Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys as a postcolonial response to Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,00, University of Koblenz-Landau (Anglistik), course: Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures, language: English, abstract: Wide Sargasso Sea is one of the best-known literary postcolonial replies to the writing ofCharlotte Bronte and a brilliant deconstruction of what is known as the author's "worlding" inJane Eyre.1The novel written by Jean Rhys tells the story of Jane Eyre's protagonist, EdwardRochester. The plot takes place in West Indies where Rochester met his first wife, BerthaAntoinette Mason. Wide Sargasso Sea influences the common reading and understanding ofthe matrix novel, as it rewrites crucial parts of Jane Eyre.The heroine in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette Cosway, is created out of demonicand bestialic Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre. Rhys's great achievement in her re-writing of theBronte's text is her creation of a double to the madwoman from Jane Eyre. The heroine ofWide Sargasso Sea, the beautiful Antoinette Cosway, heiress of the post-emancipation fortuneis created out of the demonc and bestialic Bertha Mason. The author transforms the first MrsRochester into an individual figure whose madness is caused by imperialistic and patriarchaloppression.2The vision of Bertha/Antoinette as an insane offspring from a family plagued bymadness is no longer plausible to the reader.3In this essay I would like to focus the factorswhich led to the madness of the protagonist.Although Bertha Mason and Jane Eyre seem to be enemies and contradictory characters in theVictorian novel, many critics find several similarities between the two heroines, their life andfinally between Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea. Seeing Jane Eyre and Antoinette Coswayas sisters and doubles is very popular with some critics who dealt with the works of CharlotteBronte and Jean Rhys. Nevertheless, I would like to focus in this essay on GayatriChakravorty Spivak's criticism on viewing and interpreting the two heroines. GayatriChakravorty Spivak in her essay "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism"values also Jean Rhys for telling the story of Bertha Mason through the Creole perspective,but she criticises the author for marginalising the native inhabitants of West Indies.