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Wide Sargasso Sea Feminist Analysis

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A Feminist Critique Jane Eyre is considered a classical feminist novel and Wide Sargasso Sea is considered the prequel to it therefor Wide Sargasso Sea falls under the feminist umbrella. Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre are both realistic novels to their time for the most part with slight fictional sections added for enjoyment. I will firstly critique Wide Sargasso Sea because it appears first on the novel timeline of the two books. Wide Sargasso Sea is an interesting book but as I read it I did not view it as a feminist novel. Antoinette/Bertha Cosway is portrayed by Jean Rhys as a naive girl and woman. Antoinette was first brought up in a household that had seen better times. She was a white girl who lived in Jamaica and was the daughter …show more content…

To answer my question, however, it is necessary for me to look deeper into the classical novel. Charlotte Bronte created a character who cared about education and she was someone who was capable of achieving whatever it is that she set her mind to. Her hunger to make something of her life showed qualities of a feminist; for example as I said earlier a feminist is a person who knows that they have options, are capable, and knows that they should not be limited. This quality is shown when Jane decides that she needs something more than the Lowood School she received her education and started her teaching career, “And now I felt that it was not enough. I tired of this routine of eight years in one afternoon…For change, stimulus…grant me at least a new servitude!” (102) Further into her internal musings about what she should do next Jane thought, “A new servitude!… It is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly, but no more than sounds for me, and so hollow and fleeting that it is a mere waste of time to listen to them. But servitude! That must be a matter of fact. Anyone may serve…”

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