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 went to bed early and slept at once. I dreamed that I was walking in the forest. Not alone. Someone who hated me was with me, out of sight. I could hear heavy footsteps coming closer and though I struggled and screamed I could not move. (I.1.3.27)
This passage describes the first instance of Antoinette's recurring nightmare, which is brought on by the events of the day: her fight with Tia and her encounter with her mother's guests, the Luttrells, who will eventually introduce her to her future husband, Mr. Mason. The generally hostile environment of the dream, the threat from an unnamed and unseen stranger, and Antoinette's paralysis all foreshadow Antoinette's eventual confinement in Rochester's English manor.
Quote #2
Again I have left the house at Coulibri. It is still night and I am walking towards the forest. I am wearing a long dress and thin slippers, so I walk with difficulty, following the man who is with me and holding up the skirt of my dress. It is white and beautiful and I don't wish to get it soiled. I follow him, sick with fear, but I make no effort to save myself; if anyone were to try to save me, I would refuse. This must happen. Now we have reached the forest. We are under the tall dark trees and there is no wind. "Here?" He turns and looks at me, his face black with hatred, and when I see this I begin to cry. (I.2.5.24)
Just as Antoinette's first dream precedes Annette's marriage to Mr. Mason, Antoinette's second dream precedes her own impending marriage, this time orchestrated by Mr. Mason. The second dream further elaborates on the first dream. The white dress is a color associated with her mother, who loved wearing white, but the fact that it trails on the floor looks forward to Christophine, who also walks with her dress trailing on the floor, much to Rochester's disapproval (II.3.3.5). As the dream progresses, Antoinette ends up in a garden surrounded by a stone wall and hugs a tree that tries to shake her off. This scene looks ahead to Rochester's comparison of his hatred to a hurricane bending a tree (II.7.12).
Quote #3
Reality might disconcert her, bewilder her, hurt her, but it would not be reality. It would be only a mistake, a misfortune, a wrong path taken, her fixed ideas would never change. (II.3.5.53)
Here, Rochester expresses a rather condescending opinion of Antoinette. He differentiates himself from what he calls her lack of realism, without acknowledging that he too has certain fixed ideas – about women and race, for example – that don't change even if proven otherwise.
Quote #4
I had reached the forest and you cannot mistake the forest. It is hostile. The path was overgrown but it was possible to follow it […] The track led to a large clear space. Here were the ruins of a stone house and round the ruins rose trees that had grown to an incredible height […] I was lost and afraid among these enemy trees, so certain of danger that when I heard footsteps and a shout I did not answer. The footsteps and the voice came nearer. (II.4.3.2-3)
What's odd about reading this passage out of context is that it sounds like one of Antoinette's dreams, but it's not – it's Rochester, the same guy who dismissed her version of reality in Quote #3 above. And the passage doesn't describe a dream, but his actual experience getting lost in the forests around Granbois.
Quote #5
I must know more than I know already. For I know that house where I will be cold and not belonging, the bed I shall lie in has red curtains, and I have slept there many times before, long ago. How long ago? In that bed I will dream the end of my dream. But my dream had nothing to do with England and I must not think like this, I must remember about chandeliers and dancing, about swans and roses and snow. (II.5.1.26)
Antoinette's musings here foreshadow her eventual confinement in England in Part III of the novel. But it also brings up some interesting questions about her control over her own fate. How can she "foretell" the future? Why must these things happen to her, or does she have the power to change her destiny?
Quote #6
There would be the sky and the mountains, the flowers and the girl and the feeling that all this was a nightmare, the faint consoling hope that I might wake up. (II.6.1.9)
Again, Rochester doesn't seem to acknowledge how similar he is to Antoinette with his fixed ideas. Rochester, like Antoinette, seems to be able to predict what's going to happen, as he "predicts" that Amélie is going to appear before him. Of course, he also called her to him, so no real mystery there. For Rochester, predictions confirm his sense of mastery over a situation, in contrast to Antoinette, who is terrified by what she foresees. He knows Amélie is going to appear because he has control over her. He's not surprised when he receives Daniel's letter because it confirms what he already suspects. If everything feels like a "nightmare," it's partly because the nightmare is his own creation.
Quote #7
"Then she cursed me comprehensively, my eyes, my mouth, every member of my body, and it was like a dream in the large unfurnished room with the candles flickering and this red-eyed wild-haired stranger who was my wife shouting obscenities at me." (II.6.6.41)
Rochester again feels as if he's in a dream, in an extraordinary situation that doesn't seem real. The subtext here is that Rhys is taking some of the words verbatim from Jane Eyre: is Jane Eyre then the "dream" in which all the characters are trapped?
Quote #8
So I shall never understand why, suddenly, bewilderingly, I was certain that everything I had imagined to be truth was false. False. Only the magic and the dream are true – all the rest's a lie. Let it go. Here is the secret. Here. (II.8.6)
Rochester has a brief epiphany about his life on the island. The fixed ideas – about his situation, Antoinette, the Caribbean – that were so entrenched in Quotes #3 and #6 seem to evaporate: he recognizes that what he believed to be "true" is actually only "imagined." Instead of approaching things as a rational, calculating, man, he has to learn to work with the "magic and the dream," whatever that means. We never find out, as the epiphany is short-lived and he's back to hating Antoinette.
Quote #9
Only I know how long I have been here. Nights and days and days and nights, hundreds of them slipping through my fingers. But that does not matter. Time has no meaning. But something you can touch and hold like my red dress, that has a meaning. (III.4.30)
Trapped in the attic, isolated from the world, Antoinette eschews conventional ways of thinking about space and time. Time isn't an abstract concept, but something you can finger, like a dress. Antoinette's musings here suggest that there are other, equally valid ways of understanding reality that might seem alien or just plain crazy to someone like Rochester.
Quote #10
That was the third time I had my dream and it ended […] Then I turned around and saw the sky. It was red and all my life was in it […] Now at last I know why I was brought here and what I have to do. (III.7.1-6)
For a more complete discussion of the ending, see our "What's Up with the Ending?" In the context of our discussion of "Versions of Reality" here, the last dream is interesting because it provides a condensed version of the events in the novel – kind of like a SportsCenter highlight reel. This scene suggests that there's more than one way of looking at reality, that sometimes reality is like a dream in that it can often be puzzling or illogical, a mix of familiar and unfamiliar elements. Of course the novel doesn't show us exactly what Antoinette ends up doing – that would be interpreting the dream for you, telling you what to think, and the novel is very much about letting you actively engage with the text and come up with your own interpretation.