Decolonizing Literary Theory: Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea; as a Caribbean Take on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre

Abstract

The paper here is a venture at unraveling the widespread Western dominance in the world of literature, as also in the cultural hemisphere. The paper presents a comparative study of Jean Rhys’s " Wide Sargasso Sea as a response to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, aiming to portray the colonial mindset and its dominance not only in the literary sphere but also in the cultural sphere, as has been evident over the centuries in the context of the theory of Orientalism. The paper here endeavours to dethrone the perpetual significance of the literature coming from the First World Countries. The study here embarks on this journey as a serious response to the predominant literature originating from imperialist nations, such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, as exemplified in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. (Luo. L, 2018). Rhys’ portrayal of Bertha Mason is a strong retaliation against that of Brontë’s delineation of Bertha, a Creole, along with that of Jane Eyre, who is significantly a White woman. The paper here seeks to give an equal footing to the literature coming from Third World Countries and also their culture, which had once been resented and considered derogatory, and hence the similar portrayal.

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