The Tragedy of the Great Sargasso Sea In Jean Rhys' novel The Great Sargasso Sea, whether Antoinette Cosway actually goes mad at the end is debatable. However, it is clear that his life is tragic. The tragedy comes from his many searches for love and belonging, and his failure in each of these attempts. As a child, Antonietta was deprived of her parents' love. His father is a drunkard and has many mistresses and illegitimate children. According to Daniel Cosway's tale, the old Cosway is cruel to his son. Yet, even if Daniel had not really been a Cosway, and his descriptions were made out of spite, or if the old Cosway had cared more about his legitimate children than his bastard ones, his alcoholism is real, and therefore he would not have could have been a loving father to Antoinette. Her mother, Annette, also doesn't show her much maternal affection. Antoinette needs and wants her mother's love, but Annette is indifferent to her. Once Antoinette sees her mother frown and tries to soften her frown with her hand, but she pushes me away, not abruptly but calmly, coldly, without a word, as if she had decided once and for all that I was useless. his. She wanted to sit with Pierre or walk wherever she wanted without being bothered, she wanted peace and quiet... "Oh, leave me alone," she said, "leave me alone" (13; part 1). One night, when Antoinette had a nightmare, she wakes up and sees her mother in her bed. This makes her feel safe, but even then her mother has not come to show concern for her, but to take care of Pierre, who is frightened by her noise. When her needs for love and belonging are neglected by her parents, Antoinette seeks to satisfy them elsewhere. Seek love from a newly found person... middle of paper... she, if there ever was one, is completely gone, and all that remains is destructive hate: If I were destined for the hell let it be hell. No more false paradises. No more damn music. You hate me and I hate you. We'll see who hates more. But first, first I will destroy your hatred. Now my hatred is colder, stronger, and you will no longer have hatred to warm yourself with. You will have nothing (110; part 2). So he kills her last hope for love and security and takes her to England to be locked in his attic. This is her second dislocation, this time not only far from her familiar world, but completely isolated from the entire world. Here her tragedy is complete, for her heart and soul are killed, and she is nothing but a ghost, with "nothing but despair" (110; part 2). Work cited Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Ed. Angela Smith. London: Penguin, 1997.