Jane Eyre And Wide Sargasso Sea Essay

Jane and Rochester officially meet at Thornfield, the day after his arrival, Rochester invites Jane for tea. His attitude towards Jane is abrupt and quite cold, although he is charmed by Jane's drawings. Jane feels unusually comfortable around

We first encounter this relationship between Jane and Rochester during their first dramatic meeting. She encounters him when he falls off his horse and she is required to give him assistance. Jane’s first impression of his face is that ‘He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow’. This may portray the dimness in his face awaiting to be enlightened by a woman which, in this case Jane. Further on in this chapter, unaware of who he is, on her return home, Jane is amazed to discover that the gentleman she assisted in the road was her employer, Mr. Edward Rochester. Jane’s future relationship with Rochester is most clearly set out in their first meeting. Although without any money, reserved and socially dependent, Jane is not

Jane Eyre is a powerful novel with many secrets in the storyline between the characters. One of the most shocking secrets was finding out that Rochester has a wife. Since his older brother would inherit his father's fortune, Rochester needed to secure his own future with a marriage for the sake of money, not love. So, he married Bertha, who was both wealthy and beautiful.

The novel in which Jane Eyre stars in can be seen criticizing many aspects of those times such as the role and nature of women, child negligence and social hardships for those in a lesser class. Jane Eyre’s alienation from society allows for a greater reveal of the story’s culture, values, and assumptions. It’s presented through the use of gender, class and character conflicts throughout the story. On multiple occasions, Jane is judged for the presented factors reflecting the type of society Jane lives in and what the times were like at that time.

Jane, one of the orphans in the novel Jane Eyre, is portrayed as the victim of charity. She is also seen in others' eyes as something less or lower than themselves. Orphans are seen by wealthy people as children who are in need of their charity, and also who lack in morals, ambition, and culture. Jane tells about how she has no family; her mother and her father had the typhus fever, and "both died within a month of each other" (58; ch. 3). As if this is not bad enough, she is also excluded from being a part of the Reed family:

Jane Eyre is a coming of age story following a young woman and her journey of self-growth. At the start of the novel Jane is living with her aunt and three cousins. They continuously abuse her, treating her like a stranger rather than a family member. At the age of ten Jane leaves her aunt's house and attends boarding school. It is at this school where she learns lessons of forgiveness and hope from a meek young woman named Helen Burns. Subsequently studying and teaching at the school for eight years Jane decides to become a governess at the mysterious Thornfield mansion. She falls in love with the owner of Thornfield and the two make plans to marry. Nonetheless on the day of there wedding Jane discovers that Mr. Rochester is already married and that he keeps his insane wife Bertha trapped away in the attic of Thornfield. Devastated by this information, Jane flees Thornfield and nearly dies from cold and starvation. Soon after she is taken in by the Rivers, two sisters and one brother. The passing of Jane's uncle reveals that she and the Rivers are cousins. It is also revealed that this uncle has left Jane all his fortune. This in turn leaves Jane extremely wealthy. Her cousin St. John Rivers ask Jane for his hand in marriage. However Jane comes to the conclusion that she still loves Mr. Rochester. After declining St. John's proposal Jane journeys back to Thornfield. When she arrives at Thornfield Jane discovers the mysterious mansion in burnt ruins. It is revealed that the

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

Gordon, Alan. "Dreams in Wide Sargasso Sea." Dreams in Wide Sargasso Sea. Victorian Web, 21 May 2004. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.

As the narrative moves into part II, Rochester takes over from Antoinette as narrator.  Also, the feelings of displacement and problems of identity are shifted onto him.  Rochester, at Granbois, experiences a complete lack of power normally exercised by the English gentleman, at once having to deal with the strange otherness of the West Indies and cope with the rejection by his father and brother.  According

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,

As a governess, Jane is shown the life of the luxurious. Mr. Rochester's mansion is overwhelming, and his parties are extravagant. Mr. Rochester speaks to her frequently, because he needs someone to listen to him. When Edward reveals to Jane his former cheating wife, she feels a connection to him on personal level. Jane has never felt this since her relationship with Helen Burns at Lowood. Jane becomes

The women in both novels endure a loss of personal freedom, both mental, and physical. Jane Eyre, in her blind infatuation with Mr. Rochester, allows her emotions to enslave her. She realizes her obsession when she states, "My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and

Wide Sargasso Sea is divided into three parts. Throughout the whole novel, gender discrimination is the most severe problem in Antoinette’s life and it mainly reflects the communication between Antoinette and Rochester. Rochester uses absolute European standard to measure all things he see in Jamaica. He thinks Antoinette’s appearance is attractive but it is strange to his England or European standard of beauty. It looks like Rochester regards Antoinette as a commodity instead of a woman. He makes comments on Antoinette’s appearance, which is very rude. Antoinette is like a toy for Rochester. She has to follow the orders of his husband. Rochester gets marriage with Antoinette, but he doesn’t love her at all. Just like he said, “The woman I am going to marry is meaningless to me. She has no relationship with

In his novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys gathers some events occurred in the famous novel the novel, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The purpose is to tell the readers an alternative tale. Rhys presents the wife of Mr. Rochester, who played the role of a secondary character in Jane Eyre. Also, the setting of this novel is Jamaica not England, and author develops the back-story for his major character. While spinning the novel, Jane Eyre, she gives her interpretation amid the narrative by addressing issues such as roles of women, colonization and racism that Bronte did not point out in her novel otherwise.

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