The Madwoman In The Attic And Jane Eyre

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 madwoman in the attic and 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. 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. The real life attic that was the inspiration for a section of jane eyre where mentally ill character bertha mason is confined before she commits suicide is now open to the public. Gilbert and gubar draw their title from charlotte brontë s jane eyre in which rochester s wife is kept secretly locked in an attic apartment by her husband.

In jane eyre bertha eventually burns down thornfield and dies by suicide. In jane eyre the character of bertha mason serves as an ominous representation of uncontrollable passion and madness. The madwoman in the attic the most well known and problematic character in jane eyre is rochester s first wife who is almost always referred to by her maiden name of bertha mason. The woman writer and the nineteenth century literary imagination is a 1979 book by sandra gilbert and susan gubar in which they examine victorian literature from a feminist perspective.