Rochester: Method to His Madness

The most unnerving scene in Wide Sargasso Sea is perhaps Rochester’s “mad monologue”, in which he proclaims his wife Antoinette as “mad but mine, mine...my mad girl”. This passage is the most obvious example of Rochester’s growing sense of insanity (and he is likely somewhat “insane”, given this internal dialogue and the fact that he locks Antoinette up in his attic). This frenzied, monstrous need for control over Antoinette marks him as mad to us - and yet, this insanity is a character trait that was nowhere near apparent at the beginning of his narrative. I’d argue, then, that like Antoinette’s constructed madness, Rochester’s insanity is a personal response to everything going on around him. His desire for control in a place that affords him none is ultimately what drives him to “madness”.

There are many smaller initial manifestations of this insane need for power even before Rochester's realization of Antoinette's "secret". Even within the vibrant, “vulnerable” West Indies, Rochester sterilizes everything, intentionally removing himself from emotional context in order to control the situation – “I would listen to my own voice and marvel at it, calm, correct but toneless, surely. But I must have given a faultless performance.” This demonstrates an almost sociopathic, intentional removal from emotion, in order to better scientifically address the situation. He acknowledges that this must be a result of his childhood, asking himself “how old was I when I learned to hide what I felt?...Six, five, even earlier. It was necessary I was told, and that view I have always accepted." 

Rochester's hunger for control may then be explained and understood through his English, second-son background. While this undertone of power may be disconcertingly “colonialist”, I’d argue that it isn't unusual or even discouraged, at least in his cultural context. (Even we were willing to like him at the beginning of Part Two. Of course, that all changed after the events at Granbois, when we began to see him as a madman.) Rochester likely grew up with a sort of inferiority complex, or at least with much bitterness toward his own lesser status. Furthermore, he was raised in an already iron-fistedly-domesticated English society, which would have been tinted with power-encouraging social themes (as demonstrated by the existence of colonialism and slavery). Rochester's hidden need for control is therefore not completely unnatural - it may simply be the English way to try to take control and manipulate one’s surroundings (bad as that sounds). 
          This normal desire of power however, goes just slightly sour in Rochester when combined with the bitterness from his uncontrollable second-son status. His well-hidden hunger simmers at very high levels and consumes him in a way that isn't common. This quiet desire is also perhaps why he marries Antoinette - "I have a modest competence now. I will never be a disgrace to you or to my dear brother the son you love. No begging letters...none of the furtive shabby manœuvres of a younger son." 

Unfortunately for Rochester, the West Indies defy control and manipulation. Rochester expresses much discomfort with this idea - “if these mountains challenge me, or Baptiste’s face, or Antoinette’s eyes, they are mistaken." There is also the matter of the “secret” hidden by both the West Indies and Antoinette (who become one and the same to him). He feels the overwhelming need to know and control this secret, even before the involved nature of it is revealed to him. This supposed “secret” becomes so much more poisonous to Rochester, however, when he realizes that it is not just a construct of nature, but also of other people - "my father...and...my brother...they knew. And Richard the fool...and the girl with her blank smiling face. They all knew.” We can see here how Rochester fills in the gaps with something akin to conspiracy and paranoia, coming to a frenzied, hatred-filled realization that he was the one being controlled. Other little things, like Amelie’s “I am sorry for you” (insinuating that she is above him, as she can feel pity for him) and Antoinette’s obeah drug (where she completely rids him of all agency) push him to realize his rapidly slipping grip on any sort of power. The West Indies are completely stripping him of his power, of his entire understood way of life. This constructed understanding sends Rochester into an angry panic, which in turn leads him (in a fit of madness) to take his extreme measures against Antoinette. 

Antoinette is perhaps the thing that epitomizes this lack of control for Rochester. She is the only one that has been able to truly rid him of all power and agency through her use of the drug - furthermore, he equates her with the unfamiliar, untameable West Indies, which adds to his hatred of her. In a desperate attempt to maintain some control (and perhaps also to exact vengeance upon Antoinette), Rochester completely oppresses his wife. He changes her name to Bertha and cuts her off from Christophine, assuring that he is the only one able to control her. He draws a mad little drawing of his wife trapped in an English house, and even traps her in the attic of his estate - all "mad" actions which we would have assumed the mild man from the beginning of Part 2 incapable of. Rochester's insanely cruel control over Antoinette, then, is a direct response to the consuming hunger he has for control, which was denied by Antoinette and the West Indies.