Differences Between Jane Eyre And Wide Sargasso Sea

Throughout the Victorian Age, male dominance deprived women from freedom of choice. In Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre repeatedly struggles to become an independent young lady due to the troublesome men in the story. There are several male characters who control, humiliate, and abuse their power over Jane. The author manages to depict patriarchal dominance through the characterization of John Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester.

“I had often been unwilling to look at my master, because I feared he could not be pleased at my look” (Bronte 276) states Jane Eyre the morning after her engagement to Mr. Rochester or, more appropriately, her “master.” The very fact that Jane consistently calls Rochester “master” is frequently a troublesome one; for is Jane Eyre truly a feminist, or at least an autonomous female protagonist, if she refers to the man she loves as such? Given the rest of the text, yes. Jane’s simultaneous independence and desperation for affection characterize her as at odds, with her own combating emotions, and the strictness of polite English society,

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë depicts the rigid social structure and clear division between the upper and lower classes of Victorian society, in which wealth and status determined one’s beliefs, career, and treatment from those surrounding them. Those of the upper class did not typically converse or involve themselves with those viewed as beneath them; however, Jane Eyre fights the separation between the classes to which she has fallen victim at both Gateshead and Lowood school. Her refusal to conform to the hierarchy eventually leads to the meddling between the Victorian-era elite and peasant class, as seen through Jane Eyre’s romantic relationship with Edward Rochester, an upperclassman and

Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre embraces many feminist views in opposition to the Victorian feminine ideal. Charlotte Bronte herself was among the first feminist writers of her time, and wrote this book in order to send the message of feminism to a Victorian-Age Society in which women were looked upon as inferior and repressed by the society in which they lived. This novel embodies the ideology of equality between a man and woman in marriage, as well as in society at large. As a feminist writer, Charlotte Bronte created this novel to support and spread the idea of an independent woman who works for herself, thinks for herself, and acts of her own accord.

Authors, Jean Rhys and Charlotte Bronte constructed their novels in completely different time periods and came from different influences in writing. Jean Rhys’s fiction book, Wide Sargasso Sea is an interesting relation to Jane Eyre. The female character of Jane Eyre forms into a furiously, passionate, independent young woman. The female character of Jean Rhys’s illustration is a character that Jane will know further on as Rochester’s crazy wife who is bolted in an attic. Jean Rhys further studies this character, where as Charlotte Bronte approved that it was left explained (Thorpe 175). Antoinette, considerably like Jane, evolves in a world with minimal amount of love to offer. Both these women are taken cared of as children by

The theme of isolation is explored in Bronte’s novel; Jane Eyre. This theme is also developed in The Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys. Both pieces present different types of isolation, such as isolation due to location and the isolation of a character due to their social status, such as Jane’s status as a governess. The various ways in which isolation is present in each of the texts show how inescapable and unavoidable isolation is for the characters in both Jane Eyre and The Wide Sargasso, with it being present in such a large way in their lives.

Throughout Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë uses the character Jane as a tool to comment on the oppression that women were forced to endure at the time. Jane can be seen as representative of the women who suffered from repression during the Victorian period, a time when patriarchy was commonplace. Brontë herself was affected by the time period, because according to Wolfe, she was deprived “experience and intercourse and travel.” (70) Thus Jane offers a unique perspective as a woman who is both keenly aware of her position and yet trapped by it despite repeated attempts to elevate herself and escape the burden placed on by her different suitors. Although superficially it seems that Jane wants to break away from the relationships that further

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it,” stated Herman Melville. As implied, without theme, no novel can be considered “mighty” or have any depth. Theme is essential in any work of art. Jane Eyre is a novel by Charlotte Brontë that takes the reader through the experiences of Jane Eyre, from childhood to adulthood. This includes her love for Mr. Rochester, who is the master of Thornfield Hall, the school in which Jane works at as an adult. Wide Sargasso Sea, a novel by Jean Rhys, includes

   Jean Rhys' complex text, Wide Sargasso Sea, came about as an attempt to re-invent an identity for Rochester's mad wife, Bertha Mason, in Jane Eyre, as Rhys felt that Bronte had totally misrepresented Creole women and the West Indies: 'why should she think Creole women are lunatics and all that? What a shame to make Rochester's wife, Bertha, the awful madwoman, and I immediately thought I'd write a story as it might really have been.' (Jean Rhys: the West Indian Novels, p144).  It is clear that Rhys wanted to reclaim a voice and a subjectivity for Bertha, the silenced Creole, and to subvert the assumptions made by the Victorian text.  She does so with startling results.

Bronte’s feminist ideas radiated throughout her novel Jane Eyre. There were many strong and clear examples of these ideas in Bronte’s protagonist, Jane, her personality, actions, thoughts and beliefs. From the beginning of the book, Jane’s strong personality and her lack of following social expectations were quiet clear. “Women of the Victorian era were not part of a man’s world, as they were considered below them.”(VanTassel-Baska, 4) The class divisions between a man and a woman were very distinctive. Jane however ignored this. When Jane first met Rochester, the whole scene presented a feminist portrait of Jane. A women walking alone in that era should never address a man, but Jane went out of her way to help Rochester stating that “if you are hurt, I can help” (Bronte, 98), Jane even let him place a hand on her shoulder. Jane believed that “women were supposed to be very calm generally, but women felt just as men felt” (Bronte, 116), which showed her perseverance and persistence in being independent and proving that men should be equal to that of women. This was of

In the novels Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, the theme of loss can be viewed as an umbrella that encompasses the absence of independence, society or community, love, and order in the lives of the two protagonists. They deal with their hardships in diverse ways. However, they both find ways to triumph over their losses and regain their independence.

Through the Victorian Age, male dominance deprived women from a certain freedom. In Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre repeatedly struggles to become an independent young lady due to the troublesome men in the story. John Reed controls Jane, Mr. Brocklehurst humiliates Jane, and Mr. Rochester sees women, in general, as objects. The author manages to depict patriarchal dominance through the characterization of John Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester.

Edward Fairfax Rochester is an archetypal Byronic hero. He seems “moody” and unattainable and could often be seen as an antihero, however is capable of feeling and displaying strong emotions, as can be seen throughout Jane Eyre. Although perhaps the reader should view Mr Rochester as the malefactor in the novel due to his ill treatment of Bertha Mason primarily, along with the conflicted emotions he causes Jane and the heartbreak she suffers because of him, he does present a good case owing the fault of

The first point to be discussed with feminism in this literature, Brontë portrays Jane Eyre to be a very subtle Feminist. Jane's approach to feminism is not rebellious or outlandish at all. She lets her character speak for itself, .due to her harsh living environments she had to take that approach considering in the nineteenth-century, the quality of life as a women was entirely based on how beautiful women were and who they were married to. Along with a wealthy economic status, Jane however, had none of these things going for her. For example she was an orphan in this particular family named the Reeds, they are a very wealthy family and took her into an extremely toxic household which was very different to her past living environments, were later on corrupted her in the future to believe that all women should not be treated equal to but less than when compared to men. From the disrespect she received from Mrs Reed, and the bullying from her son John she was always able to stand up for herself no matter how bad or unfairly she was being treated. There were many instances were Jane was being treated unjustly. Ms. Reed would allow her children and even the maid of the house be disrespectful to her. Everyday Jane was being being compared to things like “little toad” (bronte 41). Conveying the message to the reader that just because Jane is not attractive nor wealthy that she does not deserve to be given the respect someone with those

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