Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre

     Bertha Mason, the insane wife of Rochester and the mad woman in the attic is the fictional character of Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre. Bertha is presented to the readers only after the completion of half of the narration, ie; at the time when the marriage between Rochester and Jane Eyre is called off. Bertha is portrayed as:

                 'In the deep shade, at the further end of the room, a figure ran backward                    and forward. What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not,

                  at first sight , tell: it groveled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and                   growled like some strange animal: but it was covered with clothing; 

               and quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as mane, hid its head and face' (chptr XI, pg: 367).

     This is the description made by Jane Eyre, when she and the readers see Bertha for the first time. We, the readers got to know about the life of Bertha only through the narration of the unhappy husband, Rochester. He says, Bertha is born to a well to do family of Jamaica as a heir of Creole. And he was persuaded by his father to marry her, in terms of her wealth. And his father has hidden the fact of her madness from him. He adds that after their marriage Bertha becomes completely insane hence he locks her up in the attic for ten years. Almost at the end of the novel Bertha perishes by throwing herself from the roof and freeing her husband from the bond of marriage.

Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea

                               
     Antoinette Mason in Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys can be considered as an outcome of the depiction of the character of Bertha Mason in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Even though Wide Sargasso Sea is published as a sequel of Jane Eyre, Jean Rhys presents Antoinette as the past of Bertha. In short, through this novel Rhys portrays how Antoinette transfered to Bertha Mason, the mad woman in the attic. While Bronte's character evokes hatred in the readers, Rhys's Antoinette captures our sympathy.
     When the novel opens, we sees the small Antoinette, a child who is being mocked at by friends for being a white creol. Later as an isolated being in a convent and as a distressed wife of Edward Rochester, an English man. Even though Antoinette knows her husband views her as inferior because of being belonging to White Creole, she still has brutal honesty towards him. Rochester considers Antoinette as a mad woman and thereby she is being locked up at the attic. Rhys's Antoinette is not only a victim of patriarchy but also of the ugly racism.
     

Mona Caird

   

Alice Mona Caird(nee ALice Mona Alison, also called Alice Mona Henryson Caird) was a Scottish novelist and essayist whose feminist views sparked controversery in the late 19th century. Caird was born in Ryde, Scotland in 1854. From early childhood itself she started to write plays and stories, which reveals a proficiency in French, German and English as well. In December 1877, she married James Alexander Henryson Caird, he was supportive of her independence. The Cairds had one child named Alison James. Her husband died in 1921.
          Caird published her first two novels, 'Whom Nature Leadeth' and 'One That Wins', under the pseudonym "G. Noel Hatton", but these drew little attention and subsequent works were published under her own name. She came to prominence in 1888 when the Westminister Review printed her long artice 'Marriage', in which she analysed indignities suffered by women in marriage. Her numerous essays on marriage and women's issues written from 1888 to 1894 were collected in a volume called 'The Morality of Marriage and Other Essays on the Status and Destiny of Women' in 1897.
          Continuing to write fiction, Caird published the novel The Wing of Azrael (1889), a short story collection 'A Romance of the Moors in 1891, in 1894 her famous novel 'The Daughters of Danaus' was published, the novel has been considered as a feminist classic. Also well known is her short story 'The Yellow Drawing Room'. Such of her works have been reffered to as 'fiction of the New Woman'. She was also an active opponent of vivisection. She was a member of the Theosophical Society from 1904 to 1909. Mona Caird died on 4 February 1932 in Hampstead.