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Major themes

Wide Sargasso Sea is usually taught as a postmodern and postcolonial response to Jane Eyre.^[1][2] Rhys uses multiple voices (Antoinette's and her husband's) to tell the story, and deeply intertwines her novel's plot with that of Jane Eyre. In addition, Rhys makes a postcolonial argument when she ties Antoinette's husband's eventual rejection of Antoinette to her Creole heritage (a large factor in Antoinette's descent into madness). As postmodern and postcolonial literature have taken a greater place in university curricula, the novel has been taught to literature students more often in recent years.

Feminist criticism would view the world in which Antoinette lives as a patriarchal society, with the convent where she is sent by her Aunt Cora representing a matriarchal bubble within this patriarchal world. Her descent into madness and eventual death (although the latter is not shown in the novel) can be seen as her spirit being crushed by the oppressive male world around her as her husband removes her identity. Her name, Antoinette Cosway, a symbol of her selfhood, is gradually taken from her: when her mother remarries she becomes Antoinette Mason, when she herself marries she becomes Antoinette Rochester and finally her husband insists on calling her Bertha.