'This Cardboard House': A Parallel Study of Identity and Intertextuality in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre

Abstract

This thesis explores the intertextual relationship between Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847) and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea (1966). Wide Sargasso Sea has primarily been read as a protest against the exoticising and orientalist portrayal Jane Eyre gives of Rochester's Creole wife, Bertha Mason. However, I argue that the protagonists in these two novels, Jane Eyre and Antoinette Cosway, should be seen as parallels, rather than as opposites, and that both novels demonstrate through a recurring tendency of circularity and repeating patterns how their female protagonists have their identities and personal liberty circumscribed by the limitations of patriarchal conventions. Through close reading and the application of postcolonial, feminist and narrative theory, this thesis engages in a parallel study of these two novels, giving particular attention to the way in which the development of identity is conveyed through the means of narrative technique and use of symbolism, and how these novels, despite their apparent adherence to gendered traditions, can be seen to subvert established conventions in society and literature.