Book Review: Wide Sargasso Sea vs. Jane Eyre

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Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea is a beautiful postcolonial response to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. It's complex because in only 100 pages it touches upon multiple issues: race, feminism, and class. It also offers multiple points of view and addresses stains in human history that are ignored by Jane Eyre. That is, Wide Sargasso Sea reminds the reader that most of the white characters throughout these stories, with the exception of the British servants, made their fortune through trading men, women, and children.
Unlike, Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea is hardly a romance. In many ways, it is in fact, a chilling horror story that exposes the harsh realities of the world.
While Antoinette Cosway lacks Jane Eyre's strength and inner dialogue that has captivated readers for centuries, she manages to leave one haunted. 
Ultimately, Jane succeeds where Anne fails because she makes the best of the unfair hand that she was dealt and overcomes adversity. Anne never seems to try very hard, leaving one to presume that she suffered from the same genetic defect that plagued her mother.
The strongest woman in Wide Sargasso Sea is Christophine, a former slave who completely understands human nature.

#PostColonialsm #BritishSocialStructure #Racism #Feminism #Law #Literature #Haunting #Madness #Strength #Freedom #Slavery #WideSargassoSea #JeanRhys #JaneEyre #CharlotteBronte #BritishWriters #Sensuality #Mystery #BritishLit #VictorianLit #Repression #Insanity #Desperation

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