The Mad Woman In The Attic And Jane Eyre

The 1966 parallel novel wide sargasso sea by jean rhys serves as a prequel to brontë s novel.

The mad woman in the attic and jane eyre.

It is the story of mason from the time of her youth in the caribbean to her unhappy marriage and relocation to england. I have read and re read jane eyre many times and i m embarrassed to admit that i had never paid much attention to this spectre of a woman lurking in the shadows until much later in life. 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. One of the most fascinating characters in literature is the mysterious mad woman confined to an attic in jane eyre.

Her life turns upside down when she discovers right before her wedding that her lover has an ex wife a madwoman hidden in the attic and flees narrowly escaping from committing to a sinful relationship. Rhys s novel re imagines brontë s devilish. In some ways brontë s decision to merge the identities of the angel and the monster in the two primary female characters of her novel can be seen as a personal statement about the conflict between passion and passivity in her own life. A nuisance and an impediment to this beautiful love story between jane eyre and mr.

One the one hand brontë s madwoman is a tragic figure a literary manifestation of jane s own feelings of oppression. Jane eyre revolves around the life of a simple plain yet intelligent orphaned girl who struggles with internal and external battles before she comes to accept that she loves her employer mr rochester who is double her age and from an upper class background. The first and most important point to make about her is that within the time span of the novel she is unable to give an account of herself. Bertha mason is a fictional character in charlotte brontë s 1847 novel jane eyre.