Feminism in Jane Eyre and the wide sargasso sea Essay

Charlotte Bronte created one of the first feminist novels--Jane Eyre--of her time period when she created the unique and feminist female heroine, Jane Eyre. Throughout the novel, Jane becomes stronger as she speaks out against antagonists. She presses to find happiness whether she is single or married and disregards society’s rules. The novel begins as Jane is a small, orphan child living with her aunt and cousins due to the death of her parents and her uncle. Jane 's aunt--Mrs. Reed--degrades her as she favors her biological children. Jane 's aunt--Mrs. Reed--degrades her as she favors her biological children. Her cousin--John Reed--hits her and then Mrs. Reed chooses to punish her instead and sends her to the room in which her uncle

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

Throughout history and literature, men have been trying to make decisions for women and have also treated women as inferiors. Two books that do a superb job of demonstrating this theme are Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. Jane Eyre, set in the 1800’s, is the story of an orphan girl growing up and becoming a governess. All does not go smoothly when Jane falls in love with the master of the house. Drama ensues in this gothic classic as Jane decides how to handle her situation. The Good Earth, on the other hand, follows the life of Wang Lung from a young adult to a grandfather. Along the way, Wang Lung marries O-lan and together they

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

   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.

The belief that women should have equal economic, political and social rights which were offered to men was known as feminism. Feminism has been a prominent and controversial topic in writing for over two centuries, with the view articulating in the “19th century meaning that women were inherently equal to men and deserved equal rights and opportunities.” (Gustafson, 1) Many women throughout time have stood forward towards women’s rights. Jane Eyre was written and published during the Victorian Era. The novel was written by Charlotte Brontë, but published under the

Her inability to separate reality from dreams exhibits the lack of control she has over her own life. The above mentioned dream roughly parallels Jane Eyre's first dream of Rochester. As Humm points out in his essay, Antoinette's dream can be seen as a sort of inverse of Jane Eyre's. Jane's nightmares revolve around Rochester’s receding figure, and subsequently her inability to reach him. Antoinette's are based on a malevolent figure approaching her, thereby capturing her vulnerability as a character. Moreover this notion of control is also captured through the use of multiple narrators in the novel whereby Rochester, even though un-named, takes over the narration in part two, thereby literally silencing

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.

Jane Eyre was written in a time where the Bildungsroman was a common form of literature. The importance was that the mid-nineteenth century was, "the age in which women were, for the first time, ranked equally with men as writers within a major genre" (Sussman 1). In many of these novels, the themes were the same; the protagonist dealt with the same issues, "search for autonomy and selfhood in opposition to the social constraints placed upon the female, including the demand for marriage" (Sussman). Jane Eyre fits this mould perfectly. Throughout the novel, the reader follows Jane Eyre on a journey of development from adolescence to maturity to show that a desire for freedom and change motivates people to search for their own identity.

In Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason is a symbol of female oppression, and the confining roles of women in marriages. Bronte depicts Jane as a young woman in attempt to set an example for others by dodging conformity, and expose false stereotypes, marriage and submission to Rochester are counterintuitive to her goals and morals. Bertha serves as a warning to Jane by displaying the effects of marriage. As a woman who had been oppressed and dominated because of her marriage, Bertha symbolizes the damaging effects marriage in a male dominated society on a woman’s individuality and sanity. Bertha is presented as the “madwoman in the attic” by Bronte, her insanity is a dramatization of the ramifications of marriage by personifying the thoughts of women in the victorian era. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette is tricked into a loveless marriage for monital purposes because of society’s views on femininity which is females are meant to be passive (Anderson, 1982). This common perception on women is what leads Antoinette and many other women to drift into unhappy marriages, and the greater consequence being they lose themselves due to their forced

“Little Girls with dreams become women with vision” (unknown). This quote expresses Jane’s entire life in the novel Jane Eyre written by the author Charlotte Brontë. The main character that is discussed in this book is Jane Eyre and she is trying to find herself despite being recognized as less than everyone else solely based on her gender and her poor place in nineteenth-century’s social class. Gender inequality is world wide problem with no end, dating back to the civil rights period to the present day. Mrs. Reed, John Reed, Mr Brocklehurst and Ms. Blanche Ingram, as well as many others are a prime example for this issue. For the reason being that they allow others’ mainly her son to not only treat her with disrespect but also torment Jane as well.

A feminist is a person whose beliefs and behavior are based on feminism (belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes). Jane Eyre is clearly a critique of assumptions about both gender and social class. It contains a strong feminist stance; it speaks to deep, timeless human urges and fears, using the principles of literature to chart the mind?s recesses. Thus, Jane Eyre is an epitome of femininity - a young independent individual steadfast in her morals and has strong Christian virtues, dominant, assertive and principled. That itself is no small feat.

A feminist is a person whose beliefs and behavior are based on feminism (belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes). Jane Eyre is clearly a critique of assumptions about both gender and social class. It contains a strong feminist stance; it speaks to deep, timeless human urges and fears, using the principles of literature to chart the mind?s recesses. Thus, Jane Eyre is an epitome of femininity - a young independent individual steadfast in her morals and has strong Christian virtues, dominant, assertive and principled. That itself is no small feat.

The mad woman is written to express the author’s anxiety. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jane Eyre does not exist. Jean Rhys created the opposition binary between men and women instead of women and women. Compared to the idea that the mad woman and Jane Eyre are actually in the same female camp, Yang Mei has conducted a study that is concerned about the group of female but the mad female. As she wrote, “the study on the construction of female madness is intended to reveal patriarchy and its male-centered medical system deprive women of discourse right by constructing female madness” (51), she looked into the feminism problems by linking the madness to patriarchy. Li YuanYuan’s view can be a conclusion of these discussions, she held the opinion that “the two novels are both influenced by Female Literature development stage and Cultural traits, and the narrative voice and methods allow the female culture to continue” (169). From these studies, we can know that the discussion about feminism is even more popular among the scholars, and scholars explore Bertha’s madness from the angle of feminism, which indicates that scholars admit Bertha’s