Wide Sargasso Sea Characters

So…is she or isn't she? Mad, that is. Even though much of the novel is filtered through Antoinette's point of view, it's easy to read the entire novel and still have no idea who this woman is...

(Note: Although the novel leaves Rochester unnamed, it is common critical practice to call the unnamed male narrator Rochester, after the character in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.)It's hard t...

Christophine, Annette's servant and Antoinette's nurse, is one character where a first-person point of view might have helped. (For first person narratives, we get Antoinette, Rochester, and (drum...

A native of Martinique like Christophine, Annette is Antoinette's mother, and functions in the novel as an awful shadow of what's to come for her daughter. Unlucky in love – check. Discrimina...

Mr. Mason, a wealthy planter and Annette's second husband, is mainly in the novel to anticipate Rochester. Like Rochester, Mr. Mason doesn't comprehend racial relations on the island, and dismisses...

Poor Pierre, Antoinette's little brother, doesn't get much play in the novel. He doesn't talk or do anything; his main function in the novel is to get ill and die. Both his illness and his death en...

With friends like Tia, who needs enemies? Antoinette first meets Tia when Tia followed her home, hurling racist insults at her – the basis for a sound friendship, right? Of course not. While...

Sandi Cosway is the son of Alexander Cosway, Antoinette's father's son by another woman. Unlike Daniel Cosway/Boyd, Alexander Cosway and his son are members of colored society who are accepted by s...

Richard Mason, Antoinette's stepbrother, helps Mr. Mason fulfill his goal of marrying Antoinette to an Englishman after Mr. Mason dies, and refuses to help Antoinette even when he sees how she is i...

Antoinette's Aunt Cora appears to be the one person who has Antoinette's best interests at heart. But, because she's a woman, she has only limited resources to draw on to help Antoinette. While she...

Amélie, Antoinette's maid at Granbois, sleeps with Rochester after he is poisoned by Antoinette. But she's not just a saucy vixen. Like Tia, she taunts Antoinette with racist slurs, and Roches...

Since the novel never tells us who's telling the truth, we're giving Antoinette the benefit of the doubt here and calling this character Daniel Cosway/Boyd. Claiming to be the illegitimate son of M...

Grace Poole, Antoinette's guard and nurse at Thornfield Hall, gets some brief play at the end of the novel – even a short narrative of her own. Even though it seems kind of random, it does ma...

Sister Marie Augustine is Antoinette's favorite nun at the convent school in Spanish Town, Jamaica. She comforts Antoinette when Antoinette is tormented by religious conundrums and nightmares.

Godfrey is one of the Cosway servants who remained with the estate after Mr. Cosway passed away. He's a morose fellow who Annette suspects of knowing how her horse got poisoned.

Myra is a servant who shows up after Mr. Mason and Annette get married. Aunt Cora suspects her of being a spy who tells the former slaves in the area about Mr. Mason's plan to import laborers from...

Baptiste is the head of the servants at Granbois. His respectful treatment of Rochester turns to disdain after Rochester sleeps with Amélie.

Hilda, a servant at Granbois, is a young girl who's a mini-Amélie – all the malicious giggling but without the sex.