Editing Jane Eyre (section)

=== Race ===
Throughout the novel there are frequent themes relating to ideas of [[ethnicity]] (specifically that of Bertha), which are a reflection of the society that the novel is set within. Mr Rochester claims to have been forced to take on a "mad" Creole wife, a woman who grew up in the [[West Indies]], and who is thought to be of [[mixed-race]] descent.<ref name=":0">Atherton, Carol. "The figure of Bertha Mason." British Library, 15 May 2014, www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-figure-of-bertha-mason. Accessed 3 March 2021.</ref> In the analysis of several scholars, Bertha plays the role of the racialised "[[Other (philosophy)|other]]" through the shared belief that she chose to follow in the footsteps of her parents. Her apparent mental instability cast her as someone who is incapable of restraining herself, almost forced to submit to the different vices she is a victim of.<ref name=":0" /> Many writers of the period believed that one could develop mental instability or mental illnesses simply based on their race.<ref>Cho, Keunjung. "Contextualizing Racialized Interpretations of Bertha Mason's Character." The Victorian Web, 17 April 2003, www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/cho10.html. Accessed 3 March 2021.</ref>

This means that those who were born of ethnicities associated with a darker complexion, or those who were not fully of European descent, were believed to be more mentally unstable than their white European counterparts were. According to American scholar Susan Meyer, in writing ''Jane Eyre'' Brontë was responding to the "seemingly inevitable" analogy in 19th-century European texts which "[compared] white women with blacks in order to degrade both groups and assert the need for white male control".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Meyer|first=Susan|date=1990|title=Colonialism and the Figurative Strategy of Jane Eyre|journal=[[Victorian Studies]]|volume=33|issue=2|pages=247–268|jstor=3828358}}</ref> Bertha serves as an example of both the multiracial population and of a 'clean' European, as she is seemingly able to pass as a white woman for the most part, but also is hinted towards being of an 'impure' race since she does not come from a purely white or European lineage. The title that she is given by others of being a Creole woman leaves her a stranger where she is not black but is also not considered to be white enough to fit into higher society.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Thomas|first=Sue|date=1999|title=The Tropical Extravagance of Bertha Mason|journal=Victorian Literature and Culture |volume=27|issue=1|pages=1–17|doi=10.1017/S106015039927101X|jstor=25058436|s2cid=162220216 }}</ref>

Unlike Bertha, Jane Eyre is thought of as being sound of mind before the reader is able to fully understand the character, simply because she is described as having a complexion that is pale and she has grown up in a European society rather than in an "animalistic" setting like Bertha.<ref name="Nygren 2016 117–119"/> Jane is favoured heavily from the start of her interactions with Rochester, simply because like Rochester himself, she is deemed to be of a superior ethnic group than that of his first wife. While she still experiences some forms of repression throughout her life (the events of the Lowood Institution) none of them are as heavily taxing on her as that which is experienced by Bertha. Both women go through acts of suppression on behalf of the men in their lives, yet Jane is looked at with favour because of her supposed "beauty" that can be found in the colour of her skin. While both are characterised as falling outside of the normal feminine standards of this time, Jane is thought of as superior to Bertha because she demands respect and is able to use her talents as a governess, whereas Bertha is seen as a creature to be confined in the attic away from "polite" society.<ref>{{cite web|last=Shuttleworth|first=Sally|date=2014|title=Jane Eyre and the 19th Century Woman|url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/jane-eyre-and-the-19th-century-woman|access-date=|website=The British Library|archive-date=9 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201209185135/https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/jane-eyre-and-the-19th-century-woman|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Scholars have also noted the novel's overt references and allusions to slavery, arguably its North American iteration.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Lee |first= Julia Sun-Joo |year= 2008 |title= The (Slave) Narrative of 'Jane Eyre' |journal= Victorian Literature and Culture |volume= 36 |number= 2 |pages= 317–329 |doi= 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390322.003.0001 |jstor= 40347190 |isbn= 978-0-19-539032-2 }}</ref>

==== ''Wide Sargasso Sea'' ====
Jean Rhys intended her critically acclaimed novel ''[[Wide Sargasso Sea]]'' as an account of the woman whom Rochester married and kept in his attic. The book won the notable [[WH Smith Literary Award]] in 1967. Rhys explores themes of dominance and dependence, especially in marriage, depicting the mutually painful relationship between a privileged English man and a [[Creole peoples|Creole]] woman from [[Dominica]] made powerless on being duped and coerced by him and others. Both the man and the woman enter marriage under mistaken assumptions about the other partner. Her female lead marries Mr Rochester and deteriorates in England as "[[The Madwoman in the Attic]]". Rhys portrays this woman from a quite different perspective from the one in ''Jane Eyre''.