Charlotte Bronte was one of the champions of females' rights.

Her well known

novel, Jane Eyre, published as an autobiography under the assumed masculine name of
Currer Bell, gives contours to the imaginary Angria, a land where women feel free to be
angry, speak their mind and figuratively describe their condition.
Jane is the epitome of the outraged female soul who cannot hope for self
fulfillment based on her natural qualities and her training since she is not part of a
financially secure elite. To escape the confines of such a low status women at that time
had either to choose a position of governess, which implied a mixed status (they were or
were not part of the family), or marry into the rich world. Both alternatives were
disgraceful options to an independent spirit and a bright mind like Jane's who sought self
assertion through her own efforts and natural gifts.
The figure of Mr. Rochester on the other hand has been a subject of controversy
over the years, since readers generally tend to like him in spite of his deceitful strategies,
overbearing behaviour and male egotism. He is still viewed as a charismatic Macho, the
Prince Charming who quite unexpectedly falls in love with the plain looking, humble and
socially peripheral girl.
In 1966 a female author published a so-called prequel to Jane Eyre, a novel that
told the story of Mr. Rochester's first wife, Bertha, in Jane Eyre. The author was Jean
Rhys and the novel Wide Sargasso Sea. Being a woman and coming from the colonies in
1907 Jean Rhys felt twice marginalised. Her frustrations were evident in the kind of life
she led and in the types of female characters she created in her novels. An overwhelming
sense of dissatisfaction and displacement turns her heroines into alter-egos of the author
who views herself as an untrained, unsuited, miserable immigrant who is barely able to
survive in an unfriendly country. What more obvious proof of hatred and hostility on the
part of a female outsider than to try and destroy one of the most powerful male images in
British fiction by presenting him as a helpless, alienated outsider in the Garden of Eden.
The author's own frustrations translated into images of violence, disruption and
tragedy. Antoinette's childhood (the main character) is full of traumatic experiences
starting with her father's death and ending with the fire that burns down the Eden of her
memories, the entrancing place where she felt secure. Moreover, she is a prisoner of her
dependency on both cultures, black and white which she grew up with. She cannot face

the split between the two and is condemned to isolation. Both novels abound in images of
hatred. The anger and dissatisfactions of their heroines reflect the two authors' reactions
to the injustices they had to face and the inferior status they were reduced to by the
standards of a society which claimed to be just. There are, of course, differences in
imagery and general treatment of subject matter, character, authorial voice but, basically,
the two novels are the outcry of two gifted women who deserved a better world.
In 'Jane Eyre' gestures of performance and force prevail because Jane is a fighter,
she will not have social or sexually discriminating laws silence her. She acts and
performs all the time. She is energetic and resourceful and even when she seems defeated
or, on the contrary, apparently fulfilled she has the inner force to step further into the
future to find her place and happiness. In 'Wide Sargasso Sea', on the other hand, icons of
passivity and spiritual silence are predominant. Antoinette prefers to withdraw into her
shell and nestle a pearl of wrath rather than speak her mind clearly or impose her will.