What aspects of Charlotte Bronte's

What aspects of Charlotte Bronte's

What aspects of Charlotte Bronte's depiction and use of the character

of Bertha Mason are most clearly illuminated by Jean Rhys' depiction

and use of her parallel character of Antoinette?

In Wide Sargasso Sea, written by Jean Rhys in the 1960’s, is a radical

critique of the context of English Imperialism and male dominated

society within which Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre. In order to

both expose and oppose the parallels inherent in Jane Eyre, Rhys

intertwines in her novel the two reading positions of feminist and

postcolonialist criticism.

Rhys demonstrates how both social and narrative conventions mandate

that certain categories of women must be devalued if other categories

of women are to assume importance. She does this by exposing to the

reader how Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre, in order for her reader to

give Jane an assumed importance, devalued by the Creole character

Bertha; showing her to be made and giving us Jane’s description of her

as “[she] seemed…a woman… [she] reminded me… [of] the foul German

Spectre – the vampire” and Rochester’s comment that “the lunatic is

both cunning and malignant.”

Rhys, it seems was politically inspired to rewrite Jane Eyre and write

back to the empire. Wide Sargasso Sea is a prequel to Jane Eyre which

was written British Empire was at its peak. Jane Eyre was a

representation of England to the English. Rhys decided to write back,

because of being of white West Indian descent herself, she was

offended by the representation of the mad Creole in the novel.

Although Rhys says that she is not a conscious feminist her novels are

always written from a female perspective and in Wide Sargasso Sea, the

male character is exposed...

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... express and put

forward quite assertively. Christophine in particular, is not afraid

to tell Antoinette’s husband exactly how she feels towards him/ On

page 132 for example, Christophine says ‘I tell her so’…always it

don’t work for beke. Always it bring trouble…so you send me away and

you keep all her money. And what you do with her?” and later on

further exposes and questions assumptions and values that Antoinette’s

husband when she tells him “Read and write I don’t know. Other things

I know.”

So we can see the many ways in which Rhys uses the intersections of

feminist and postcolonialist reading positions and criticism to expose

certain aspects of character. Whether it be through two narrators,

leaving one unnamed, showing many different sides to a story and

emphasising and exposing the otherness of each are amongst many other

narrative strategies.