Wide Sargasso Sea

1. What is the name of the Cosways’ estate? (short answer)

2. Which of the following best describes the Cosway family’s position in Jamaica?

A) The island’s Creole families shun them as newcomers, but the freed slaves embrace them as abolitionists.

B) Both the island’s Creole families and its new settlers shun them as former slaves.

C) Both the island’s freed slaves and its new settlers shun them as impoverished former slave owners.

D) The island’s freed slaves shun them as former slave owners, but the new settlers try to curry favor with them.

3. The comparison of the Cosways’ garden to an overgrown Garden of Eden relates to all except which of the following?

A) women’s property rights

B) anxieties surrounding female sexuality

C) nostalgia for the pre-emancipation era

D) the loss of childhood innocence

4. What spoils Antoinette’s childhood friendship with Tia?

A) Antoinette and Tia both become infatuated with the same boy.

B) Antoinette calls Tia a racial slur, and Tia retaliates in kind.

C) Tia mocks Antoinette’s younger brother Pierre, who is disabled.

D) Mr. Mason forbids the friendship after marrying Antoinette’s mother.

5. Which of the following best describes Mr. Mason’s attitude towards his wife’s concerns about staying at Coulibri?

A) angry and defensive

B) reassuring and compassionate 

C) restrained and thoughtful

D) condescending and dismissive

6. Who sets fire to Coulibri? (short answer)

7. Where does Antoinette go after the fire at Coulibri?

A) to England with Mr. Mason

B) to stay with her Aunt Cora

C) to a hospital in the countryside

D) to boarding school in France

8. How do Mr. Mason’s attitudes towards Christophine and other Black Jamaicans compare to Antoinette’s?

A) He shares Antoinette’s racism but not her sense of affinity with Christophine and others.

B) He is less racist than Antoinette but does not share her sense of affinity with Christophine and others.

C) He is more racist than Antoinette but shares her sense of affinity with Christophine and others.

D) He shares both Antoinette’s racism and her sense of affinity with Christophine and others.

9. Who is Sandi? (short answer)

10.While doing embroidery at the convent school, Antoinette stitches her name in which of the following colors?

A) black

B) green

C) white

D) red

11. Which saint’s story foreshadows Antoinette’s own?

A) St. Innocenzia

B) St. Barbara

C) St. Agnes

D) St. Rose

12. Why has Aunt Cora gone to England? (short answer)

13. What does Mr. Mason hint at when he visits Antoinette?

A) that she is showing signs of her mother’s insanity

B) that he plans to sell his Jamaican property

C) that her mother has died

D) that he has found a husband for her

14. How does Antoinette’s dream of following the strange man through a forest and up a set of stairs make her feel?

A) frightened

B) excited

C) angry

D) ashamed

Discussion Suggestion: Why and in what sense does Annette Cosway go “mad”? How does the idea or depiction of madness relate to the novel’s themes? What does the burning of Coulibri signify to Antoinette? To the slaves who formerly worked there? To the novel’s readers?

15. Where do Antoinette and her husband go for their honeymoon? (short answer)

16. How does the husband generally feel looking at the Caribbean landscape?

A) curious and eager to explore

B) indifferent and somewhat homesick

C) appreciative and contentedly peaceful

D) overwhelmed and vaguely repulsed

17. What have the servants placed on the couple’s marriage bed?

A) frangipani wreaths

B) a basket of mangoes

C) an aphrodisiac tonic

D) embroidered nightshirts

18. Whom does the husband write letters to throughout this chapter? (short answer)

19. The husband’s disagreement with Antoinette about Christophine’s dress primarily illustrates which of the following?

A) the husband’s opposition to racial hierarchies

B) the cultural gap between the newlyweds

C) Antoinette’s laxness as household mistress

D) the husband’s overbearing nature

20. Who writes the husband a letter explaining what happened to Antoinette’s mother? (short answer)

21. Antoinette’s tendency to cling to her husband likely stems from which of the following?

A) a wish to help him settle into his new home

B) a desire to ingratiate herself with and manipulate him

C) a sense that he provides her with a stable identity

D) the genuine love and desire she feels for him

22. Why can Antoinette not leave her husband as Christophine suggests? (short answer)

23. What name does the husband begin using for Antoinette?

A) Amélie

B) Annette

C) Jane

D) Bertha

24. Why did Cora give Antoinette two gold rings before her marriage?

A) to use as wedding bands

B) for their monetary value

C) as part of a good luck charm

D) as family heirlooms

25. Whom does Daniel insinuate Antoinette might have had an affair with?

A) Daniel himself

B) Baptiste

C) Sandi

D) Richard Mason

26. Which of the following best explains the narrative significance of Daniel’s implications of incest?

A) Incest does not feature significantly in the novel.

B) Incest symbolizes the relationship between England and its colonies.

C) Incest functions as a form of violence against women.

D) Incest exposes the fluidity of racial and class categories.

27. What does the husband accuse Christophine of?

A) helping Antoinette carry on an affair

B) helping Antoinette steal from him

C) helping Antoinette poison him

D) helping Antoinette run away from him

28. The husband’s comparison of Antoinette to a doll primarily relates to which of the following?

A) nostalgia for childhood

B) white womanhood

C) Creole identity

D) Caribbean folklore

Discussion Suggestion: How do issues of race, gender, and class intersect in the conflict between Daniel Cosway and Antoinette? How do these issues relate to ideas of family and inheritance? Describe the husband’s feelings towards Antoinette. In what sense does his complex relationship with her reflect the relationship between England and its colonies?

29. How does “Mrs Eff” seem to view Antoinette?

A) She is frightened of her.

B) She believes Antoinette is feigning madness.

C) She pities and wants to help her.

D) She blames her for her employer’s unhappiness.

30. What is Grace Poole’s position? (short answer)

31. Which of the following symbolizes Antoinette’s fractured sense of self?

A) the “cardboard” walls

B) the missing mirror

C) the stolen knife

D) Grace’s bottle

32. Whom does Antoinette believe she sees in the tapestry?

A) her mother

B) her husband

C) Sandi

D) Pierre

33. The motif of red and white dresses serves in part to link and contrast Antoinette with which character?

A) Aunt Cora

B) Grace

C) Amélie

D) Jane Eyre

34. What happens when Antoinette’s stepbrother, Richard Mason, visits her? (short answer)

35. What did Sandi ask Antoinette to do in her last memory of him?

A) remember him

B) write to him from England

C) leave her husband for him

D) marry him

36. What does Antoinette think of England now that she lives there?

A) She considers it a prison.

B) She does not believe she is truly there.

C) She hates its landscape.

D) She associates it with the convent school.

37. What does Antoinette accuse Grace of doing?

A) stealing her gold rings

B) drugging her

C) spying on her

D) hiding her red dress

38. Who is beckoning to Antoinette to jump in her dream? (short answer)

39. What color is the sky in Antoinette’s dream?

A) black

B) blue

C) red

D) gray

40. How is Antoinette able to escape from her room? (short answer)

41. The closing parallel to the fire that destroyed Calibri suggests that Antoinette desires which of the following?

A) freedom

B) love

C) revenge

D) death

42. The final scene of the novel also parallels which of the following?

A) Antoinette’s departure from Dominica

B) Antoinette’s wedding night

C) Antoinette’s dream at the convent

D) Antoinette’s memory of visiting her mother

Discussion Suggestion: How (if at all) does Antoinette’s narrative voice change in this chapter, and what does that say about her? What references to Jane Eyre does this chapter include, and what purpose do the references serve?