Both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea utilize point of view to reflect meaning within the texts. Charlotte Bronte chose to stick with one narrator in Jane Eyre and chronicled her journey to self discover and finding the love she desired for much of her life. On the flip side, Jean Rhys switched perspectives multiple times in Wide Sargasso Sea but has a similar story of a woman and her struggle to find herself and her yearning to be loved. Both authors created masterful pieces that transcend generations in their messages and themes, but they went about them in different ways, creating unique works of art.
In Jane Eyre, the sole narrator is Jane, a spirited young girl battling family hardship as she flourishes into a respectable woman. From the beginning of the story, Jane is a reliable narrator who seems to tell things as she sees them, adding in her own comments from time to time but sticking to what seemed to be her truth, however horrible it was. With this said, her limits as a narrator are shown when she describes her situation in detail but rarely allows the reader to delve deeper into her feelings towards what is going on. For example when she lies down with Helen as she is dying, a very emotional event is described with precision rather than passion. She writes “When I awoke it was day: an unusual movement roused me… I learned that Ms. Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had found me laid in a little crib; my face against Helen Burns’s shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was—dead.” (Bronte 84-85) Clearly, Helen meant a great deal to Jane and her loss had a lasting effect on Jane’s life, yet the way she described the situation was measured and polite. Other than the occasional witty a...
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...tween Rochester and Antoinette requiring the reader to discover when point of view switched. Rhys took this unique approach to her story to get across a similar message of what oppression against women and the deprivation of love in one’s life can do to a person. Antoinette’s impassioned point of view allowed the reader to see into her soul adding to the story, but the reader lacks the trust in the narrator that they have in Jane Eyre.
Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea have similar messages told through women’s journey to self-discovery. The differing points of view give the stories unique qualities but both discuss the harsh reality oppression in all of its forms and the need for love that every human has. Jean Rhys and Charlotte Bronte beautifully share the stories of women in a time of oppression, giving women and all who are discriminated against a voice.
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.
In the novel Jane Eyre, it narrates the story of a young, orphaned girl. The story begins shortly after Jane walk around Gateshead Hall and evolves within the different situations she face growing up. During Jane’s life the people she encounter has impact her growth and the character she has become.
In the novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte shows us that all people have a feeling inside of them to recognizing what their personal desires and what their duty to others is. In Jane Eyre, the endless theme of unforgettable war between a passion and responsibility always appears, with a strong set of principles Jane is able to decide what is right. Throw out the book Charlotte Bronte show us that Jane’s integrity to her self is more important than what anybody else thinks of her. Duty and desire plays a huge role in which Jane has to learn to control her desire of her anger outburst and her duty to herself.
In Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jane encounters several characters during the stages of her life. Some of the characters appear in more than one stage of her life such as Mrs Reed, Bessie, and Rochester. There are other characters who are only there for her for a short period of time such as St John, Miss Temple, and Helen Burns. Although these characters are only in Jane’s life for a short time, they each have a great impact on Jane, especially Jane’s encounter with Helen at the Lowood Institution. Helen Burns makes a grave impact on Jane’s life, at Lowood and continuing on for the rest of her life.
Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, was published in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Company, in London. This year is exactly ten years into Queen Victoria’s sixty-four year reign of the British Empire. The Victorian Era was renowned for its patriarchal Society and definition by class. These two things provide vital background to the novel, as Jane suffers from both. Jane Eyre relates in some ways to Brontë’s own life, as its original title suggest, “Jane Eyre: An Autobiography”. Charlotte Brontë would have suffered from too, as a relatively poor woman. She would have been treated lowly within the community. In fact, the book itself was published under a pseudonym of Currer Bell, the initials taken from Brontë’s own name, due to the fact that a book published by a woman was seen as inferior, as they were deemed intellectually substandard to men. Emily Brontë, Charlotte’s sister, was also forced to publish her most famous novel, Wuthering Heights, under the nom de plume of Ellis Bell, again taking the initials of her name to form her own alias. The novel is a political touchstone to illustrate the period in which it was written, and also acts as a critique of the Victorian patriarchal society.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre chronicles the growth of her titular character from girlhood to maturity, focusing on her journey from dependence on negative authority figures to both monetary and psychological independence, from confusion to a clear understanding of self, and from inequality to equality with those to whom she was formerly subject. Originally dependent on her Aunt Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester, she gains independence through her inheritance and teaching positions. Over the course of the novel, she awakens towards self-understanding, resulting in contentment and eventual happiness. She also achieves equality with the important masculine figures in her life, such as St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester, gaining self-fulfillment as an independent, fully developed equal.
Jean Rhys obviously had Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre in mind while writing Wide Sargasso Sea. Each novel contains events that echo other events or themes in the other. The destruction of Coulibri at the beginning of Wide Sargasso Sea reminds the reader of the fire at Thornfield towards the end of Jane Eyre. While each scene refers to events in its own book and clarifies events in its companion, one cannot conclude that Rhys simply reconstructed Thornfield's fall in Coulibri's. Though they exhibit some similarities, to directly compare these two scenes without considering their impact on the novels as whole works would be ridiculous. Each scene's main importance, and contribution to the overall intertextual meaning, lies elsewhere in the two works, not simply within the confines of the scenes themselves.
While an artist uses a variety of colors and brushes to create a portrait, Charlotte Bronte used contrasting characters and their vivid personalities to create a masterpiece of her own. In her novel Jane Eyre, Bronte uses narration and her characters to portray the struggle between a society’s Victorian realism and the people’s repressed urges of Romanticism.
...ing novels of their time. They both revise aspects of their era, that would rarely, if ever, have been touched on. Wide Sargasso Sea having the double revision of challenging Jane Eyre, as well as social beliefs. “The devices that connect the two texts also rupture the boundary between them. Although this rupture completes Rhys’ text, it results in a breakdown of the integrity of Bronte’s.” As much as Bronte’s text was revolutionary of her time, so too was Rhys’. Time changed and what was once revolutionary became simplified and unbelievable. The fact remains, that without Jane Eyre, there would be no Wide Sargasso Sea, the two text’s are mutually exclusive, and just as revolutionary now as when they were written.
The novel, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, has a plot that is filled with an extraordinary amount of problems. Or so it seems as you are reading it. However, it comes to your attention after you have finished it, that there is a common thread running throughout the book. There are many little difficulties that the main character, the indomitable Jane Eyre, must deal with, but once you reach the end of the book you begin to realize that all of Jane's problems are based around one thing. Jane searches throughout the book for love and acceptance, and is forced to endure many hardships before finding them. First, she must cope with the betrayal of the people who are supposed to be her family - her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her children, Eliza, Georgiana, and John. Then there is the issue of Jane's time at Lowood School, and how Jane goes out on her own after her best friend leaves. She takes a position at Thornfield Hall as a tutor, and makes some new friendships and even a romance. Yet her newfound happiness is taken away from her and she once again must start over. Then finally, after enduring so much, during the course of the book, Jane finally finds a true family and love, in rather unexpected places.
Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre depicts the passionate love Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester have for each other, and as Bertha Mason stands in the way of the happiness of Brontë's heroine, the reader sees Mason as little more than a villainous demon and a raving lunatic. Jean Rhys' serves as Mason's defendant, as the author's 1966 novella Wide Sargasso Sea, a prequel to Jane Eyre, seeks to explore and explain Bertha's (or Antoinette Cosway's) descent into madness. Rhys rejects the notion that Antoinette has been born into a family of lunatics and is therefore destined to become one herself. Instead, Rhys suggests that the Cosways are sane people thrown into madness as a result of oppression. Parallels are drawn between Jane and Antoinette in an attempt to win the latter the reader's sympathy and understanding. Just as they did in Jane Eyre, readers of Wide Sargasso Sea bear witness to a young woman's struggle to escape and overcome her repressive surroundings. Brontë makes heavy use of the motif of fire in her novel and Rhys does the same in Wide Sargasso Sea. In Rhys' novella, fire represents defiance in the face of oppression and the destructive nature of this resistance.
Moseley goes on to say, “Liberty and love are in some way at war in the lives of all of us.” It is not until Jane reaches personal liberation, that she is capable of loving someone else to a full extent. Throughout Jane Eyre Jane must learn how to gain love without sacrificing herself in the process. Orphaned at an early age, Jane becomes used to a lackluster lifestyle without any true value. It is not until she finds love and comfort in her friends at Lowood that her life begins to turn around. Upon meeting Rochester, Jane’s life was only as plain as she made it. She untwines in a world wind romance, ultimately finding the love she craved without losing her self-value.
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 setting. 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. The female other has been portrayed as intensely alienated while grows knowing that their actions are subject to ridicule, rumor,
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is a novel about a woman, Jane, moving from place to place on a path to find her own feeling of independence. Throughout her journey, Jane encounters many obstacles to her intelligence. Male dominance proves to be the biggest obstruction at each stop of Jane's journey. As Jane progressed through the novel her emotional growth was primarily supported by the people and the places she was around. This examination will look for textual support from different sections of Jane Eyre to review how Jane had grown emotionally and intellectually as she moved from location to location, as well as looking at critical analysis from Bronte critics as to how each location plays a role in Jane’s progression.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre represents the role of women in the Victorian era by giving the reader an insight into the lives of women from all social classes. Jane Eyre therefore represents figures of the Victorian time yet the character of Jane Eyre, herself, can be seen as very unconventional for the Victorian society.