How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Section.Subsection [if applicable].Paragraph). Wide Sargasso Sea is divided into three parts. Within those parts, the novel does not number sections and subsections. This guide refers to sections if they are marked by an asterisk or some other symbol in the text. Within those sections, the novel indicates subsections by an extra line break.
Quote #1
"I dare say we would have died if [Christophine]'d turned against us and that would have been a better fate. To die and be forgotten and at peace. Not to know that one is abandoned, lied about, helpless." (I.1.2.12)
Antoinette inherits her mother's morbid way of looking at the world, expressed in the quote above. To die isn't about merely ceasing to exist, but more importantly, to lose the awareness that you may as well be dead. The quote also brings up the interesting question as to why Christophine is so invested in keeping Annette and her family alive when they have no fortune to speak of at the time. Christophine may be performing a kind of obeah in the sense that she is supporting Annette and her family when they are socially dead, turning them into social zombies, if you will.
Quote #2
When I asked Christophine what happened when you died, she said, "You want to know too much." (I.1.7.33)
Antoinette reveals here an early obsession with death that will continue into her adult life, most notably in her relationship with Rochester.
Quote #3
I could hardly wait for all this ecstasy and once I prayed for a long time to be dead. (I.2.5.3)
Antoinette's experience with religion is problematic because it seems to prey on her most morbid tendencies. If heaven is such a good time, then why stick around on earth?
Quote #4
Always this talk of death. (Is she trying to tell me that is the secret of this place? That there is no other way? She knows. She knows.)
"Why did you make me want to live? Why did you do that to me?"
"Because I wished it. Isn't that enough?"
"Yes, it is enough. But if one day you didn't wish it. What should I do then? Suppose you took this happiness away when I wasn't looking…" (II.3.5.32-5)
Here we have another instance of a character keeping another character alive, only this time it's Rochester who's working the "obeah." Antoinette ascribes to Rochester an almost magical power over her state of mind and her life. For Rochester, on the other hand, death is associated with the "secret of this place." The location is felt as a threat to his selfhood, just as Antoinette is.
Quote #5
I wonder if she ever guessed how near she came to dying. In her way, not in mine. It was not a safe game to play – in that place. Desire, Hatred, Life, Death came very close in the darkness. (II.3.5.55)
This quote gives us a different inflection on what it means to die in "her way" than we get in Quote #4, in our discussion of "Love." While previously Antoinette linked death with happiness, here Rochester reads "her way" of dying as something far riskier, as an actual physical death. Is sex really a kind of death where the two lose control over themselves in sexual union? In such a state, isn't it possible for one person to exploit the other's temporary loss of control and take over? What would it mean to use a different metaphor for sex – say, life? In a sense, the "game," and the sex act itself, is a life-and-death battle over what terms such as love and happiness mean.
Quote #6
There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about. (II.6.3.19)
Antoinette explains to Rochester how she felt her mother died a symbolic death when the Coulibri estate burned down and her brother died, well before her mother's actual physical death. There are many ways of dying or ceasing to exist, some that are private, secret, or otherwise inexpressible, as the tragic events in the novel bear out.
Quote #7
I woke in the dark after dreaming that I was buried alive, and when I was awake the feeling of suffocation persisted. (II.6.4.1)
After being poisoned, Rochester experiences a kind of zombie state by experiencing death while he's still alive. It begs the question as to whether his behavior following this scene (for example, his sleeping with Amélie) is the result of the drug, and, if so, whether he's really responsible for his actions.
Quote #8
She was only a ghost. A ghost in the grey daylight. Nothing left but hopelessness. Say die and I will die. Say die and watch me die. (II.8.23)
Antoinette's words return to Rochester as he contemplates her at the end of Part II. The term "ghost" is a nod to Jane Eyre, where Bertha Mason is mistaken for a ghost. Antoinette's ghostliness in this scene bears witness to her own symbolic death, thus paralleling her mother's fate.
Quote #9
It was then that I saw her – the ghost. The woman with streaming hair. She was surrounded by a gilt frame but I knew her. (III.7.3)
Like Quote #8, this quote is also a reference to Bertha Mason's ghostliness in Jane Eyre. Interestingly, Antoinette doesn't recognize the ghost in the mirror as her own reflection. It seems at this point that Rochester's plan to obliterate her sense of self – a symbolic death – has succeeded.
Quote #10
Someone screamed and I thought, Why did I scream? I called "Tia!" and jumped and woke. (III.7.6)
For a fuller discussion of the ending, see "What's Up with the Ending?" But in the context of our discussion of the theme of mortality here, this passage is interesting for suggesting an up side to death. We know, we know, there's an up side? Well, look, death can be understood as a loss of selfhood, right? What if that selfhood was a mess of half-conscious racist assumptions? Maybe Antoinette's loss of self is the loss of a racist self, an enabling loss in the sense that it makes possible her full acceptance of Tia. It's a big maybe, but a maybe worth trying out…