There is no question mark at the end of this title because Annette is actually Mr. Mason's wife.
In this blogpost, I want to dive deeply into Annette's character and her unstable life. Mother of Antoinette, one of the narrators in the Wide Sargasso Sea, Annette seems to keep a lot to herself and restrains from developing a closer relationship with Antoinette. While the class have talked a lot about Antoinette receiving pity, Annette being looked upon with sympathy is often overlooked in my opinion. Clearly, Annette is, at times, mentally insane and has done some questionable things. However, when I think of Annette, rather than seeing her as an incomprehensible and abnormal character, I see her as unfortunate.
Being a Creole woman, Annette was wrongly discriminated. The people in the Spanish town have always been distant from her. At her wedding, she was rebuked behind her back: "'Then why should he marry a widow without a penny to her name and Coulibri a wreck of a place?'" She's always been at the receiving end of criticism and lacks any strength to fight back because her heart is anchored due to her unfortunate sequence of events.
Annette lost her first husband; she lost her horse from poisoning. And at the horrible fire, she lost her son Pierre. How sad is that? It's almost like she was destined to be in a tragedy. As I kept on reading these scenes and when I got to Pierre's death, I was shocked. Usually, if a character has conflicts, he/she has some kind of comeback: a positive outcome in his/her favor. However, Annette never has the clear cut comeback. In fact, she dies.
Does Annette deserve pity? I certainly believe so. But is it the same type of pity Marie deserved? Definitely not. Annette is a very unique character. How could someone's life be so tragic and unusual at the same time?
What do you guys think?
I definitely agree that Annette is deserving of sympathy. The situation she is in is elaborately horrible, and her life is tragedy after tragedy, ending with her death. There's no doubt that she is unfortunate.
ReplyDeleteHowever, her treatment of Antoinette makes her an unsympathetic character. For years and years she would shun Antoinette, making the caretaker be Antoinette's mother figure. Interestingly,another blog post pointed out that Annette shunned her daughter because she saw too much of herself in Antoinette and didn't want her daughter to continue down her path. The question is, does that justify neglecting her daughter almost completely?
I think Annette’s story is definitely sad. One thing that I think is important not to overlook is that she actually lived for a while after Coulibri burned down but she was locked up, abused, and sexually assaulted during that time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Annette has been quite overlooked in class discussions and myself, and dismissed as the kind of neglecting crazy mother. However the way you framed her makes a lot of sense and makes Annette a lot more of a sympathetic character. Definitely doesn't provide a solid basis or excuse for her actions towards Antoinette but again, widens my views on her.
ReplyDeleteYou're right in that Annette's story is extremely unfortunate. It seems that we should be sympathetic towards her as a result, especially if we're sympathetic towards Antoinette for many of the same reasons. So I think it's weird that we largely see Annette in an unsympathetic light from the narrator's view. Most of Antoinette's interactions with Annette are about Annette pushing her away. I don't think the novel was set up for us to feel direct sympathy for Annette, but as we see Antoinette going down a similar route we can go back to Annette and feel greater sympathy for her.
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