Comparing Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Otherness is a state of isolating an individual because of the subversiveness they are considered to have within the society. The female and child otherness is a prominent issue in the novels, Jane Eyre (1847), and Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), though the stories were fashioned in different periods. There is a depiction of extensively different social, political and societal sceneries. Conversely, regardless of their variances, expositions of youthful, female otherness and aspects as regards selfhood could be associated to the writers’ predictions of the dangerous female other. According to numerous critics, Jane Eyre’s novel offers Jane as a social stranger. This marginalization leads to the otherness of Jane because she subverts conventional,

Furthermore, this demeaning and negative attitude Jane is exposed to is further instigated when her cousin, John Reed, expresses her situation by saying: "You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us". The truth of Jane's unfortunate situation is expressed against her which results in her feeling no true support from this family and confides only in her childhood nursemaid- Bessie, who although behaves inconsistently and has “a capricious and hasty temper”, is the closest mother figure to her. Furthermore, the friction between Jane and John is further emphasised when the first physical aspect of violence is introduced to the reader through a graphic portrayal, further showing the ultimate rejection Jane experienced

In Jane Eyre, both Jane and Edward keep breaking rules and boundaries that come their way. The rules of their society forbid their relationship, which should have prevented them from being together but it brings them closer. In the period of time that the book is set in, the difference in social classes are visible between the two. This creates the problems that arise as she feels the difference that separates them. Jane Eyre is not only an orphan; she is also poor with no permanent home and relatives. Edward Rochester is a man that is wealthier and much older than she is. This displays the two people that should have not been able to meet and fall in love the way they did. The boundary that they face later in the story is that as they are about to get married, it is revealed that he is still married to a mentally ill woman. These boundaries and rules that exist in both stories are the reasons to why their love prospers as they face them together and break though limits imposed upon them.

The way she is treated is denounced. Jane is not from the working class, nor is she a servant. Being an orphan who has been given a roof from her aunt and late uncle, the little girl whom we meet in the beginning of the novel is furious at the idea of being treated less than the others around her.

These two novels are both feminist works, although each book leads to feminist problems somewhat differently. Jane has a strong foundation in what woman deserve, as well as achieve specific goals for how she portrays her spot in society being a woman; Antoinette has no knowledge where to start to change herself. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys poses the likelihood that maybe; the gap between women and men can’t be penetrated. Possibly, the unbalance is so great that Antoinette cannot have a feeling of cheerfulness and pleasure that Jane discovers near the end of the novel. Wide Sargasso Sea portrays the fluctuating position of woman in the twentieth century. Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre can single handedly be looked at as signs of feminist texts, however, Wide Sargasso Sea presents itself with more description on post-modern shape of feminism.

Man was Jane’s master; she had to obey him. They received a better education than women, even if they don’t deserve it, just like John Reed, who was a spoilt little brat, but was sent to school whereas his sisters stayed home. The only kind of work a woman could do was become a governess or a tutor, but they couldn’t take up any other job like men did. That is why Jane, and her cousins the Rivers, only looked for governess jobs, and never mentioned taking up any other kind. The problem is that women were only admired for their beauty. However, Bronte proved likewise when she described Jane as “small and plain.” Despite her plainness, Mr. Rochester fell for her, and St. John thought her to be a good missionary’s wife, and even turned down Rosamond Oliver for her. However, her lack of beauty is again and again emphasized throughout the course of the story. Of course, presently, we obtain a contrastive view on women. Women now are equals of men; they have the right to take up any job they like, and their beauty is important but do not make up everything. A person’s thoughts and ideas are what define their

In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Jane is an orphan who is often mistreated by the family and other people who surround her. Faced with constant abuse from her aunt and her cousins, Jane at a young age questions the treatment she receives: "All John Reed’s violent tyrannies, all his sister’s proud indifference, all his mother’s aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always brow-beaten, always accused, forever condemned?" (27; ch. 2). Despite her early suffering, as the novel progresses Jane is cared for and surrounded by various women who act as a sort of "substitute mother" in the way they guide,

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you”(257-258). The quote epitomizes Jane’s independence, but underneath Jane’s strong exterior, she is a young woman longing for love and a family. Throughout the novel, Jane learns to fend for herself, but we also see Jane’s longing for a family. In Charlotte Bronte’s book Jane Eyre, themes of family, love, and independence prominently play out in the characters of Jane, Rochester, and St. John.

In the novels Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre, by Jean Rhys and Charlotte Bronte, the theme of isolation is used to contrast both Antoinette and Jane. In both novels, Jane and Antoinette all have to experience isolation which helps them by the end of the novels. In this essay, I will compare and contrast how Charlotte Bronte and Jean Rhys explain the theme of isolation through the lives of both Jane and Antoinette. The novels, Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, portray Jane and Antoinette as being two isolated personalities who, despite their different lives both endure isolation.

Early through her young childhood Jane already begins to display her thoughts on equality and standing up for herself. She states, "If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all

Throughout both novels, Mr. Rochester is the epitome of the western world’s notion of patriarchy. During the period when Jane Eyre was written, it was a predominantly patriarchal society. Brontë wrote the characters as an extension of the ideas that were accepted within society. This can be viewed by how the female characters in Jane Eyre accept the

Identity is portrayed as a crucial element to life in both novels Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Bronte, and Wide Sargasso Sea written by Jean Rhys. The protagonists in both novels experience hardship when attempting to acquire a sense of identity resulting in insanity or virtual madness..In Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, identity and insanity are presented as connecting themes through symbols that emphasize societal expectations, conflict between race, blindness, duality and their damaging effect on Jane, and her mirror Antoinette who both suffer from insanity due to their non-existent place in society.

First, we meet Jane, she is a smart, quick-witted girl who seems to be on a journey of becoming a strong willed young woman. She lives with her aunt and cousins who spend their time oppressing Jane. Aunt Reed seems to see Jane more as a nuisance that has been laid on her by her late husband. John Reed seems to be one of the main oppressors along with his mother, he both physically harms Jane and verbally abuses her. Georgiana and Eliza seem in the background of these first chapters, they do not seem to like Jane either. While Jane is being abused by their brother they do not take Jane’s side but instead John Reed’s.

In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, the heroine’s family was very poor, and she lost both of her parents when she is very young, then she became an orphan girl and had to living rely on her aunt Mrs. Reed.

The discussion about intertextuality shows that both these two novels contain feminism thoughts, just as Wang Tao’s study has supported that Wide Sargasso Sea is the transcendence of Jane Eyre at the reflection of feminism thoughts. If further explore, we can see that enough researches have been done to dig out the hidden ideas in the two novels. Liu Liang has “made a comparison of womanhood in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea by probing into their different attitudes towards patriarchy and sex to find the difference between modern feminism and older feminism”(129). The different experiences of the two heroines indicates that Jane Eyre contains the traditional feminism that women should pursuit equality at work opportunity, while Wide Sargasso Sea