Comparative Study Of Wide Sargasso Sea And Jane Eyre

This thesis is a comparative study of Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre,which are novels written by two eminent English female writers,Jean Rhys and Charlotte Bronte.The comparison of female characters and “Archetypal Cinderella”,theory are combined to set up the theoretical framework of this thesis.Based on those theories,this thesis analyzes the life experience of two writers,characterization of the two feminine heroines and the subversion of the archetypal Cinderella,aiming at finding the inheritance and subversion of the two works: Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre.The thesis compares the life experience of the two female writers and analyze feminism in their works.Although Wide Sargasso Sea appeared as the prequel of Jane Eyre,the female writer,Rhys,presented the a more advancing and radical feminist thought,which bravely assail the racialism and Phallocentrism faced by women in that era.The fairy tale of Cinderella is popular story,the archetype Cinderella was appeared in many literary works all around the world.Although Bronte's novel Jane Eyre presented some feminist consciousness and rebellious spirit,the design of story line,the female characteristics and the destiny of the heroine still like ends like the fairy tale of Cinderella.The awakening of feminist consciousness and the spirit against Phallocentrism presented by Rhys in its work Wide Sargasso Sea is inheritance and subversion of Jane Eyre based on the archetype Cinderella..When I undertake my preparation for this novel,I find that few scholars or researchers have done the study on the relation of Cinderella,Jane Eyre and Antoinette,and the difference and similarity among them are very important to find out the different female images and characters in different epochs.To sum up,Jean Rhys,with a high sense of feminism consciousness,highlights a more rebelling and brave character Antoinette by the contrast of Cinderella and Jane Eyre.The novel Wide Sargasso Sea reveals that Jean Rhys was ahead of her times with a more radical consciousness in pursuit of female dignity and gender equality.