How Does Wide Sargasso Sea Relate To Jane Eyre?

Wide Sargasso Sea is

both a response and a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre

, set in the West Indies and imagining the lives of Bertha Mason and her family. Bidisha describes how Jean Rhys’s novel portrays the racial and sexual exploitation at the heart of western civilisation and literature.

Do you need to read Jane Eyre to understand Wide Sargasso Sea?

Yes

, a reader of Wide Sargasso Sea who is unaware of its connection to Jane Eyre is pretty much guaranteed to have missed the entire point of the novel. Jane Eyre is so iconic that Rhys could simply assume knowledge of its plot while writing her own book.

Is Jane mentioned in Wide Sargasso Sea?

Jane Eyre is told in the first person

.

Wide Sargasso Sea

is told by different narrators; Antoinette, Grace Poole and Rochester in the main, although it also manipulates additional devices for making audible the voices of others.

What are the similarities between Jane and Bertha?

Alike to Jane,

Bertha has a passionate nature too

. At Jane’s first sight her appearance was described as “the fiery eye glared upon me-she thrust up her candle close to my face… I was aware of her lurid visage flamed over mine…”(p. 425) Bertha is described with the same fire as Jane is.

What is the meaning of Wide Sargasso Sea?

The title of the novel refers to the Sargasso Sea, a vast area of the northern Atlantic Ocean which is home to sargassum, a kind of seaweed. The Sargasso Sea is legendary for being

an oceanic black hole

, where ships get ensnared by huge forests of floating seaweed, or drift helplessly when the wind ceases to blow.

What are the themes of Wide Sargasso Sea?

Wide Sargasso Sea explores the power of relationships between men and women and discusses the themes of

race, Caribbean history, and assimilation

.

Why was Wide Sargasso Sea written?

Wide Sargasso Sea was written as

Rhys’s attempt to explain the character of Bertha Mason in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre

. Rhys wanted to explore the reasons why Bertha Mason went mad. In doing so, Rhys fills her story with conflict.

Why did Jean Rhys wrote Wide Sargasso Sea?

Rhys aims to restore this voice with her text. She intended Wide Sargasso

Sea to stand on its own

, apart from Brontë’s novel, as a challenge to the canon. … As a postcolonial work, the novel indicts England’s exploitative colonial empire, aligning its sympathies with the plight of the black Caribbeans.

Is Wide Sargasso Sea An adaptation of Jane Eyre?

Wide Sargasso Sea is a

British television adaptation

of Jean Rhys’s 1966 novel of the same name. … It was repeated on BBC One on Sunday, 22 October 2006, the week following the conclusion of BBC One’s adaptation of Jane Eyre, to which Wide Sargasso Sea is a prequel.

Is Bertha Mason black?

She is

a Creole

, the daughter of a white European settler in the West Indies.

Why does Rochester call her Bertha?

Rochester refers to Antoinette as “Bertha” as

a way of ensuring that she surrenders into his idea of a woman, as opposed to who she truly is

. … ‘ Rochester begins to refer to Antoinette as “Bertha” to try to bury her personality and beliefs under a separate name.

Is Bertha Mason insane?

Bertha Antoinetta Rochester (née Mason) is a fictional character in Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre. She is described as

the violently insane first wife of Edward Rochester

, who moved her to Thornfield Hall and locked her in a room on the third floor.

Is Wide Sargasso Sea a feminist text?

Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea displays many of the same feminist themes as Jane Eyre: its emphasis on female characters, the refusal to conform, and new ideas about the woman’s position in society. But Wide Sargasso Sea also distinguishes

itself as a uniquely feminist text

through its objections to Jane Eyre.

How does Jane Eyre describe Bertha Mason?

Bertha Mason is Edward Rochester’s first wife from Spanish Town, Jamaica. Jane describes her as

“purple…the lips swelled and dark”

, “savage” with “thick and dark hair” and altogether reminiscent of a vampire (270).

How is Bertha Mason presented in Jane Eyre?

Bertha Mason is a complex presence in Jane Eyre.

She impedes Jane’s happiness, but she also catalyses the growth of Jane’s self-understanding

. … Further, Bertha serves as a remnant and reminder of Rochester’s youthful libertinism. Yet Bertha can also be interpreted as a symbol.

What race is Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea?

As

a white Creole

, she straddles the European world of her ancestors and the Caribbean culture into which she is born. Left mainly to her own devices as a child, Antoinette turns inward, finding there a world that can be both peaceful and terrifying.

How does Wide Sargasso Sea End?

One night, she wakes from this dream and feels she must act on it. The novel

ends with Antoinette holding a candle and walking down from her upstairs prison.

What is the storyline of Jane Eyre?

The novel follows the story of Jane,

a seemingly plain and simple girl as she battles through life’s struggles

. Jane has many obstacles in her life – her cruel and abusive Aunt Reed, the grim conditions at Lowood school, her love for Rochester and Rochester’s marriage to Bertha.

How is identity presented in Wide Sargasso Sea?

In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys deals with identity through two major characters:

Antoinette and her husband, Rochester

. … Through this exploration, Rhys explores the idea that identity is both something that is inherited and acquired.

What are the themes of Jane Eyre?

• Love, Family, and Independence. As an orphan at Gateshead, Jane is oppressed and dependent. …
• Social Class and Social Rules. …
• Gender Roles. …
• Religion. …
• Feeling vs. …
• The Spiritual and the Supernatural.

How does Wide Sargasso Sea control styles of communication?

Language in Wide Sargasso Sea isn’t just a medium for communicating thoughts and feelings, but

a social force that actually shapes the fates of the characters

. It marks a character’s place in society, as when the black characters use a dialect of English that sounds broken or even obscene to the white characters.

Who is famous for black magic in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea?

Obeah: The use of Black Magic in

Jean Rhys’

Wide Sargasso Sea.

Is Wide Sargasso Sea a tragedy?

Jean Rhys’ novel, ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ is a story that has many themes but

tragedy seems to be consistent throughout the novel

. … Death is the most common cause of tragedy in the novel. Other tragedies exist in the form of neglect, alienation, impact of slavery, and insanity.

How is Wide Sargasso Sea postmodern?

Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea proves to be a postmodern/postcolonial critique of the rhetoric of contemporary English nationalism and Caribbean creoleness. … It’s defined as a movement with a

theme critiquing objective rationality and identity in literature and culture

.

How is Wide Sargasso Sea a postcolonial novel?

Wide Sargasso Sea is a

postcolonial re-writing which questions and challenges the colonialist representations

. Rhys presents the colonized people in the Caribbean and how they define themselves, and moreover, how they are defined by others due to the colonialist social structures.

What is the historical context of Wide Sargasso Sea?

Wide Sargasso Sea, though, is

set in the late 1830s and the 1840s

. Rhys’s choice of historical setting enables her to draw on and try to work her way through planter class and Lockhart family mythology about the economic and social impact of the abolition of slavery.

Why does Mr Rochester marry Bertha?

Unwilling to divide his property, Rochester’s father left his entire estate to his other son, Rowland, and sent Rochester to Jamaica to marry Bertha, who was

to inherit a massive fortune

—30,000 pounds. … Bertha’s younger brother was a mute idiot.

Why is Mr Rochester blind?

Rochester saved his servants and tried to save his wife, but she flung herself from the roof as the fire raged around her. In the fire,

Rochester lost a hand and went blind

. He has taken up residence in a house called Ferndean, located deep in the forest, with John and Mary, two elderly servants.

What did Jane Eyre look like?

Jane Eyre is described as plain,

with an elfin look

. Jane describes herself as, “poor, obscure, plain and little.” Mr. Rochester once compliments Jane’s “hazel eyes and hazel hair”, but she informs the reader that Mr. Rochester was mistaken, as her eyes are not hazel; they are in fact green.

What is the setting of the novel Wide Sargasso Sea?

The setting of Wide Sargasso Sea moves from the

lush, tropical, natural world of the Caribbean to the bleak “Great House” in England

. The novel is set first in Jamaica at an estate called Coulibri, near the former capital of Jamaica, Spanish Town.

What is the setting of Wide Sargasso Sea?

1830s Coulibri, near Spanish Town, Jamaica

; 1840s Granbois, near Massacre, Dominica; and Thornfield Hall, England. While the novel never gives us the exact year, we know that the novel is set in Jamaica at some point after 1834.

Who is called madwoman in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea?

Wide Sargasso Sea is a postcolonial novel by Jean Rhys, published in 1966. It gives readers an alternative view of Charlotte Brönte’s Jane Eyre, written from the perspective of

Bertha (or Antoinette, as she is known in this novel)

– Rochester’s ‘mad’ wife who lives in the attic of Thornfield Hall.

What is a feminist response to Jane Eyre?

Who is Mr Rochester in Wide Sargasso Sea?

Mr. Rochester,

Antoinette’s young husband

, narrates more than a third of the novel, telling, in his own words, the story of Antoinette’s mental downfall. His arrival in Jamaica and his arranged marriage to Antoinette is prefigured in the first part of the novel by the appearance of Mr.

Does Rochester Love Antoinette?

While at first wary,

Antoinette eventually grows to trust Rochester and they consummate their marriage

. Their relationship cools when Rochester receives a letter slandering Antoinette and her family.

What illness does Bertha Mason have?

Mason suffered from a progressive and familial psychiatric illness with violent movements. We hypothesize that Mason’s character had features of

Huntington disease

, as she fulfills the tenets put forth by Huntington in his seminal essay.

How does Rochester actually feel about Antoinette?

Rochester can be seen as an oppressor, as a husband who wants to dominate his wife.

He treats Antoinette as a colonial object and muddles her identity

. The marriage of Antoinette and Mr. Rochester never experiences or even reaches a happy state.

Is Grace Poole Bertha Mason?

Grace Poole is

Bertha Mason’s keeper at Thornfield

, whose drunken carelessness frequently allows Bertha to escape. When Jane first arrives at Thornfield, Mrs. Fairfax attributes to Grace all evidence of Bertha’s misdeeds.

How does Jane Eyre end?

After having a vision of Rochester, Jane returns to Thornfield to discover that Bertha has burned the mansion down, leaving Rochester blind and disfigured. With

Bertha dead, Jane agrees to marry Rochester

. This ending culminates Jane’s quest for stability and happiness.

Why is Jane Eyre a classic?

Jane Eyre is considered a classic

because it goes against the social norms of the time period

. Jane is no Ophelia – she’s a complicated, remarkable character, and a very strong female character in a genre that usually draws women as beautiful victims at best. Jane is headstrong and very independent.