Women empowered or victimised: A gynocritical analysis of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea

Kübra Baysal

Kastamonu University, Turkey

kbaysal@kastamonu.edu.tr

Abstract

Written by Jean Rhys in 1966, Wide Sargasso Sea is a novel presents the background for Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre of 1847. Two novels are indeed intertextual for using the same characters, namely Antoinette and Rochester, with the history of these characters first in Wide Sargasso Sea and then Jane Eyre forming the basis for respective narratives. However, Wide Sargasso Sea comes up with an alternative to Jane Eyre when handled with a feminist perspective and puts the emphasis on indigenous people along with their culture under the rule of the white European coloniser. In the comparative analysis of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea through gynocriticism, the paper shall reflect similarities as well as diversities in the texts referring mostly to the female protagonists, Jane and Antoinette, as active or suppressed women characters.

Key words: Rhys, Bronte, gynocriticism, indigenous, feminism

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