Pierre is not given a lot of detail in the novel, he is still an important character to the story as a whole, especially to the main character Antoinette. Despite being a very minimal role, he seems to be seen as better than Antoinette by their mother Annette. This would seem to be implying that he has more value to their mother, most likely due to being the “man” of the house since Annette was widowed, thus making him more important that Antoinette. He is also a sort of catalyst in the story as he becomes terribly after a house fire that starts when a group of recently freed slaves sets fire to the estate. Not only is this traumatizing for Antoinette, but may have inspired her to do the same when she becomes Bertha and ends her life by setting her husband’s mansion on fire. A similar sense of revolting, it would seem. Unfortunately, being a sickly child, Pierre dies as a result of the incident. This in turn causes Annette to go mad, out of grief and the hereditary mental problems that exist in the family. This not only further traumatizes Antoinette, but also destroys the relationship she had with her mother, as we see she gets harmed physically in a fit of rage by Annette. This shows that even a character rarely seen in a story can have drastic changes on those around them and how they would react to each other. Similar to the butterfly effect, one small change can change the course of actions that will affect the world in a variety of ways.
Rhys, Jean. “Pierre Cosway in Wide Sargasso Sea.” Shmoop,
www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wide-sargasso-sea/pierre-cosway. Accessed 13 Mar. 2022.
“Wide Sargasso Sea: Full Book Summary.” SparkNotes, www.sparknotes.com/lit/sargasso/summary. Accessed 13 Mar. 2022.
Rhys, Jean, and Edwidge Danticat. Wide Sargasso Sea. Reissue, W. W. Norton and Company, 2016.
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