Women in the Looking-Glass: Post-Colonial and Psychoanalytical Techniques in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea
Abstract
When Jean Rhys takes on the underdog tale of Charlotte Bronte's Bertha Mason, she both moves beyond license by appropriating a popular, Victorian text and imposes limits by choosing a story with an unchangeable ending. Rhys engages Jane Eyre with contemporary theories and experiences that make this prequel an exercise in literary difference arriving at an identical point with literary history. Rhys applies the labels, terms, and situations from a literary environment consciously engaging in concepts such as postcolonial and psychoanalytical theory to a storyline from the 1840s. One of the most interesting balances that Rhys employs is a conscious awareness of Jane Eyre's existence while Wide Sargasso Sea develops. She takes on a complex conception of time that means that her characters' present time is complicated by a past life that will take place in their future. In other words, the story Rhys composes is new, but the end result including overlapping time with Jane Eyre existed before the characters were born into Wide Sargasso Sea.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 30, 2004
- Accession Number
- ADA427017
Entities
People
- Martha J. Despain
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology