Wide Sargasso Sea: Robust Defence of Protagonist rather than a Strong Post- Colonial Statement

English Literature

The 19 th century Gothic masterpiece ‘Jane Eyre’ written by Charlotte Bronte was created with much expertise. The protagonist of the novel is Jane Eyre, a woman who starts her life from an extremely humble beginning and reaches a position of strength at the end. In order to provide a contrast to her heroine and also to add a dash of drama to her novel, Bronte created another woman character, Bertha Mason who is the wife of the male lead, Mr. Rochester the owner of Thornfield and the lover of Jane. In the novel, Bertha spends most of her life incarcerated in the attic of the house. She is insane and several rather derogatory words are used to describe her. She is marginalized for being a Creole and is used as a contrast to Jane. Disturbed by the unfair treatment of this woman, in the 20 th century, Jean Rhys took up the mantle of providing Bertha with a background and a story in her novel ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’. Several critics see this novel primarily as a post-colonial statement against the oppression of the colonizers on the people of the Caribbean. This article focuses on the main preoccupation of Jean Rhys in this novel which is to defend her heroine Antoinette, name given by her to Bertha Mason, rather than make a general post-colonial argument.

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