≡Essays on Wide Sargasso Sea. Free Examples of Research Paper Topics, Titles GradesFixer

Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 novel written by the British author Jean Rhys. The novel is written as a response to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and is set as a prequel to the latter. The novel is of great relevancy even nowadays because it deals with patriarchy (it is considered a feminist writing), with colonialism, racism, displacement, the path to independence, but also with issues of identity (as endangered by cultural assimilation). Essays on this novel may also focus on narrative techniques, symbolism, etc. Before writing your essay, it could be useful to review the samples of papers provided below – these can contribute with interesting topics, ideas, or content, but can also provide valuable examples of well-structured writing.

Concepts: Jean Rhys, Jane Eyre, Woman, Charlotte Brontë, Sargasso Sea, WH Smith Literary Award, Bildungsroman

Kincaid’s Lucy and Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea: Interpretation of Identity Issues

In the beginning of Jean Rhys’ novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette Cosway, a young creole woman, lives in poverty with her mother, Annette, and her brother, Pierre, on the island of Jamaica. In the society in which they live, Antoinette is oppressed and discriminated against...

Wide Sargasso Sea 6 Pages

The Representation of Rochester's Character in Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea comes to a tragic end where the protagonist, Antoinette, is left as a mad woman in an attic. Rochester asks “Have all beautiful things sad destinies?”(Rhys 51). It is clear that Antoinette is a beautiful thing with a sad destiny,...

Wide Sargasso Sea 4 Pages

The Loss of One's Identity

How fragile is identity? “Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys challenges this question through the eyes of two characters, Antionette Cosway and Edward Rochester. Set in post-emancipation Jamaica, the novel follows the story of young Antionette, a girl born onto a deteriorating plantation. Despised by...

Wide Sargasso Sea 3 Pages

Being Female in Wide Sargasso Sea

As the cult of domesticity grew during the nineteenth century, society began to fixate on the proper role of a woman. Jean Rhys examines the contradictions and consequences involved in setting such standards through documenting the decline of Jane Eyre’s “madwoman,” Antoinette Cosway. Forever the...

Jane Eyre Wide Sargasso Sea 2 Pages

Power over “The Other”: Racial Exploitation and Injustice

“I already know a thing or two. I know it’s not clothes that make women beautiful or otherwise, nor beauty care, nor expensive creams, nor the distinction or costliness of their finery. I know the problem lies elsewhere. I don’t know where. I only know...

Wide Sargasso Sea 7 Pages

The Construction of Bertha's Character from Madness to Rebellion

Jean Rhys’ 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea rewrites Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre from a modern, postcolonial standpoint. Wide Sargasso Sea tells the story of Brontë’s “madwoman in the attic” from Bertha Mason’s own point of view. In Jane Eyre, Bertha is “hidden away,” both in...

Rebellion Wide Sargasso Sea 4 Pages

Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea: Comparing the Peculiarities of Narrative Techniques

In a first-person narrative reflecting on the past, like Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre or Jean Rhys’ expansion thereof, Wide Sargasso Sea, the presentation of the memories which constitute the story immensely affects the thematic impact of the work by reflecting the narrator’s feelings about their...

Jane Eyre Wide Sargasso Sea 2 Pages

The Voice of The Other in Wide Sargasso Sea

“How will you like being made exactly like other people?” is a question that echoes through Antoinette’s mind early within Jean Rhys’s responsive and revisionist text, Wide Sargasso Sea (Rhys 22). Constructing her protagonist from Charlotte Brontë’s insane Bertha Mason, Rhys aims to write the...

Voice Wide Sargasso Sea 4 Pages

“Wide Sargasso Sea” and “Jane Eyre”: Dialogism of the Prequel and the Original

Wide Sargasso Sea was published in 1965, and immediately caught the attention of critics. Its publication helped to save Jean Rhys from the obscurity into which she had fallen after her previous novels, published between the First and Second World Wars, went out of print....

Jane Eyre Wide Sargasso Sea 6 Pages

Critical Review of William Harris’s Wide Sargasso Sea Criticism

In Dr. William Harris’s Carnival of Psyche: Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, an analysis of Rhys’s 1966 postmodern “prequel” to Jane Eyre, Harris attempts to evaluate the significance of “intuitive myth” on the novel’s psyche. “Attempt,” however, is the operative word here. Without a thesis...

Wide Sargasso Sea 2 Pages

Wide Sargasso Sea and the Symbolism of Mirrors and Madness

Poscolonial narratives and rewritings attempt to deal with minority responses by recovering their untold stories as a result of European colonization (Reavis). This literature addresses the problems and consequences of the decolonization of a country and individual responses to issues of imperialism and racialism. Jean...

Where The Red Fern Grows Wide Sargasso Sea 3 Pages

The Symbolism and Importance of Bertha's Name in the Novel

In the novella Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, the idea of cultural identity is explored through the symbolic significance of names. Although his name is never stated, it is assumed that the man that Antoinette marries is Rochester based upon the context clues pulled...

Wide Sargasso Sea 4 Pages

Comparing Two Heroines Facing Life's Challenges

In life, different variables affect an individual’s growth. These variables can include any aspect of a person’s life, ranging from family influence to personal passions. In the novels Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, the authors use certain themes to shape the lives of their...

Wide Sargasso Sea 4 Pages