Christophine's Role

Christophine is one of the most versatile characters in terms of roles in the Wide Sargasso Sea. At the beginning of the novel in part one she plays the role of a mother figure for Antionette. Antoinette's mother, Annette,  would often ignore her, saying things like "let me alone" whenever Antoinette would try to talk to her. While Annette would walk up and down the terrace and take care of Pierre, Christophine stepped in as a mother figure. Antionette spent most of her time in the kitchen with Christophine and she sang to Antoinette and even taught her some patois songs. She also set her up with her only friend during her childhood at Coulibri. She even was the one who gave Antoinette the pennies that fell out of her pocket. So Christophine's main role, in relation to Antoinette, is the mother figure.
This changes in the second part of the book because of the change of narrator. Instead of being portrayed as a mother figure she is portrayed as more villainous, probably because she is trying to help Antoinette and not Rochester. This shows up several times in Rochester's narration. Towards the start, he is clearly uncomfortable about Antoinette's closeness with Christophine. This is because he distrusts her and views her as a threat. This proves to be true in his point of view later in the novel after she gives Antoinette the love potion. He believes Christophine tried to poison him and that makes her seem even more the villain from his point of view. There is also the scene where Rochester absolutely goes crazy. When Christophine is talking to him about taking Antoinette away he views it as a threat to his power. So in the second part of the story, Christophine plays the role of the villain for Rochester because while he has power, she does too and he views this as a threat.
However, Christophine also shortly plays the role of the wise-woman during the second part when Antoinette comes to her for advice. During this short transaction, Christophine gives out some sage-like advice to Antoinette about her marriage. She suggests that Antoinette just leaves Rochester and goes somewhere else. To the reader, this seems like very wise advise. Overall, it is through the different narrators and the different times in the novel that Christophine's role changes.

Meursault's Arrest

A few times in class, the topic of Meursault's actual arrest has come up. The reason for that is it isn't actually narrated in the book and the situation of his arrest is unique. As we have talked about several times, the only witnesses to the shooting are the Arab, who is dead, and Meursault. With the exception of them, there was no one else on the beach. This raised two big questions about the arrest for me. Who called the police, and what did Meursault do while the police were coming?
As for the question of who called the police, there are really two options. One is someone who heard the gunshots called the police and told them. At first, this seems very likely. Some concerned individual heard gunshots and called the police. But the more you think about, it the less sense it makes.  If they're on a beach with no other people on it, it is probably far away from any houses. So if someone heard the gunshots, they wouldn't be sure where they heard them from. The other option is that Meursault called the police. While he clearly shows no care about telling the truth about what happened when the police question him, his said earlier that he didn't like the police so why would he get them involved voluntarily. 
As for what he did before the police arrived, I can think of two possibilities. One is that he stayed in the sun which he was so vehemently complaining about and caused his to shoot the guy earlier . But that really makes no sense. If he was complaining about it, why would he stay? However, the only other option would be to go into the shade next to the Arab he shot. We know he stayed because the police arrested him, and with no witnesses, he could have walked away he would have been okay. Overall nothing makes sense about how he was arrested without is being explained, so by adding the gap in narrative there, Camus adds to the absurdity of the novel.