Being a fan of literature, I have always been very interested in the 19th century British literature. I am a big fan of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. Therefore, I have read “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë several times. However, I was terribly mistaken. In this essay, I will prove that I had not finished reading “Jane Eyre” until I finished reading “Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys.
“Wide Sargasso Sea” tells the story of Antoinette Cosway, the caribbean woman Mr. Rochester married in “Jane Eyre”. It tells the story of her life, narrated by different characters, and how she became the “mad” woman in the attic. I could see in the novel that she was a neglected child whose only shelters were nature and Christophine, her nurse. However, when Mr. Rochester showed up, she began to feel more protected and loved mainly because she had somebody to talk to and someone to have sex with. In the novel, we could see that Mr. Rochester had never loved her: “It was all very brightly coloured, very strange, but it meant nothing to me. Nor did she, the girl I was to marry. When at last I met her I bowed, smiled, kissed her hand, danced with her. I play the part I was expected to play. She never had anything to do with me at all.” (Rhys, 1992) This quote explains how he never appreciated the island; therefore, he could never appreciate Antoinette because she was the island. The novel finishes when they are in England and she is already under the care of Grace Poole.
“Jane Eyre” tells the story of Jane Eyre, her childhood and her youth and how she found love in Thornfield Hall with Mr. Rochester. In “Jane Eyre” Mr. Rochester is already of some age and he already had his “mad” wife in the attic. In this novel the wife’s name is Bertha Mason and at the end she sets the house on fire and kills herself. When Mr. Rochester explains how he met her he says:
“Well, he (Rochester’s father) hated the idea of dividing the family property, so he left it all to my elder brother. But that meant I would be poor unless I married a rich wife, so he decided I should marry Bertha Mason, the daughter of his wealthy friend Jonas Mason. I was young and easily impressed so when I saw her in the West Indies, beautiful and elegantly dressed, I thought I loved her… After the wedding I learned that my bride’s mother and younger brother were both mad… I soon found out that Bertha and I had nothing in common.” (Brontë, 2000)
When I read “Jane Eyre” I was always thinking poor Mr. Rochester who was deceived into marrying a woman from the Caribbean who was crazy like her mother. When Antoinette attacked him by setting fire to his room, I thought about this unfortunate man who could never be happy because he was linked to a wife who will never allow him to be happy. When he was going to marry Jane Eyre and the ceremony was interrupted because the brother, Richard Mason arrived to speak the truth about Mr. Rochester and Bertha Mason (Antoinette), he felt he lost everything: “I’ve been waiting for you all this time, Jane, he said. And I haven’t heard you scream or shout or cry. Aren’t you angry with me? I never meant to hurt you. Will you ever forgive me?” (Brontë, 2000) At the end, the “mad wife” sets the house on fire and Jane Eyre is told by a servant: “I was one of Mr. Rochester’s servant at the time, and I can tell you it was his mad wife who started the fire in the governess’ room… in the fire the master risked his life helping all the servants out of the house, then bravely went back to save the mad woman. We saw her jump from the roof and fall to her death…because he went back to help her, he was badly injured in the fire, losing a hand and the sight of both eyes.” (Brontë, 2000) Charlotte Brontë provided several reasons for us to feel sorry for Mr. Rochester, that is the reason that explained my compassion towards this unfortunate character, but Jean Rhys provided arguments to stop feeling sorry for him.
When I read “Wide Sargasso Sea” I changed my mind. Although he was somehow forced to marry her, his actions were not noble. He, soon after they were married, stopped loving her, the way she wanted: “Why do you hate me? She said I do not hate you, I am most distressed about you, I am distraught, I said. Then, why do you never come near me? She said. Or kiss me or talk to me.” (Rhys, 1992) This quote proves that there was a break on their relationship and this affected her in an unimaginable manner. Christophine was there at her side curing her thirst for a man who did not want her anymore.
As I could see it, Mr. Rochester is not the unfortunate character he was on “Jane Eyre”, but a man who represents the colonial power on “Wide Sargasso Sea”. After reading Jean Rhys’ master piece I could understand that nothing is ever black or white. There are always shades which can be very helpful when someone is trying to understand a novel such as “Jane Eyre” or “Wide Sargasso Sea”. These two authors portrayed their characters very differently which can be explained, in my point of view, as the different circumstances under which these women wrote the pieces. To conclude, I finished reading “Jane Eyre” when I read the word: passage. The last word of “Wide Sargasso Sea”.
Bibliography
1) Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
2) Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1992.
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