Wide Sargasso Sea

In Wide Sargasso Sea Rhys uses her character Antoinette/Bertha to show that without a proper outlet, passion is destructive; a fire that is lit in a forest creates a wildfire. At the beginning of the book the native people burn as an expression of their passion. The people are tired of being oppressed by the white man. Their passion is expressed in rage as they burn down the house of the people who oppressed them. Being free from their slavery they realize that they now have the power to do what they wish. All the years of angry passion towards slavery and against their master smoldering in their souls finally begins to burn into a blazing fire. The passion of the people against the white people is portrayed by a blazing fire that burns down Coulibri. Later in the book there is an image of a moth flying toward a flame. In Rochester’s narration he says, “A large moth, so large that I thought it was a bird, blundered into one of the candles, put it out and fell to the floor. ‘He’s a big fellow,’ I said. ‘Is it badly burned?’ ‘More stunned than hurt’ (Rhys 48). Antoinette is this moth. At first she is just stunned to find how much her passion hurts her, but even when she discovers how hotly her passion burns, she cannot stop herself from flying into it head long. Her passion draws her like flame does a moth. Even though she knows that it will destroy her, she continues to dive toward it. And then it catches her, and it burns. For a moth there is no solving the problem of the flame. It is ever burning and ever attractive. The moth cannot put out the flame, because it is not in control of the flame. The flame will always be lit and will always burn the moth, and even though the moth gets burned, it cannot deny the urge to return to the flame. This scene of fire foreshadows the end of the book where Antoinette's fiery passion finally kills her. Antoinette dreams of a fire at her home in England, and when she wakes she knows what she must do. She says, "Now as 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" (Rhys 112). In a final act of passionate hatred for Rochester, Antoinette burns down his house and herself. There is no turning back for the moth drawn to the flame. Eventually if the moth does not fly away, it will die. Antoinette is destined to be burned by her passion because of the nature of her situation; she cannot fly away from Rochester because she is a woman, she owns no land, and she has no ability to make a way in life by herself. Since she like the moth must stay by the flame, she is constantly drawn to it and is destined to die by it.