Antoinette Cosway

Even though Mrs. Fairfax believes that Rochester will marry Blanche Ingram, Blanche is not the woman of his choice. Blanche’s family believes they are a great match, due to their equal social status. However, Rochester does not have the same plan in mind. Jane is not happy with herself, because she fell in love with a man out of her social reach, but Rochester is not concerned with social status. Both Jane and Blanche Ingram have positive and negative qualities. Rochester prefers Jane based on all of her positive

As a feminist, Jane is able to protect herself when she is in a situation where she needs to be defended. For instance, when her brutish older cousin John hurls a hardcover book at her head, she pounces back by attacking him in defense. She also faces no difficulty in successfully defeating her cold-hearted aunt in a verbal fight, just at the tender age of ten. Jane is surely unafraid of the consequences that she has to face on actions that she believes as rightfully done. This amazing trait remains even as she proceeds into adulthood and meets the love of her life. She is able to deal with, and even stand up to Mr. Rochester’s unreasonable verbal attacks directed at her. She clearly shows her dauntless side of her personality, by speaking her own mind when Mr. Rochester demands for the money that he had given her. Jane refuses clear cut, and Mr. Rochester asks to then at least let him see the cash. Jane refuses again by retorting that he is “not to be trusted.” Jane has an honest and truthful soul who knows how to speak for herself, unlike many women during this period of time. Jane is never concerned about what other people would think of her if she tells them the exact truth about everything. She is able to inform her departure by cancelling off the wedding between herself and Mr. Rochester after what she had witnessed and experienced. Jane cries out “you are a married man-or as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to you- to one with whom you have no sympathy- whom I do not believe you truly love; for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union: therefore I am better than you- let me go!” Jane is able to truthfully utter her thoughts, her true opinion without being afraid; even if it was to someone she dearly loved. When Mr. Rochester angrily cries out, “Jane, be still; don’t struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in its

Although she seemed to be the ideal bride, Rochester did not know about the insanity that ran in her family’s blood. But, he soon learned about it as he watched his wife become mad. Desperate, Rochester paid for a caretaker to tend to her in a hidden room in Thornfield Hall.

She judges, criticizes, and is of a higher class because of the exploitation of rich men. She falls in love with Mr. Rochester, not because he is attractive, but because he is her key to success, a shortcut to the top of the ladder. In the book, she says, "Whenever I marry," she continued, after a pause, which none interrupted, "I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me. I will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided homage; his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he sees in his mirror. Mr. Rochester, now sing, and I will play for you" (Bronte 185). She is purely using

After reading Wide Sargasso Sea we have a better understanding of Jane Eyre and some of the events that took place within the novel. We find more out about Rochester’s dark past; Bronte just didn’t go far enough back to enlighten us on his marriage. After reading Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea we now know how Rochester and Antoinette’s relationship came to be. Their marriage was arranged so that Rochester would have financial stability because he was the second son and was likely to not inherit anything from his father. Rochester felt he was duped into marrying Antoinette by his father and everyone else. In one scene Rochester says, “As I walked I remembered my father’s face and his thin lips, my brother’s round conceited eyes. They knew. And Richard the fool, he knew too…They all knew.”(Rhys 62). He thinks everyone knew Antoinette was crazy but didn’t tell him. Rochester seems to be ashamed with himself over locking Antoinette in the attic, but he feels like it was the right thing for him to do. He would have had a miserable life and also would have put everyone in danger at Thornfield, with crazy Antoinette around. Antoinette was a lunatic and if Rochester had to put up with her psychotic

In the novel Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, Antoinette Mason’s identity is frequently discussed. Antoinette, the daughter of ex-slave owners and a woman whose life is dictated by mental illness, grows up in the Caribbean as a Creole during the nineteenth century. As a young adult, she is forced into a marriage with a white man from England, an event that ultimately leads Antoinette to her downfall. At the start of the novel, Antoinette and the characters around her are optimistic about their identity and future. As the plot progresses, Antoinette increasingly struggles to understand who she is and what her future entails. Ultimately, Antoinette loses her identity and her purpose. Throughout the text there are many reoccurring motifs. A motif

Madame Antoine- woman who Edna and Robert visited when Edna feels faint at the Sunday service on the island of Chênière Caminada] Mariequita- young, pretty Hispanic girl. She is very flirtatious and has a crush on Robert. Etienne and Raoul- Edna and Léonce’s two sons, four and five years old, respectively. 4.

Chopin explained most of the characters especially well all through the story, which helped the story read better. Louise Mallard is the protagonist in this story and the antagonist is the wrap she has on in her part as a wedded woman in the 1800's. There are only a few characters in this story and the key character is Louise Mallard, she is to a great degree established and changes all through the story. In the beginning, Chopin explains Mrs. Mallard as a woman having the unmistakable characteristic of self-proclamation which is obliged by her marriage. She is in every way the "victim" of an arrogant however rarely loving partner.

As a mistress and rich woman, she is now equal with Rochester and as a result is able to marry him.

Furthermore, Jane says “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself” (Chapter 27, Bronte.) This statement greatly represents the growth that Jane has undergone. She no longer dreads the solitude that once haunted her because she respects herself enough to realize that she did not deserve to experience such great dismay. Through independence and self-recognition, Jane has discovered the importance of loving oneself. Without the reliance on the thoughts of others, the once extremely troubled girl found bliss through a lack of outside control. In regards to her relationship with Mr. Rochester, Jane understands that she must leave him behind to maintain her own well-being. She does not allow the wealth or proclaimed love from Rochester to skew her decisions and she does not linger to dominate the life of her lover. Instead, she moves forward to continue her endless pursuit of happiness and independence.

In a fit of rage and curiosity, Rochester angers Antoinette with unkind words about her mother and cruel accusations of madness within her. After realizing that Antoinette was close to opening up in an emotional, messy way, Rochester attempts to push the conversation to another, more reasonable time. Antoinette responds with passion of her own: “‘You have no right,’ she said fiercely. ‘You have no right to ask questions about my mother and then refuse to listen to my answer’” (Rhys 117). With her fierce and aggressive words, Rochester eventually succumbs and listens to Antoinette’s truth about her mother’s life. Rhys portrays a defiance to the early and perpetual idea of women being regarded as a lesser sex and having a more passive, emotional, and second-class lifestyles in their relationships. This is greatly seen in Antoinette’s interactions with Rochester. Antoinette’s ability to attack Rochester’s oppressive nature with such forceful language not traditionally seen in women of her time shows her resistance to a submissive, lonely life typical for her gender. In an interest to preserve their futures and relationships with their husbands, most women would stand back and take whatever blows came their way, but Antoinette stand aside. Antoinette’s direct opposition, specifically when she says “you have no right to ask questions… and then refuse to listen to my answer” shows how she fought back against Rochester’s dominance. Antoinette’s

In Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette Cosway is a character who is experiences a vicious cycle of suffering due to her hybrid race, having a bloodline of slave owners, as well as suffering from a lack of agency which later diminishes her into the “Mad Woman in the Attic” named Bertha Mason, as seen in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. When the slave-run mansion Coulibri is burned down at the end of part one, everything is turned upside down. After, she sees her friend Tia and when Antoinette rushes towards her, Tia throws a rock at her head. “I looked at her and I saw her face crumple up as she began to cry.

Despite all his faults in Jane Eyre, the one virtue he maintains in that story is sorely lacking in the Wide Sargasso Sea, his personal integrity. “Nor was I anxious to know what was happening behind the thin partition which divided us from my wife’s bedroom” (Rhys 140). “You bring that worthless girl to play with next door and you talk and laugh and love so that she hear everything. You meant her to hear.’ ‘Yes that didn’t just happen. I meant it’” (Rhys 154). A man who is capable of treating Antoinette in such a way, of purposefully “breaking her up” as Christophine would say, makes one wonder if he is even capable of redemption in Jane Eyre. His little encounter with Amélie could be ascribed to his intoxication on the voodoo love potion, though by the time he sleeps with Amélie many hours have passed including a trip to the ruined house and a nap in its eerie surroundings. Furthermore, Rochester’s actions are inherently selfish. Motivated solely by greed, he seems to be unwilling to let Antoinette have even a small portion of happiness. He had the option to leave with at least half the dowry and let her move on with her life, but chooses instead to keep both her money and mind locked away in the attic of a cold, colorless castle. Regardless of whether this depiction of our Mr. Rochester is canon or not, Jean Rhys effectively makes us despise the new Rochester all by solely changing the

Rochester. At first Jane sees him as rude and disrespectful due to his cold and gruesome remarks, but it is her fight and how Jane stands up for herself that leads to one of the most known relationships in literature. Eventually Rochester asks Jane for her hand in marriage but at the scene of the wedding, we come to learn, that Rochester is already married to an insane woman, living in his attic, named Bertha. With this Rochester asks Jane to run away with her to Europe, this is exactly where Jane is faced with a very hard decision between following her heart as everyone wants to do, or keeping her respect and dignity. We can see the respect Jane now has from Rochester when he says to her, “I was wrong to attempt to deceive you; but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character” (Bronte 354). This shows that Jane has gained Rochester’s respect and the ‘stubbornness’ in Jane’s character is the best thing for her, for without this trait Jane could never gain respect from others, especially men, in his novel. Knowing that Jane has decided to leave her, Rochester begins to persuade Jane to stay with him. He says, “Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This – this is wicked. It would not be wicked to love me” (Bronte 355). Jane replies, “It would to obey you” (Bronte 355), showing that she will not give into his pleading, regardless of how much she loves him because to obey him would lead to the loss

In Graham’s Magazine, another anonymous reviewer suggested that Rochester’s character was dangerous and immoral, saying, “No woman who had ever truly loved could have mistaken so completely the Rochester type, or could have made her heroine love a man of proud, selfish, ungovernable appetites, which no sophistry can lift out of lust.” Thus, he intimated that any author who would contrive to have her heroine fall in love with such a total rake would be immoral herself and unknowing of what true love is. He went one step further to say, “We accordingly think that if the innocent young ladies of our land lay a premium on profligacy, by marrying dissolute rakes for the honor of reforming them, à la Jane Eyre, their benevolence will be of questionable utility to the world.” In this, he suggested that the depiction of Jane and Rochester’s relationship would cause young women of the time to emulate Jane’s “romantic wickedness.”