The Woman In The Attic Jane Eyre

In jane eyre grace poole is the mystery woman and the scapegoat for the strange sounds coming from the attic and the attack on richard mason.

The woman in the attic jane eyre.

In jane eyre the character of bertha mason serves as an ominous representation of uncontrollable passion and madness. Gilbert and gubar draw their title from charlotte brontë s jane eyre in which rochester s wife née bertha mason is kept secretly locked in an attic apartment by her husband. Her dark sensuality and violent nature contrast sharply with jane s calm morality and it is no surprise that bertha s presence at thornfield is a key factor in transforming mr. Rochester into a stereotypical byronic hero.

When she sat down to write jane eyre a few years later she combined the experience of a young awkward impoverished governess with the rumors of a woman locked in the attic and threw in an. The first and most important point to make about her is that within the time span of the novel she is unable to give an account of herself. To my young mind she was nothing more than a plot device. A nuisance and an impediment to.

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 madwoman in the attic the most well known and problematic character in jane eyre is rochester s first wife who is almost always referred to by her maiden name of bertha mason. I have read and re read jane eyre many times and i m embarrassed to admit that i had never paid much attention to this spectre of a woman lurking in the shadows until much later in life. One of the most fascinating characters in literature is the mysterious mad woman confined to an attic in jane eyre.

In the novel mason was the former wife of edward rochester and she was kept locked up in the attic because she was mad. The madwoman in the attic. But many tried to push back against this. Bertha antoinetta mason edward rochester s clandestine first wife was an essential component to the plot and character development in jane eyre rochester discloses the identity of the woman locked in the attic of his thornfield hall as his wife after a thwarted attempt to marry jane eyre.