Wide Sargasso Sea

This post is going to be brief, because I didn't finish the novel, and I really disliked it. So this was like a prequel to Jane Eyre, but it was written after the novel. Not exactly my favorite method of writing. It tends to feel like an author is riding someone else's curtails, especially someone as famous as Charlotte Bronte. Wide Sargasso Sea seemed more of a soap opera or a melodrama than Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre was shocking, but the way the situation was a little less evil twin that Rhys's version. Rochester was a lot more evil in this novel as well. He's a racist, he's inconstant, he's lustful, etc. There isn't a lot to admire. And Antoinette has such a sad story with her brother's death and her mother's madness. It's almost strange that Rochester's first reaction is to fear Antoinette instead of pitying her. He has her money already, there isn't a huge downside. There was a certain element similar to Frankenstein's monster with how Bertha or Antoinette didn't have her own sort of voice on the situation. This novel gives her that voice, but if Bronte didn't think it was necessary than I'm going to argue that it wasn't. It's Bronte's character she has the right to decide Bertha's fate. Maybe it's an irrelevant point but it kind of ruined the novel for me.