Feminism versus Feminism: a comparative analysis of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea

Abstract

[Abstract] The purpose of this end-of-degree project is to analyze and compare Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason and Antoinette Cosway —the three main female characters of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea—, as well as their representation in their stories, with a focus on the topic of madness. Both these novels were written by feminist writers Charlotte Brontë and Jean Rhys respectively. This essay focusses on the similarities and differences between them and what makes them the two sides of the same coin. To conduct this research, I have read both books and many different essays including the crucial work of Gilbert and Gubar The Madwoman in The Attic. With many different points of view, I superposed them and wrote down a general understanding of this topic. As a result of this research, I could find that the idea of Bertha as a madwoman was indeed not as correct as the novel Jane Eyre made us believe. Thanks to Jean Rhys’ work we can realize that Bertha was the product of a woman that had an abusive life—both in her childhood and her adulthood—that led her into a spiral of lunacy and incomprehension. This implies that Bertha was not only a victim of a patriarchal society, but also the monster of a feminist writer.