Forging the Self through Otherness: the Double Motif in Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre

Abstract

The concept of identity has represented the cornerstone of both psychoanalytic and literary studies in the last few centuries. Individuality, as such, seems to be forged by the encounter and the relationship with the Other, which embodies both an internal and external counterpart. This dissertation aims to analyse the character of Bertha Mason in two literary masterpieces, namely Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847). By focusing on Bertha Mason as the embodiment of the so-called Other, the dissertation will analyse her crucial function in the shaping of Jane’s identity. It will firstly investigate the structuralist and poststructuralist theories which attempt to define the notion of the Self based on the bond between two opposites, namely the I and the non-I or Other, and it will move on to the psychoanalytic domain by considering the Freudian and Lacanian conceptualisations of the identity of the subject. By exploring the motif of the double as the darkest and innermost Other in Gothic literature, the dissertation will then analyse the notion of Other in racial terms, examining the role of Antoinette as Jane’s colonial double as well as the idea of enslavement and confinement. The focus will finally shift to the role of women in Victorian society and, in particular, to the confrontation between the figure of the angel in the house, the embodiment of patriarchal Victorian principles, and the madwoman as the feminine dangerous and aggressive female counterpart threatening the patriarchal structure, yet still necessary in forging the true Self.