Deconstructing Jane Eyre: A Post-Colonial Analysis of Wide Sargasso Sea

This video essay examines how Jean Rhys’s 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea serves as a structural counter-attack to the monolithic, authoritative narrative of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. By shifting the focal point to the Caribbean margin, Rhys dismantles the idea of an objective, English colonial reality. The Subaltern Subject: The analysis explores Antoinette Cosway's identity through post-colonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha's concept of "hybridity," mapping her position within a pressurized intersection between white European colonizers and Black African communities. Pluralist Truth: Using William James's framework of American pragmatism, the video illustrates that truth is not a detached, abstract entity, but is produced through individual perception and lived experience, effectively proving that "objective truth" in a colonial setting is a fiction dictated by power. Colonial Erasure: The narrative breaks down how Rochester acts as an agent of patriarchal law and colonial authority, executing a deliberate erasure of Antoinette's identity by forcing the English name "Bertha" upon her and legally labeling her "mad". Narrative Agency: Antoinette’s final, destructive act of burning down Thornfield Hall is framed not as madness, but as a rejection of English colonial containment and a successful reclamation of her narrative agency from Brontë's original canon. Here is the link of my blog:https://krutivyas2005.blogspot.com/20...