In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys rewrites Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel Jane Eyre, re-forming and reforming much of the precursor work’s assumptions about race and gender, nation and identity. Among the several themes prominent in the author’s reforming venture, particular emphasis is placed on the opposition created by the ‘union’ of Edward and Antoinette. These two characters, emerging from radically different spheres, meet and marry, but remain opposite and in conflict, their relationship an incendiary proposition, a catalyst to disaster.