I love when I finish reading books and come to Reddit to see what others thought about it.
In Jane Eyre, Rochester's first wife was mad, a malady that affected the female members of her household. However, instead of Mr. Rochester sending her to a hospital for care, he sends her to the attic and fails to hire her the professional care she might need despite him being a very rich man.
A redditor joked that mr. Rochester would do the same thing if Jane experienced post-partum depression or menopause.
Fast forward to the yellow wallpaper. The protagonist and storyteller is prescribed rest cure for her post-partum depression by her husband.
Notice how the husbands take control of their wives mental health in both instances.
Other common themes:
1.Female repression and oppression
2. Mental health stigmatization
3. Infantalization
Again, considering the historical context of these books and gender roles at the time.
Mr. Rochester's first wife burned down the house and died in the process.
Presumably, the woman in the yellow wallpaper hangs herself and appears to crawl over her husband who faints upon entering the room.
Thank God for the feminism movement as these incidents might have been more common than we read about.
Thoughts?
by Sexxymama2
15 Comments
I strongly recommend the book ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’.
Looks at it from the first wife’s perspective. Quite interesting!
I’ve thought before about little Jane’s experience in the Red Room at the start of the novel in conjunction with Bertha’s incarceration, but also then as another Yellow Wallpaper-esque consideration of oppressed women fighting to be heard and respected…
The yellow wallpaper is 1st gen feminist literature, it’s literally written to illustrate the issue.
>instead of Mr. Rochester sending her to a hospital for care
Not to defend Rochester’s entire character by any means, but modern readers are absolutely clueless about what “sending her to a hospital” would have meant for Bertha. Mental health institutions were not places that cared for people humanely in that time period. We can be as upset as we want that he locked away his violent, murderous wife in an attic (and again: I am not saying there is nothing to criticize here), but a hospital would almost certainly have treated her even worse.
It is entirely unfair to hold Rochester accountable to modern-day healthcare standards. On top of that, a lot of people (not necessarily saying you, OP) who comment on how Rochester handles this have clearly never been face-to-face with a mentally ill person who is violent due to delusions or hallucinations.
If Jane went mad Mr Rochester would do anything he could to help Jane!! He loved her so deeply. They had such a soulmate connection. How could anyone who read Jane Eyre think there was no depth to Mr Rochester’s love and adoration towards her? She was everything to him.
Both stories show how mental illness becomes worse when women are silenced. The husbands think they’re protecting their wives, but they are actually isolating them into madness. It’s a powerful critique of historical gender norms.
What a cool juxtaposition! TBH I’m reading Jane Eyre for the first time right now 😊
In a similar vein, the film “Raise the Red Lantern” might be of interest. If you haven’t seen it already that is.
Set in 1920s / 30s China. The main character is the newly acquired fourth wife of a husband you never see clearly. The story revolves around the lives the wives make for themselves while dealing with the whims of their husband.
Similar to the books you mention there is psychological horror brewing and building as the story progresses.
I don’t know if the film was ever dubbed in to English, but can highly recommend the subtitled version.
1.Female repression and oppression
2. Mental health stigmatization
3. Infantalization
2 more classics on these themes:
* The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
* A Doll’s House by Ibsen
You might enjoy Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. It’s a reimagining of Bertha’s story from her point of view, written in the 1960s (though iirc it owes more to modernist literature in terms of form than postmodern).
If you’re interested in women’s mental health and the related injustices they often faced, you might enjoy The Woman They Could Not Silence, by Kate Moore. It’s about a woman wrongly accused by her husband of being insane, and her fight to free herself from an asylum and the horrific treatment she was receiving. It’s a very powerful and true story.
My thoughts are read Wide Sargasso Sea
Wait, she hangs herself?
Read a short story recently with similar themes called Confinement. It was part of a collection of haunting winter tales, about a mother suffering postpartum and being isolated, literally locked inside her room. Really a sad read.
A good nonfiction about a woman being sent away for being “mad/insane” is The Woman They Could Not Silence.
Sorry to be (sort of) off-topic OP, but I think you would love Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys! It’s about the first Mrs Rochester, and written from her point of view.