Jane Eyre Woman In The Attic Book

The woman writer and the nineteenth century literary imagination.

Jane eyre woman in the attic book. She is described as the violently insane first wife of edward rochester who moved her to thornfield hall and locked her in a room on the third floor. The three parts of rhys book are divided between antoinette s early life and childhood rochester s story and antoinette s rambling from her attic prison. 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. The incident of the madwoman in the attic is probably the most famous in jane eyre and it has given rise to innumerable interpretations and symbolic readings.

Antoinette and edward rochester s story in respect to jane eyre takes place largely before jane was born except for the third part which commences in the fire at thornfield. In some ways brontë s decision to merge the identities of the angel and the monster in the two primary female characters of her novel can be seen as a personal statement about the conflict between passion and passivity in her own life. Even though jane eyre is a revolutionary book for its time and relevant even today it has some elements that are problematic like confining women into only two possible boxes. Gilbert and gubar s the madwoman in the attic in 1979 two american academics sandra gilbert and susan gubar published a ground breaking volume of feminist literary history called the madwoman in the attic.

Bertha mason rochester s first wife was a beautiful creole woman from jamaica who rochester married years ago before she had a mental breakdown and naturally had to be locked in the attic. Bertha mason full name bertha antoinetta mason is a fictional character in charlotte brontë s 1847 novel jane eyre. The lowood episode is. The madwoman in the attic.

For example bertha mason could represent the horror of victorian marriage.