Rochester Mad Woman In Attic

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.

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. In the novel mason was the former wife of edward rochester and she was kept locked up in the attic because she was mad. 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. Throughout she has no representation of her own.

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. The woman writer and the nineteenth century literary imagination is a 1979 book by sandra gilbert and susan gubar in which they examine victorian literature from a feminist perspective. The first and most important point to make about her is that within the time span of the novel she is unable to give an account of herself.

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.