Wide sargasso sea

            
             Every time we look out the window or go on a road trip, we notice the beautiful scenery that surrounds us, the composition of nature. And we often wonder how a mountain has taken this shape, or how these trees seem to line up to create and seamlessly endless path. Nature has its way of telling it's own history, a story of it's past, and the past of everything that surrounds it. In the postcolonial novel Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys, the Caribbean landscape is used as an agent to be interpreted by two different characters, Antoinette and Rochester, in this prequel. Each of them will have a very different opinion of the environment, and will provide an implicit analysis of it. Their assessment will differ on three different levels, which I will be discussing; the landscape will evoke a different sense of place, a different sense of history, and provide them with a different sense of identity. .
             In the opening of part two of the novel, Rochester describes the scenes that he sees, and reports to us what Antoinette says, which will show us how each one feels about their belonging in the Caribbean. "Everything is too much [ ] Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too near. And the woman is a stranger."(59) This quote is by Rochester, and it inevitably shows us that he sees it as if it were a dream. Even his wife is unrecognizable for him. He feels as though he should never belong in such a place. It is very different from what he is used to in England. Its as if this location in the Windward Islands is completely uncivilized. He tires to find similarities between England and this savage land, to be able to seek metal refuge somewhere, and not to be completely isolated. For example he compares the red tropical land to parts of England. Unsuccessfully though, because after that, he feels that the orders of nature have "an intoxicating freshness as if all this has never been breathed before"(61).