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Themes in jane eyre
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Trapped in the Red Room:
A Look into the Mind of the Original Mrs. Rochester
“One is very crazy when in love” (Freud). Freud made this statement nearly one hundred years ago. As one of the founders of modern psychology what would he have to say about the mad woman in the attic? Was she mad, in love, suffering from hysteria, or simply a product of nature versus nurture? Neither of which were very kind to her. In Jane Eyre we as the readers are presented with a singular perspective in nearly true to form autobiographical narrative. From Jane’s viewpoint and from a mid 19th century depiction of mental illness, the original Mrs. Rochester is hardly a person to sympathize with. Yet there is much more to this tale that is desperately begging to be told. Jean Rhys took up this challenge and presents an alternate perspective of this misguided and misunderstood woman. Through the use of differing points of view told through the eyes of the young Edward Rochester and Antoinette Cosway the enigma of the mysterious woman in the attic comes together like a puzzle. This essay will examine the aspects of theme and narrative mode in both Jane Eyre and the Wide Sargasso Sea as well as analyze the importance those literary techniques play on shaping the reader’s understanding of these pivotal characters.
“Nature meant me to be, on the whole a good man Miss Eyre; one of the better end” (Bronte 128). Mr. Rochester is nearly as enigmatic as Bertha for much of Jane Eyre. Impatient, abrupt, brutally candid and very clearly cynical, these are his traits. Yet, in one passage he hints at the man he used to be. “A good man” he says, and one whose mindset paralleled the naïve yet feisty Jane Eryre. “I was your equal at eighteen – quite your equal.” (Bro...
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...d. ThinkExist.com. Web. April 1 2014.
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Norton Paperback Ed. W. W. Norton & Company Inc, New
York, New York. 1982, Print
Welles, Orson. Brainyquote.com. Web. April 2 2014.
Works Cited
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Dover Thrift Ed. Crawford, Thomas, Negri, Paul. Dover
Publications. Meneloa, New York: 2002, Print.
Freud, Sigmund. ThinkExist.com. Web. April 1 2014.
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Norton Paperback Ed. W. W. Norton & Company Inc, New
York, New York. 1982, Print
Welles, Orson. Brainyquote.com. Web. April 2 2014.
Jane Eyre’s inner struggle over leaving an already married Rochester is the epitome of the new "lovemad" woman in nineteenth-century literature. Jane Eyre is the story of a lovemad woman who has two parts to her personality (herself and Bertha Mason) to accommodate this madness. Charlotte Bronte takes the already used character of the lovemad woman and uses her to be an outlet for the confinement that comes from being in a male-dominated society. Jane has to control this madness, whereas the other part of her personality, her counterpart, Bertha Mason, is able to express her rage at being caged up. As what it means to be insane was changing during Bronte’s time, Bronte changed insanity in literature so that it is made not to be a weakness but rather a form of rebellion. Jane ultimately is able to overcome her lovemadness through sheer force of her will.
Jane Eyre is born into a world where she is left bereft of the love of parents, family, or friends, but instead surrounded by hateful relatives. She resolves to attend school to begin her quest for independence. This theme is seen through Jane’s behavior when she renounces her relation to her aunt Mrs. Reed, ignoring the nurse’s orders and leaving her room to see Helen again, and when she acquires the courage to speak her opinion to Mr. Rochester.
The rake became one of the most recognized figures of the Restoration Comedies. The rake character was seen as unmarried, cynical, coarse but with the manners of a gentleman, manipulative and self serving. By the twentieth century the rake had given away to the Regency dandy and the dark Byronic hero of Victorian literature. However, the rake does not completely disappear from twentieth century novels. Charlotte Bronte resurrects the Restoration hero in the creation of Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre. Edward Rochester exhibits many of the qualities associated with the Restoration rake; he manipulates the woman around him and his actions are self serving. Bronte’s rake varies just enough that she can present her character as both hero and villain which eventually allows for his reformation.
In conclusion, Jane Eyre’s painstaking journey to find a sense of acceptance, affection, and family was finally completed, attaining the things she yearned. She eventually discovered everything she was searching for through Mr. Rochester, forgetting her agonizing past and looking to what was ahead. As Jane looked for many different alternatives to make her feel as if she was complete, she found that Mr. Rochester was the only one who could make her feel
Sarvan, Charles. ¡§Flight, Entrapment, and Madness in Jean Rhys¡¦ Wide Sargasso Sea.¡¨ The International Fiction Review. Vol 26.1&2:1999:82-96.
Jane Eyre, the female lead of Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, in several customs exemplifies the traditional womanlike character of nineteenth century literature, but in others, she disrupts the frame abruptly and deliberately. Her physical characteristics unaccompanied challenge all undeclared rules portrayed by different authors of the time. While confined in the red room of her Aunt Reed’s mansion, Jane stares into the viewing glass and labels herself as a “strange little figure…with a white face and arms speckling the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still” (Brontë 20). In the same passage, she accounts for her features as being “half fairy, half imp” (Brontë 20). In nineteenth century fiction novels, “fairies” were
When reading Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, I find myself cheering for Rochester. After finishing the book, I ask myself why Jane chooses Rochester over St. John. After all, Rochester has a "mad" wife, Bertha Mason, locked in the attic of Thornfield Hall at the same time that he is proposing marriage to Jane. He has a ward living with him, possibly the offspring of an illicit affair with a French dancer. He is arrogant, pushy, and basically ill-tempered. St. John, on the other hand, is well mannered, respected, and has a promising future. To answer my own question, then, it is essential to look at how each man fits the idea of masculinity in Victorian society, at how each man relates to Jane, and at why Bronte creates her two leading men to be such extreme opposites.
the history of our mission to conquer the underwater world.” Geographical Aug. 2005:54+. Student Edition. 3 Nov. 2009 .
-Ellen G Friedman, Breaking the Master Narrative: Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, in Breaking the Sequence: Women’s Experimental Fiction. Princeton University Press, 1989,
"Oceans." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 8 May 2014.
In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys confronts the possibility of another side to Jane Eyre. The story of Bertha, the first Mrs Rochester, Wide Sargasso Sea is not only a brilliant deconstruction of Brontë's legacy, but is also a damning history of colonialism in the Caribbean.
For the rioters, Coco the parrot, and Antoinette, fire offers an instrument of escape from and rebellion against the oppressive actions of their respective captors. Wide Sargasso Sea takes place shortly after the emancipation of Jamaican slaves. Annette's husbands, first Alexander Cosway and then Mr. Mason, have both profited immorally off of the exploitation of black Jamaicans. Unsurprisingly, the former slaves feel great hatred towards the Cosways--- hatred that boils over when the ex-slaves set fire to Annette's house (35). The significance of th...
The novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys were produced at different times in history. Indeed, they were created in different centuries and depicted extensively divergent political, social and cultural settings. Despite their differences, the two novels can be compared in the presentation of female otherness, childhood, and the elements that concern adulthood. Indeed, these aspects have been depicted as threatening the female other in the society. The female other has been perceived as an unfathomable force that is demonic in nature but respects these enigmatic threatening characters.
Women, in all classes, were still living in a world which was misogynistic and male-dominated. Their purpose in life was to produce male heirs and maintain the home by hiring and overseeing servants. It was also taboo for one to marry significantly below one’s social class. This is one reason that Jane is not a conventional heroine for the society of her time. Although, as a governess, she is not considered to be as low as a housemaid, she is still part of the hired help in the house. This is why it is unconventional for her and Mr Rochester to be in a relationship. Yet this is not as peculiar as how Jane Eyre ends their relationship due to her sense of betrayal. It would have been considered extremely foolish for a working-woman’s sense of betrayal to end and turn down a man of great wealth.