Wide Sargasso Sea

The first part of Wide Sargasso Sea is told from the perspective of Antoinette Cosway, a young girl who lives on an estate on the island of Jamaica (a British colony) with her mother and brother and a dwindling group of the family's former slaves. As the novella begins in 1834, the slaves have been granted emancipation and the island is in a state of total upheaval. Former slaveholders have yet to be compensated for the loss of human labor and as a result their estates are quickly falling into disarray. Coulibri, the mansion that is home to Antoinette and her family, is no exception. The situation is dire: the family has no more money and is on the verge of certain death.

The Cosways are outsiders in Jamaica. They do not fall into either of the island's dominant racial and social groups; that is, they are neither wealthy white property holders nor impoverished but recently freed black slaves. Instead, we learn in the opening pages, Antoinette and her mother and brother are Creoles, or whites of European descent born in the West Indies. In fact, Antoinette's beautiful mother Annette was born on the nearby island of Martinique (a French colony), and came to Jamaica as the much-younger second wife of Alexander Cosway, Antoinette's now-deceased father. The other white people in Jamaica apparently never approved of their marriage and therefore never accepted the Cosways as part of their circle. Now that the family is poor, they no longer even command the respect of the black people, who comprise the vast majority of the island's population due to their economy's years of reliance on slavery.

As the family's situation approaches the point of crisis, Antoinette's mother grows increasingly unstable. For a while she insists on going horseback riding every day, even as her riding habit gets torn and shabby, but after her horse is poisoned she refuses to leave the house and becomes thin, silent, and sullen. Antoinette gets concerned when her mother starts talking to herself and pacing up and down the glacis while the servants and townspeople point and stare. When she tries to comfort her mother, however, Annette pushes her daughter away and begs to be left in peace. The only person Annette seems to want anything to do with is her mentally and physically handicapped son Pierre, Antoinette's younger brother. A doctor comes to assess Pierre one day, but never returns. In the meantime, Annette grows more and more moody and distant.

Estranged from her mother, Antoinette spends most of her time either alone or with Christophine, the loyal black servant who was a wedding gift from Alexander to Annette. Several of the other servants are afraid of Christophine, who is reputed to practice the dark arts. She sings to Antoinette and finds her a playmate named Tia. For a while Antoinette and Tia go swimming together every day, but then Tia steals Antoinette's pennies and dress and calls

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