longer has any money or property, as by English law it all belongs to her husband. Christophine, who has lived outside of the restraints of both patriarchal and imperialist systems, is horrified. Similarly, the postcolonial group may observe that the prevalence of the term “white cockroach” in reference to the white colonists, as well as the violence enacted on them, illustrates a key concept of postcolonialism: imperialism is dehumanizing to both colonized and colonizer.  

At this point, we revisit some of the film portrayals of “the mad woman in the attic” with the “backstory” of WSS as context. Many students will now criticize the sexualization of Bertha as Rochester’s rationale for her incarceration, recognizing that women’s sexuality has always been a focal point of male anxiety. Others will emphasize that her incarceration, which in WSS is clearly tied to Rochester’s inability to control her sexuality, ensures that Rochester can control Bertha’s money and property without any threat of moral disapprobation by his peers. While I have never had the time to do this, I think students would enjoy writing and performing their own version of this scene; I am certain they would manage to give this marginalized figure, maligned as an “impediment” to Jane’s marriage in Jane Eyre and as completely powerless in WSS, a moment in what little sun manages to light up her prison attic. 

I recognize that many school districts limit discussions on “controversial” topics such as gender and postcolonialism, and the scenes involving Amelie will necessarily preclude the novel’s inclusion on some high school syllabi. However, the novel is useful for teaching literary elements in addition to critical elements. For instance, the novel employs alternating narratives, inviting discussion on point of view; it also provides lessons in symbolism, especially the use of the color red. Other important “signals” in literature, such as name changes, likewise provide examples of how literature “works.”  

A brief look at Pennsylvania’s curricular objectives for “literary elements” assures an instructor that this novel is indeed multi-use (Analyzing Literary Elements-SAS). While reading this text provides the opportunity to employ literary and cultural criticism, it also demonstrates a number of literary elements at work. Furthermore, the inclusion of some of Rhys’s letters in the critical edition gives some insight into how a novelist’s personal experiences shape their work; of particular interest is a section from an unpublished manuscript in which she identifies as “black” in the political sense (“The Bible is Modern,” pp. 148 – 149). These personal selections provide students an example of how, at least in Rhys’s life, the personal was indeed political.  

While this novel requires a certain level of maturity on the part of the reader, the critical material included in the Norton Critical Edition of Wide Sargasso Sea gives advanced high school students the opportunity to participate in their own acts of literary criticism. At the same time, students effectively contribute to ongoing conversations on the nature of “classic” British literature, as well as the rereading of those classics within contemporary contexts.   

MEET THE AUTHOR