Wide Sargasso Sea

9 Pages 2128 Words

Charlotte Bronte and Jean Rhys composed their novels in different centuries and came from very different backgrounds. However despite these disparities the use of symbolism in their narratives can be compared. Jean Rhys's 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea is a creative response to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, a nineteenth century classic, which has always been one of English Literature's greatest and most popular love stories.
She seemed such a poor ghost, I thought I'd like to write her a life. [Jean Rhys]
Jane Eyre is a story of true love that encounters many obstacles and problems, but surmounts these troubles to fulfil destiny. The main source of trouble is Rochester's insane first wife, Bertha Mason, a lunatic Creole who is locked in the attic of his country house, Thornfield Hall. The problem is eventually solved, tragically, when Bertha escapes and burns Thornfield to the ground, killing herself and seriously maiming Rochester in the process. The social and moral imbalances between Jane and Rochester are then equalled by his punishment for his previous actions, and Jane's rise in status due to an inheritance.

This ending, however, did not satisfy the Dominican-born Jean Rhys. She disagreed with Bronte's presentation of Bertha Mason and set out to write 'a colonial story that is absent from Bronte's text'. Rhys's story tells the story of Bertha, and relates Bertha and Rochester's meeting, and their doomed marriage.

In Wide Sargasso Sea Rhys shifts the perspective on Jane Eyre by expressing the viewpoints of the different characters in the source material, so taking a different structural approach to the first-person narrative technique employed by Bronte. She wrote her version as a multiple narrative, giving Bertha a previously-unheard voice. Rochester, even though un-named in Wide Sargasso Sea, takes over the narration in part two, and Grace Poole enlightens us at the opening of part three. Rhys can be seen as repaying Bron...