Abstract
In this paper, Brontë has already paid attention to the tragedy of thecolony in Jane Eyre in the 19th century. The conventional critics had theinterest of Jane, but Sandra Gilbert focused on Bertha Antoinette, andanalyzed her. Gilbert reflected onto the figure of Bertha Antoinette in
Madwoman in the Attic, she insisted that Bertha Antoinette is the terrible
other self of Jane. It is the secret of the self becoming furiously angry as Janewas suppressed. Bertha Antoinette’s action is the same thing that Jane
wanted herself to do. She is the other self-indicating the dark part which isthe nearest to a true figure of Jane.
On the other hand, Jean Rhys found on herself in Bertha Antoinette inJane Eyre and wrote in 1966 Wide Sargasso Sea as the Creole. In this paper,
I quote Wide Sargasso Sea and focus on Bertha Antoinette, and I discuss thesympathy power of Brontë who pays attention to the tragedy of the colony’swomen.
In the first chapter, I drew the hardship and a trace until Jane’s marriage.
Because Jane was an orphan, she was alone for the childhood period. Shelives to a dormitory in what was left in “the Red Room” for a penalty. Itmeans the independence from a person of Reed family. The results suggest
she have the rebellious spirit. She grows up and becomes a Governess, andexperienced the feudal lord Rochester had a fatal encounter with her andthen parts from him.
After that Jane was helped by St. John. He required a marriage for
expediency with Jane as the missionary to India, but she declined themarriage. Then she met suddenly Rochester again and they had a lovemarriage. Jane described hardship until getting marrying of ideal in thesociety where a woman was bound by the morality like “the domestic angel”
in the Victoria dynasty. Brontë has the consciousness that is equal with aman, and it is precious to draw this work the female image overcoming
difficulty.
In the second chapter, I clarified the death's reason of Bertha Antoinette.
Writer Jean Rhys described the death’s reason in Wide Sargasso Sea because
thinking of Bertha Antoinette was not told in Jane Eyre. The married life
broke because Bertha Antoinette became the insane, she clarified it
concretely in the married life of the West Indies. Because Rochester had aprejudice that it was a blood relationship of the insanity against Bertha
Antoinette, she suffered from disease of mind.
Furthermore, she was imprisoned inside his mansion in Britain. Her
insanity was amplified for this reason. Rhys tried clearly the visualization
about invisible chains like the prejudice or the discrimination that
tormented a woman of colonies. The tragedy of the woman of colonyemphasized that people of the Creole were not treated as a human beings.
In the third chapter, I focus on the tragic death of Bertha Antoinette, andexplain the invisible two chains that tormented women. The first is morals
called “the domestic angel” who tormented Bertha Antoinette and Jane. The
second is prejudice about the woman of colony that her insanity is heredity.
The tragic death of the woman who threw the body in flame suggested
Indian “Suttee”. Because the tragic death of Bertha Antoinette was too
miserable as writer Brontë, she let Jane express the strong sympathy. Itemphasizes a new viewpoint of Jane Eyre.
She sympathized with women of a miserable colony. An imprisoned fact
called the protection existed in Jane Eyre. This is really the specific work inwhich the author depicted women problems of colonies. These women havebeen segregated from the past up to the present. Therefore I have realizedthat it is worth to be newly evaluated.