Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys’ novel Wide Sargasso Sea develops an intertextual relationship with Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre by inventing a backstory that can explain the tragic fate of Bertha Mason – the most marginalized character. The oppressive binary...

In Jane Austen’s epistolary novel Lady Susan and Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, the concept of gender remains a key aspect throughout both of the narratives in regard to plot development and characterization. Whilst Lady Susan was thought to be...

Wide Sargasso Sea uses the erasure of Antoinette’s story from Jane Eyre to challenge a canon which is misrepresentative of British colonialism. However, Wide Sargasso Sea “does not adopt the adversarial strategy of dehumanizing Rochester” (Thieme...

In Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, there is a shift in Part Two of the novel as Antoinette’s narrative voice is traded for that of her unnamed husband, presumably Mr. Rochester of Jane Eyre. As he chronicles the events of their honeymoon leading up...

Place is of great significance within Wide Sargasso sea, present even within its title, which takes the name of a coastless sea within the Northern Atlantic ocean. Jean Rhys establishes a sense of place at the start of the novel through vivid...

Jean Rhys’ 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea can be regarded as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Victorian realist novel Jane Eyre which liberates the marginalized. Rhys’ text fixes the problem of perspective between Jane, the Angel in the House, and...

Reflection versus Conversation

The 19th and 20th centuries introduced readers to a variety of prominent authors who are still read today. Two of these prominent and well-read authors from each period include Charlotte Brontë and Jean Rhys...

Otherness and alienation are significant features throughout Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, Adichie’s “Checking Out” and Phillips’ “Growing Pains”, particularly regarding the race and social class of the characters featured within these texts. In this...