Wide Sargasso Sea Creative Response

The point of view of Antoinette:

‘I waited a long time after I heard her snore, then I got up, took the keys and unlocked the door. I was outside holding my candle. Now at last I know why I was brought here and what I have to do. There must have been a draught for the flame flickered and I thought it was out. But I shielded it with my hand and it burned up again to light me along the dark passage.’

I entered the room and saw him lying in the great 'English' bed - dark and heavy wood ornately carved and from each corner hung plush, red velvet curtains patterned with golden thread. So different to the marriage bed we had shared at Granbois, where we had been happy, where we had known love. The flowers by the river used to release their night-time scent and it drifted towards the house upon the gentle breeze which softly blew the muslin curtains. We had been giddy with the scent of the flowers, the wine, happiness, our love for each other, but that had been short lived. I looked at him lying inert amongst the thick bedclothes, the curtains had not been drawn and he was bathed in the moonlight. I walked quietly towards the window and looked up to see a moon as bright and full as I had ever seen. Was this the same moon under which I had slept the night I had dreamt of rats? Was this the moon whose light Christophine had warned me about when she found me sleeping in the hammock the following morning? I had tried to warn him, I had suggested that perhaps I had slept too long under the moonlight. But he had not listened; he had only ever listened to the lies and deceit. Yes, I know exactly why I was brought here, for we have both slept too long under the moonlight.

I lay down on the bed beside him and studied his face, where once I saw laughter and happiness I now saw a grim cruelty. I could hear Christophine's words, "The man not a bad man . . . he hear so many stories he don't know what to believe." As her words ran through my mind, I began to dream the dream I...