Rochester Mad Woman In Attic

Bertha antoinetta mason edward rochester s clandestine first wife was an essential component to the plot and character development in jane eyre.

Rochester mad woman in attic.

Gilbert and gubar draw their title from charlotte brontë s jane eyre in which rochester s wife is kept secretly locked in an attic apartment by her husband. Rochester discloses the identity of the woman locked in the attic of his thornfield hall as his wife after a thwarted attempt to marry jane eyre. The woman writer and the nineteenth century literary imagination in the 700 page text gilbert and gubar use the figure of bertha mason as the so called madwoman in the attic to make an argument about perceptions toward female literary characters during the time period. But bertha mason a woman of courage and fortitude should be admired and respected for her actions rather than being given the term madwoman in the attic.

In the novel mason was the former wife of edward rochester and she was kept locked up in the attic because she was mad. The real life attic that was the inspiration for a section of jane eyre where mentally ill character bertha mason is confined before she commits suicide is now open to the public. The madwoman in the attic the most well known and problematic character in jane eyre is rochester s first wife who is almost always referred to by her maiden name of bertha mason. In 1979 sandra gilbert and susan gubar made a breakthrough in feminist criticism with their work the madwoman in the attic.

Throughout she has no representation of her own. Bertha mason rochester s first wife was a beautiful creole woman from jamaica who rochester married years ago before she had a mental breakdown and naturally had to be locked in the.