Jane Eyre Woman In The Attic Book

The madwoman in the attic.

Jane eyre woman in the attic book. 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. 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. I remember being gripped by two aspects when i first read jane eyre at the age of 10 or 11 the horrible school at lowood and the mad woman 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.

One like jane curtailed over the years to fit into the conventional victorian angel of the house the other bertha suffering her confinement and being eventually pushed towards madness madwoman in the attic two terms used by sandra gilbert and susan gubar in a reading of jane eyre their very famous. 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. The real life attic that was the inspiration for a section of jane eyre where mentally ill character bertha mason is confined before she commits suicide is now open to the public.

The woman writer and the nineteenth century literary imagination. 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. 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. The lowood episode is.

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