Sexuality and Gender Relationships in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea

Lucia Garcia Magaldi

University of Cordoba (Spain)

Chapter published in AGUILAR, María José Coperías, et al. Identities on the Move:

Contemporary Representations of New Sexualities and Gender Identities. Lexington Books,

2014 (pages125-138).

This paper will discuss sexuality and gender relations in Jane Eyre1 and Wide Sargasso Sea2

based on a comparative character analysis of Jane Eyre, Bertha Antoinette Mason, and

Edward Rochester. I will begin with an overview of postcolonial and feminist interest in the

complimentary reading of both novels justifying why neither text can be fully understood

without reference to issues of colonialism and patriarchy. Secondly, a definition of sexuality

and gender relations will be proposed, based on the assumption that both aspects are

developed through experience and acculturation. Thirdly, a four part structure for literary

analysis based on Connell‟s framework3, which approaches gender interaction as relations of

power, production, emotion and symbolism, will be proposed and used to address the ways in

which these four dimensions are developed in both novels.

Bertha Antoinette Mason, an apparently minor secondary character in Charlotte

Brontë‟s Jane Eyre, has been the subject of a great deal of interest on the part of postcolonial

and feminist literary scholars since she became the protagonist of Wide Sargasso Sea, which

was published in 1966. Jean Rhys‟ foreshadowing novel predated the emergence and fuelled

the consolidation of critical literary trends by “writing back” to the colonizers before the term

had even been coined in the landmark publication The Empire Writes Back: Theory and

Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures4, and by encouraging feminist re-readings of 19th

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century novels written by women before Gilbert and Gubar, authors of the seminal

Madwoman in the Attic5, had even met.

The publication of Wide Sargasso Sea earned an ailing and recluse 76 year old Jean

Rhys the literary fame and prizes she had been denied in her youth, such as the Royal Society

of Literature Award, a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Literature and the title of

Commander of the British Empire. Rhys used her childhood reminiscences of the early post-

slavery years in Dominica, and gave a voice to the untold Creole story of incomprehension

and prejudice from both the blacks of the island as well as the white European settlers from

the point of view of the plight of a rich Creole heiress who had become Charlotte Brontë‟s

helpless, voiceless, and confined mad monster.

Jane Eyre was also well received when it was first published with the male

pseudonym of Currer Bell, although when it was discovered that it had been written by a

woman, some reviewers were shocked; Jane was considered a dangerous woman of

questionable morality because she had the character and self-determination to assert her will

over predominant Victorian conventions regarding what women should feel and how they

should live.6 Jane rebels against the Victorian and patriarchal constraints women were subject

to because she experiences and controls sexual desire, finally achieving wealth, marriage,

social status, and motherhood. The unconventional Jane, a woman far ahead of her time who

works, travels, loves, feels, thinks, speaks and behaves assertively and independently, was

difficult to accept by some contemporary readers. Uncountable readings and approaches to

this landmark novel in English literature have been proposed as has been documented by

Mitchie in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. A Casebook,7 and the appearance of Wide Sargasso

Sea has undoubtedly led to increased interest and more complex contemporary re-readings

which have enriched our understanding and appreciation of life and literature in the 19th and

20th centuries.
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 Fascination with both novels read as complimentary texts to understand the 19th and

20th century literary imagination as well as postcolonialism and feminism, has fuelled much

research in the last thirty years. Gilbert and Gubar sparked off scholarly debate in 1979 by

using Jane Eyre‟s literary creation of the monstrous Bertha as a metaphor to uncover a whole

literary tradition of patriarchy which had been confining and conditioning female creativity in

the 19th century. Spivak‟s article, Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism,8

consolidated the complimentary reading of both texts from feminist and postcolonial

perspectives by considering Bertha Mason as a displaced and tortured figure produced by the

axiomatic patriarchy of imperialism. Spivak‟s most influential essay, Can the Subaltern

Speak?,9 written some years later, led an effort to interweave both feminism and

postcolonialism in a common endeavour of empowering both women and the oppressed in

their common struggle against patriarchal and Eurocentric models of power and oppression.

For Sankaran10, the term postcolonialism in the twenty-first century is used to refer to a wide

and interdisciplinary perspective on global history, based on the idea that the developments of

the past five centuries are inexplicable outside the history of colonialism, conquest, and

control. This paper suggests that a comparative reading of Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre

is valuable from postcolonial and feminist perspectives, because the characters and events

portrayed represent both sides of the same coin; neither text can be fully understood without

reference to issues of colonialism, patriarchy, sexuality, and gender relations.

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Sexuality and Gender Relations

The dichotomy between “nature and nurture”, that is, the roles and relative influence

of heredity or genetics and culture or environment on human behaviour, including sexuality,

first coined by Darwin‟s cousin, the polymath Francis Galton in the 19th century, have been

and still are controversial and unresolved issues in linguistics11 and Psychology.12
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Contemporary approaches have moved away from the biologically-determinist theory of

sexuality as a biological function which Connell refers to as „body as machine that

manufactures gender‟13 approach. Current trends in this field, summarized by Ridley14, tend

to search for a conciliation which acknowledges the influence of both biological and cultural

aspects, however there is more support for the idea that humans learn how to behave through

experience and acculturation rather than genetics alone.

Philosopher and historian Foucault unequivocally views sexuality as a cultural

manifestation, in his ground breaking book The History of Sexuality15, he aims to free the

concept from repressive taboos and discuss how beliefs have changed over time. He also

proposes that the body and sexuality are cultural constructs rather than natural phenomena.16

Weeks17 consolidated this view by suggesting sexuality is a historical construction, which

brings together a host of different biological and mental possibilities, and cultural forms such

as gender identity, bodily differences, reproductive capacities, needs, desires, fantasies, erotic

practices, institutions and values.18 While the debate is still open to discussion, this paper

acknowledges the genetic component in sexuality but takes the overall view that it is a

cultural construct, subject to the influence of temporal and spatial location.

Gender is also a much contested and relatively recent concept either on its own or

hyphenated with complimentary terms such as: gender role, gender gap, gender-biased,

gender specific, gender-bending, among others which are still in the process of assimilation

and adaptation into literary criticism.19 On the other hand, in this respect a great deal has been

advanced in the field of sociology and international relations. March presents useful

clarifications of these terms in the groundbreaking text, A Guide to Gender-Analysis

Frameworks20, which offers a definition of gender identity as the way we are perceived and

expected to think and act owing to our biologically determined sexuality in a specific society

due to the way it is organized and functions.21 Gender relationships, which are also a central
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issue in this paper, are concerned with how power is distributed between the sexes, in a

specific time and place. On the other hand, gender analysis, which is what we will be doing in

the second part of this paper, explores the relationships of men and women in society in both

public and private settings. In this case, we will be discussing these aspects in both texts.

In order to explore gender relations a framework is a useful instrument, and there are

many available22, however these frameworks are of limited use in comparative literary

analysis without substantial modification because they are concerned with painfully realistic

and contemporary economic issues and their aim is to repair a situation of inequality in order

to improve lifestyle and social justice. On the other hand, our purpose is to describe, compare

and evaluate creative theoretical constructs across time and space, in order to understand our

literary heritage and its evolution. For our purposes, the most useful framework for a literary

analysis of gender relations is Connell‟s framework of four dimensions which he classifies

as: power relations, production relations, emotional relations and symbolic relations.23

The following analysis of sexuality in the characters of Jane Eyre, Bertha Antoinette

Mason and Edward Rochester in both novels will be carried out with reference to Connell‟s

four part framework from postcolonial and feminist perspectives including special attention

to patriarchy and dislocation. In the first place sexuality will be discussed as empowerment

and domination through patriarchal systems of oppression and subordination. Secondly

sexuality will be envisioned as a division of production and allocation of tasks according to

gender assigned roles in British and colonial settings. Thirdly the emotional aspects of

sexuality such as courting, sex, and love will be assessed in relation to gender and location,

and finally the symbolism of sexuality and gender relations within patriarchal and colonial

cultures present in the texts will be explored.

At the beginning of Wide Sargasso Sea, neither Antoinette nor Rochester has any

power over their sexuality because both are subordinate to patriarchal constraints. Rochester
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is the second son who is not entitled to any of the family inheritance, subsequently he is sent

away from Thornfield to marry a rich Creole heiress in an arranged marriage negotiated by

his father and hers. Rochester has no financial or sexual power; he cannot decide whom he

marries, where he lives, or how he lives. He must marry for financial reasons and move away

from England to the British colony of Dominica.

Wide Sargasso Sea elaborates on the same version of the situation which Rochester

told Jane in Jane Eyre; the difference in the prequel is that the story is told from Antoinette‟s

point of view. Antoinette also had no control over her sexuality, her step father and later her

brother, Richard, made all the arrangements. Antoinette‟s situation as subordinate was even

worse than Rochester‟s because as we are informed, according to the custom of the time, “no

provisions were made for the girl”24, which meant that he got the dowry and the property, and

she was excluded from the transaction; she became his subordinate. Although both are

powerless and condemned to a loveless match, his power then resided in his control of her

money and her sexuality. As soon as Rochester realizes that he is immensely powerful; he is

the administrator of a great deal of money as well as property, Antoinette becomes less useful

to him. Rochester is approached by a person who calls himself Daniel Cosway, and describes

himself as Antoinette‟s illegitimate brother. When Cosway tells Rochester that his wife was

not a virgin when she married and that lunacy runs in the family, his reaction is to reject any

type of sexual contact with her, while he has sex with the servant, Amélie, in the room next

door to his wife‟s.25 This displacement and humiliation leads to Antoinette‟s fury and when

she bites him26, and he is convinced that the unforgivable and disrespectful affront is due to

madness. He realizes that his power over Antoinette will not last while she is on her property

surrounded by her people27, and while he is unable to control her sexuality due to her alleged

lunacy. As a result, he decides to separate her from everything she loves and take her to

Spanish Town, Jamaica. He plans to control her life by living in a remote house with separate
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rooms for both, while she is cared for by “discreet servants”28, which means locked away, her

sexuality negated and her life confined in order to protect his reputation.

The second event which empowers Rochester occurs shortly after their arrival in

Spanish Town. He is informed of his father and his brother‟s death which makes him the

patriarch of the society that cast him out as the lesser brother. His attitude towards Bertha

Antoinette changes accordingly. He has been totally empowered; he no longer needs “this

Creole” as he referred to her even before their marriage29 or “that lunatic” as he referred to

her when they left Coulibri30, and he no longer needs to live in the foreign country he

considers his enemy.31 He has become the representative of hegemonic masculinity who now

controls his finance and his sexuality; he must therefore find a way to rid himself definitely of

his imposed wife. Both novels confer that it is at that moment that he decides to take her to

England and hide his marriage and her presence from everyone there. He travels around

France freely making use of his newly found sexuality, while his wife is enclosed in an attic

and deprived of any human contact except that of her drunken carer, Grace Poole.

Antoinette‟s situation worsens as much as her husband‟s improves. She never had any

control of her sexuality or finance, but at least she had a subordinate husband who needed her

subordination and sexuality to maintain his own power. However, as a result of her husband‟s

change of fortune she was rendered powerless. She lost her money, her life, her homeland

and her sexuality, which is both denied and misrepresented. She even lost her name, which he

changed to Bertha.32 The end of his financial dependence on her marked the end of their

sexuality, which had always been subject to power relations.

A superficial reading of Jane Eyre may lead us to believe Jane is a portrait of a

disadvantaged woman with no parents or siblings, no money, and no beauty; however Jane is

in control of her life and her sexuality from the beginning of the novel to the end. She is the

most empowered person in the novel and this power is derived from the control she has of her
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sexuality. The subliminal message Jane‟s character conveys is her awareness that in order to

succeed she must follow patriarchal rules; uncurbed sexuality in women clearly leads to

lunacy and imprisonment as the presence of her alter ego reminds both reader and

protagonist.

Production relations refer to the division of labour, which is related to the tasks

performed by both genders within their cultures. Both males and females are required for

reproduction and so they are also required for the production of goods and services in the

public and private sphere to sustain and perpetuate it.33 Bertha Antoinette has never worked,

partly because her role in Dominica did not allow any type of employment for a Creole

woman. She never mentions any need or desire for employment in the public sphere, and

regarding the private sphere, after their marriage she has no part in the running of the

household. She is totally dependent on her servants, who do all the work and she ironically

describes as “slow and inefficient”34, while she is completely idle all day. Once she is

confined, any possibility of gaining power through work is denied to her. Rochester is also a

completely idle character who is totally alienated from any kind of labour in the public or

private sphere in both novels.

Jane is the only person of the three who works for a living. She worked as a teacher

before she came to Thornfield, she worked after leaving Thornfield, and she was also

prepared to continue working at Ferndean, as Adele‟s governess even after marrying

Rochester. Work is definitely an empowering element for Jane, and it is also her access to

gender relations and consequently the place where she gains her sexual power; it is through

her role in production that she meets and receives the admiration of both Rochester and St

John, the two men who fall in love with her.

Jane‟s ability and desire to work empowers her, and conversely, Rochester and Bertha

Antoinette‟s inability to work, actually makes them both unable to control their lives. When
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Jane is asked to compare Rochester to St. John by the former, she considers that the latter is

the better man because of his principles and his work ethic; however St. John is not what Jane

is looking for in a husband. Jane knows exactly what she wants from page one when she

describes her aunt‟s family “reclined on a sofa by the fire-side, and with her darlings about

her … looked perfectly happy” while she was “dispensed from joining the group”.35 Jane is

definitely not interested in leaving her homeland or a life of service in India with St. John; her

aim is to have a family, stability, and status in England, and that is what she earns at the end

of the novel. In the last page, she describes her happy family life with her husband and child

“My Edward and I, then, are happy: and the more so because those we most love are happy

likewise”36, nobody is now excluded from happiness as she was on the first page.

Emotional aspects such as courting, sex, love and marriage also illustrate differences

between the three characters. Romantic love as a basis for forming a lasting union was rarely

contemplated prior to the Industrial Revolution. Changes in economic production and labour

markets, together with public health measures, helped to encourage people to marry for

romantic reasons. Parents had less influence over the choices of young people as production

moved away from the family and into the factory, and as life expectancy increased, so did the

emotional investment a spouse was willing to make in his or her partner.37 This new concept

of love and marriage was not consolidated until the beginning of the 20th century, especially

regarding wealthier families when marriage affected financial concerns.

Rochester and Antoinette take part in an arranged marriage where love and courtship

are not considered necessary; they both follow established rules of behaviour and agree to

their marriage contract. Love was never part of the bargain, and neither felt love for the other.

Their sexual relations were limited to the first honeymoon days and were considered a duty

more than a pleasure for both. Jane on the other hand is well ahead of her time by being

convinced that she will only marry for love. However she is in control of her emotions, and is
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not prepared to follow them blindly. This is why she decides to leave her employment in

Thornfield when she is led to believe that Rochester will marry Blanche Ingram. She is no

longer prepared to work for him if she has no hope of marrying him because she is not

prepared to love on unequal terms. She finally leaves Rochester after discovering he has a

legal wife, refusing to become his mistress. Jane controls her emotions and her sexuality the

same way she controls everything that happens in her life.

According to Sternberg‟s theory38, love is a triangle with three points, each formed by

a component of love: intimacy or emotional investment and closeness; passion, including

emotional and physical excitement and arousal; and commitment, or a decision to maintain

the relationship over time. A love relationship should contain the three aspects if it is to be

successful.39 There was absolutely no love in Bertha Antoinette and Rochester‟s relationship.

Intimacy and passion were cut off shortly after the honeymoon, never to be recovered, and

although there was some commitment at the beginning of the relationship, this commitment

was lost on Rochester‟s part as soon as he had her money and his father‟s inheritance; from

then on his only commitment was to conceal her existence. On the other hand Rochester and

Jane are intimate almost from the moment they met; both enjoyed each other‟s company and

spent many long evenings together by the fire talking and sometimes arguing. There was also

passion in their relationship, Rochester being especially active and insistent physically after

his proposal, much to Jane‟s opposition because Jane once more was determined to control

her passion and his. Finally regarding commitment, both seemed prepared to commit their

relationship over time, although once again it was Jane who was to decide when the formal

commitment was to take place: only when Rochester were legally free to marry her after

Bertha Antoinette‟s death.

There are two types of symbols in literature: archetypal or universal symbols, and

personal or private symbols which may only be discernable in the context of one specific
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literary text or author. Archetypal symbols are part of a collective unconscious40, and

symbols that occur repeatedly in different literary texts and genres are referred to as

archetypal symbols.41 When these symbols are used as a literary device they can be easily

recognized and interpreted by readers, if they share or have sufficient knowledge of the target

culture. Both novels abound with archetypal and personal symbolism from various domains

such as, religion, culture, art, literature, and politics. This paper will investigate a common

symbol used in both novels; the symbolism of confinement and how it reflects the impact of

sexuality in their relationships. We will also explore the symbolic interaction between the

characters based on the idea that people do not interact with each other but with their

symbolic perception of each other42, in this case we will be looking at the symbolic meaning

assigned to each character and how this symbolism affects gender interaction.

Before the 1890 Lunacy Act, private arrangements had to be made for any lunatics in

the family, which often included confinement. According to Showalter in The Female

Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980, feminine mental illness is a

protest against feminine subjection and exploitation.43 Foucault in Madness and Civilization

considers madness as an invented disease in which confinement was widely accepted in the

18th and 19th centuries in order to perpetuate the religious, monarchical and bourgeois order

of the time.44 In Antoinette‟s case, she was deprived of sexual relations, obliged to witness

her husband‟s infidelity and suffer enclosure. The fact that no psychiatrist or any other type

of doctor is mentioned in relation to her illness in either novel is alarming and illustrative of

the common practice of confining women to control their sexuality, and therefore render

them powerless and voiceless.

Jane was also confined for not submitting to her cousin John‟s continuous harassment;

she was locked in the red-room and had a “fit”45, while she lived at Gateshead with her aunt

Mrs. Reed. Fortunately she was then dispatched to Lowood, having learnt the lesson that
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feigning submission, emotional control and financial independence would be her only way

into patriarchal society. After two years experience as a teacher, she applied for a job at

Thornfield Hall, which she also left to start a new life when she discovered Rochester was

still legally married. She worked at a village school in nearby Morton, thanks to the Rivers,

whom she also left to return to Rochester when she learned he was sick and widowed. When

Jane finally returns to Rochester‟s side at the end of the novel, she informs him of her

situation: “I am independent, Sir, as well as rich: I am my own mistress”.46 She has played

their game wisely and is in complete control of her life and her sexuality; she does not need

to marry or be subordinate to anyone.

Uncontrolled sexuality and reclusion is not only a symbol for the female characters,

Rochester also suffers confinement and madness in Jane Eyre due to his loss of hegemony.

After Jane left and Bertha burnt Thornfield he was reported to have “grown savage”47, and he

“shut himself up like a hermit at the Hall”.48 His confinement which was short lived and self

imposed was a consequence of losing symbolic power over his two wives: the one who had

been imprisoned and left by committing suicide after burning down his house, and the one

who did not need him and decided to pursue her own life. His reaction to his lack of sexual

control over the two women was reclusion and madness.

Antoinette is at first a symbol of stability, wealth and prestige. Rochester needs her to

recover his status in society; he recovers his rank in the distant land by marrying a wealthy

Creole, thereby taking over her riches and gaining an appropriate position in society as

patriarch of a colonial Estate. After marriage and rumours, her situation changed and she

became the symbol of unrestrained sexuality and madness, which finally led to her fall from

the Garden of Eden represented by her forced exile from her colourful garden in Coulibri

Estate to the hell represented by the dark attic in Thornfield Hall. Rochester recovers his

symbolic status as representative of hegemonic masculinity when he inherits his family‟s

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wealth, possessions and social position. He is no longer the exiled second best; he can now

return to his own Estate and convert his now unnecessary wife into the exile and the prisoner.

She once had the key to his wellbeing, when he needed the prestige she symbolized, but when

he recovered his own symbolic power she became the cause of his ruin; the reminder of his

loss of power when he was forced to abandon his family and his country.

On the other hand, Jane is symbolic of the innocent virgin who had many chances of

becoming the plain spinster; the sensible subordinate who knows her place in society and

works hard to earn the favours of the patriarchs she encounters. Jane Eyre represents Jane‟s

symbolic journey of transformation from disadvantaged subaltern to wife, mother, and

respected lady in 19th century England. Bertha Antoinette Mason and Jane Eyre are

complimentary characters; both were subject to patriarchal constraints, although Bertha

Antoinette is completely helpless in both novels. She has no control over her sexuality or her

finance; she is totally dependent on her father, brother, and husband, so she has no power

over her life. She cannot control her emotions; she must succumb to an arranged marriage

and subsequent confinement. She cannot be involved in any type of production or profession,

and her symbolic value is both antagonist and foil to Jane in both novels. She is the victim of

her inability to control her sexuality in as much as Jane is able to control her own sexuality,

emotions, finance, workplace, as well as the symbolic roles she is assigned.

Jane has many advantages over Bertha Antoinette. Firstly she controls her sexuality

because she has no brother, no father and no wealth. Secondly, Jane does not live in the

colonies, so she is not subject to colonial subjection or local superstition; however she is able

to benefit from colonialism because she inherits a considerable sum of money from her uncle

who had business in Jamaica. Thirdly, Jane gains independence through her participation in

production relations; she is able to work for a living. Fourthly, she is able to move freely

between locations; she has no family or emotional ties. Finally, she can choose whom she
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loves and marries. Jane is not prepared to be subordinate to anyone throughout Jane Eyre,

because she is fortunate enough to be her own boss, however we can infer that if she had

been a rich Dominican heiress, her life might not have been very different to Antoinette‟s.

In the first part of Wide Sargasso Sea, Bertha Antoinette has the symbolic power

which Rochester had lost, however as the novel progresses he regains his patriarchal

symbolism and she loses her life and her freedom in both novels. Rochester loses his

symbolic power twice more in Jane Eyre. Firstly when his would-be wife, Jane, leaves him at

the altar, reminding him that he cannot have her because she is inaccessible to him as a

married man; he cannot change his symbolic value and transgress cultural conventions or

legitimacy. He is not a free man, and a relationship with him would make Jane assume the

symbolic role of mistress, which she was not prepared to accept. Secondly when his wife,

who is his subordinate, burns down his house and commits suicide he is faced once more

with his own symbolic incapacity leading to his physical wounds as a result of the fire, which

could also be considered as a symbolic castration.49 Rochester does not recover his symbolic

hegemony until Jane finally returns and is able to save him from his alienation by

empowering him once more with sexual power and patriarchal symbolism. He will be a

husband and the father of his first legitimate son, thereby restoring his masculinity, social

status and patriarchal symbolism.

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Conclusion

Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre are both landmark novels in their own right,

however, a complimentary reading, as was Jean Rhys‟ intention, enables us to reach a greater

understanding of both novels by re-reading and re-addressing issues of sexuality and gender

relations from contemporary, postcolonial and feminist perspectives. Connell‟s four part

method for the analysis of gender relations as relations of power, production, emotion and
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symbolism, has been shown to provide a solid framework for the discussion of the portrayal

of sexuality and gender relations in literary analysis.

This analysis of Sexuality and gender relationships in both novels using Connell‟s

four part framework leads to the conclusion that the characters who are able to make

decisions over their sexuality, take part in production, control their emotions, and understand

their roles in symbolic interaction, are more successful in gaining happiness, independence,

and achieving their objectives. A postcolonial and feminist approach leads us to identify

colonialism and patriarchy as fundamental issues in both novels. Jane Eyre depicts the

presence of patriarchy and colonialism from the 19th century perspective of a cautious woman

writing under a male pseudonym, which Wide Sargasso Sea takes up a century later by

exposing what happened behind the scenes from the contemporary perspective of someone

who understood the hidden message in the original text. Wide Sargasso Sea explains and

invites re-readings of the characters and events portrayed in Jane Eyre; therefore a

complementary reading of both texts is a valuable way to fully uncover the patriarchal and

colonial influence over sexuality and gender relations depicted in both novels.

Notes

1. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). First published in

1847.

2. Jean Rhys. Wide Sargasso Sea (London: Penguin, 1997). First published in 1966.

3. Raewyn Connell. Gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009), 75.

4. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and

Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (London: Routledge, 1989).

5. Sandra Gilbert and Suzanne Gubar. The Madwoman In The Attic : The Woman Writer

And The Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (New Haven: Yale UP, 1979).
205
6. Margaret Smith. Introduction to Jane Eyre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), v-

xx.

7. Elsie B. Mitche, ed. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. A Casebook (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2006).

8. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. “Three Women‟s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism”

Critical Enquiry 12. (Autumn 1985): 247

9. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Marxism & The

Interpretation of Culture, eds. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (London:

Macmillan, 1988).

10. Krishna Sankaran. Globalization & Postcolonialism Hegemony and Resistance in the

Twenty-first Century (Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2009), 4.

11. Stephen Pinker. The Blank Slate (New York: Viking, 2002).

12. William Wright. Born That Way: Genes, Behaviour, and Personality (New York:

Routledge, 1999).

13. Connel, Gender, 52.

14. Matt Ridley. A review of Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us

Human (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 18.

15. Michael Foucault. The History of Sexuality (London: Penguin Books, 1978). Trans. R.

Hurley.

16. Foucault, History of Sexuality, 109

17. Jeffrey Weeks. Sexuality (New York: Routledge, 2003).

18. Ibid., 7

19. David Glover and Cora Kaplan. Genders (London: Routledge, 2009), 1-2.

20. Candida March, Ines Smyth, and Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay. A Guide to Gender-Analysis

Frameworks (London: Oxfam Publishing, 1999).

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21. March, A Guide to Gender-Analysis Frameworks, 5.

22. March, A Guide to Gender-Analysis Frameworks, 29.

23. Connell, Gender, 75.

24. Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 42.

25. Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 89.

26. Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 95.

27. Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 82.

28. Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 105.

29. Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 48.

30. Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 107.

31. Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 82.

32. Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 86.

33. Carol MacCormack and Marilyn Strathern. Nature Culture and Gender (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1998), 15.

34. Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 93.

35. Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1.

36. Bronte, Jane Eyre, 476.

37. Erica Owens. “The Sociology Of Love, Courtship, And Dating.” In 21st Century

Sociology, eds. Clifton D. Bryant and Dennis L. Peck (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE

Publications, Inc., 2007), 266-271.

38. Robert J Sternberg. “A triangular theory of love.” Psychological Review 93 (1986): 119-

135.

39. Ibid., 120.

40. Jolande Jacobi. The Psychology of C. G. Jung (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1973),

49.
207
41. Northrop Frye. Myth and Symbol (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963).

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