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Narrated by Antoinette, Part One of Wide Sargasso Sea focuses on her childhood at Coulibri after the death of her father, Alexander Cosway. Antoinette's vague and fragmentary memories focus on glimpses of tropical landscape, descriptions of her mother, and examples of her childhood isolation.
Antoinette and her family are isolated, socially and geographically. Antoinette explains that their exclusion from white society is a result of disapproval by “the Jamaican ladies” of her mother Annette ’s youth, physical beauty, and origins from Martinique.
The first part of Wide Sargasso Sea is told from the perspective of Antoinette Cosway, a young girl who lives on an estate on the island of Jamaica (a British colony) with her mother and brother and a dwindling group of the family's former slaves.
As the novel opens, we learn that Antoinette lives with her mother, Annette, and her brother, Pierre, on their dilapidated estate, Coulibri, outside Spanish Town, Jamaica. Antoinette's father, Mr. Cosway, passed away some time before. The local whites look down on them because Annette is from Martinique, a French colony.
As Wide Sargasso Sea opens, Antoinette, the protagonist and narrator, explains why her mother and the family are not accepted by their community in Jamaica. Annette is young, pretty, and from the French colony of Martinique, while Jamaica is an English colony.
Part One Summary. Antoinette Cosway, the narrator of this section, is living at Coulibri Estate in 1830s Jamaica up the road from Spanish Town, the capital at the time. She lives with her mother, Annette, her younger brother Pierre, and her nurse, Christophine.
Summary. Six weeks have passed and Antoinette wakes up from her sickness and finds herself in Aunt Cora's house. Aunt Cora catches her up on what has transpired. Antoinette's hair has been cut, the Luttrells helped the family to safety, Pierre has died (Antoinette suspected this), and her mother is recuperating in the country.
