An Intertextual Reading Of Wide Sargasso Sea And Jane Eyre

The British woman author Jean Rhys(1890-1979)published Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966,which made Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre vividly present to the reader again.Wide Sargasso Sea is a supplement to the content of Jane Eyre,also as heir to its writing techniques.Domestic and foreign scholars mainly use post-colonial theory to explore how Bertha finds her voice and Rhys subverts and disintegrates colonial empire.The different character traits of the same person in the two novels and the text writing from different perspectives are discussed by using text perusal and comparative analysis.In general,this thesis aims to demonstrate the intertextuality of Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre.In Jane Eyre,a narrative undercurrent which has been neglected for a long time,from the beginning to the end and the parallel development of the plot,has been re-emphasized successfully.This paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,mainly introducing the life of Rhys and the relationships between Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre.It also gives a detailed overview of the research status at home and abroad,and a systematic summary of the proposition and development of intertextuality theory.The second chapter analyzes the characters of Antoinette/Bertha and Rochester,discussing the relationships between Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre on the story level.The third chapter mainly analyzes focalization of the two novels and its effect.Bronte uses first-person narrative in Jane Eyre.Rhys draws the practice of the first person narration from Jane Eyre,and creatively uses multiple focalization and multiple voices in Wide Sargasso Sea to make characters express their own views in the context of openness and dialogue.The fourth chapter analyzes the two narrative dynamics of overt plot and covert progression in Jane Eyre,and focuses on the covert progression where Bertha is not a madman at all.Through the interpretation of the covert progression of Jane Eyre,Rhys creates Wide Sargasso Sea.The fifth chapter concludes that Wide Sargasso Sea is an intertextual interpretation of Jane Eyre in terms of the characters,narrative techniques and narrative progression.The two works are stories of different writers who complete the same theme,and are the continuation,evolution or inheritance of the same story.