Gender in Bronte and Rhy

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer maintains that Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre' and Jean Rhy's 'Wide Sargasso Sea' are both compelling novels with regard to issues of gender within the context of literature. The writer points out that for the most part the two works can be read as the telling of the same story, from two differing cultural perspectives and from the perspectives of two different women. The writer notes that one woman, Jane, embraces her station in life, as an Englishwoman of little means while the Creole Antoinette fears the dangers that threaten her life, as an outcast, not quite white colonial and not black like the servants and workers in her home, post colonial Jamaica. This paper concentrates on the study of gender as a main theme throughout both works.

From the Paper:

"Antoinette's husband does not see the petty jealousy and how it has taken away the woman he remembers from his honeymoon and leaves it to her to show him this woman again, while Antoinette feels so betrayed that she introverts into herself, with stoic pride and in so doing seals her fate with her husband, who is not wise enough to offer the kind of kindness Rochester eventually offers Jane, once he has been blinded by the fire that Bertha set. Yet, it should be noted that Rochester only rights the wrongs he has done Jane when he has been stripped of all his worth and even his sight. It takes the monumental event of losing everything to bring him to right the wrongs of his past, again an expression of the lengths to which men must go in these works to fully understand their own actions and the needs of others."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Signet, 1997.
• Ciolkowski, Laura E. "Navigating the 'Wide Sargasso Sea': Colonial History, English Fiction, and British Empire." Twentieth Century Literature 43.3 (1997): 339+.
• Kendrik, Robert. "Edward Rochester and the Margins of Masculinity in 'Jane Eyre' and 'Wide Sargasso Sea.'." Papers on Language & Literature 30.3 (1994): 235+.
• Pidduck, Julianne. "6 Of Windows and Country Walks." The Postcolonial Jane Austen. Ed. You-Me Park and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan. London: Routledge, 2000. 116-138.
• Rhy, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. New York: Norton, 1982.

More papers on Gender in Bronte and Rhy:

• Analytical Essay # 58548 : "Power Relations in Literature"
• Analytical Essay # 31920 : "Opposition in Union"
• Comparison Essay # 145562 : "Bronte and Rhys' Edward Rochester"

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