In jane eyre by charlotte.
Rochester mad woman in attic.
This scene features jane s encounter with bertha which embodies the slavery of marriage gender and class and the oppression of colonialism.
Upon her visit the author heard the homeowner s legend of a mad woman who had sometime in the previous century.
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.
The madwoman in the attic.
In the novel mason was the former wife of edward rochester and she was kept locked up in the attic because she was mad.
But bertha mason a woman of courage and fortitude should be admired and respected for her actions rather than being given the term madwoman in the attic.
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.
Moreover bertha s marriage to mr.
Rochester s mad wife bertha in a hidden room on the day of their wedding.
As she lived in a time when women were not encouraged to write charlotte bronte wrote under the pseudonym currer bell to avoid being ostracized by society and to avoid being badly received by the audience because the book was written by a woman.
In the madwoman in the attic they cast bertha as a passionate untrammelled woman who acts out jane s darkest most secret desires.
The incident of the mad women in the attic is about jane eyre discovering mr.
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.
And his wife is locked in the attic.
However bertha s position as the madwoman in the attic also speaks to larger social questions of femininity and authorship during the.
The 1966 parallel novel wide sargasso sea by jean rhys serves as a prequel to brontë s novel.
Bertha mason rochester s first wife was a beautiful creole woman from jamaica who rochester married years ago.
Rochester serves as the primary conflict of the novel and it is only after her death that jane is able to achieve personal happiness by marrying mr.
Mr rochester uses to reach his wife s attic in 2004.
Bertha mason full name bertha antoinetta mason is a fictional character in charlotte brontë s 1847 novel jane eyre she is described as the violently insane first wife of edward rochester who moved her to thornfield hall and locked her in a room on the third floor.
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.
