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Recommended: Treatment of women in literature

Antoinette Cosway Mason Rochester is the narrator of part of her story, a young girl living in Jamaica. By the end of the novel Antoinette becomes immersed in hysteria, biting her husband, stabbing visitors, and yelling and screaming. The gossip coming from the town and her own husband, Rochester, believes that Antoinette's hysteria is due to bad blood from her mother. “Is your wife herself going the same way as her mother and all knowing it?” The neighbor writes to Rochester (Rhys, 164). Antoinette's mother had tried to kill her husband, and was sent away until she finally died from a cause unknown to Antoinette. It was believed that this lunacy was hereditary. The blame of Antoinette's hysteria is most always on her mother, but what about her father? The blame should be placed on both Antoinette's fathers who were absent in her life or rejecting her. The final straw for Antoinette's sanity is when her husband Rochester rejected her mirroring the rejection from her two fathers. Antoinette Cosway Mason Rochester's ultimate insanity was due to her dual paternal rejection and lack of a father figure. The blame should no longer be placed on her mother but on her father's instead. If she had a solid father figure and role model, somebody to protect her and give her advice Antoinette would have lived a normal and happy life with her husband.
The father figure in Nineteenth century England was an important one. It is different than what is expected today but the father still played a large role in a daughter’s life.” Advice of a Father to his Only Daughter” was found in an English Newsletter and was written from a father to his daughter directly after her marriage. The Father gave advice such as never attempt to control or displease you...

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...ving a father figure in her life. Her final rejection by her husband puts her into a state that she cannot come out of which leads to her hysterical end. Antoinette's life ends with a dream which becomes her reality. Antoinette sneaks out of the prison she is held captive in. She sets fire to a church-like room and climbs upward. She is on the roof and wants to jump. She sees her life flashing before her eyes. She sees her pet parrot, her childhood friend, Aunt Cora's quilts and a burning tree from the garden she found as a safe haven. She sees nothing that resembles her father. She hears Rochester call her Bertha- a name she despised- a name that she would have never been given if she had the guidance of a father. At her last moments of death she does not find peace with the absence of a paternal figure, but it becomes clearer how her life fell apart because of it.

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