Jane Eyre and Antoinette Cosway, the chief female characters of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, are portrayed as wholly stray personalities who, despite the different background and different life conditions, experience similar solitariness and desperation. Jane is a small orphan who is treated cruelly by her aunt and who is isolated from the remainder of the family. When Jane is sent into Lowood Institution, her isolation is aggravated ; she is transformed into a reserved and serious adult female with low self-prides and deficiency of hopes. Similar to Jane, Antoinette ‘s isolation starts at place and continues in the nunnery, act uponing her individuality. She spends about all clip in the room and close people regard her as mad, although she acts in a instead normal manner. But, contrary to Jane, such drawn-out isolation consequences in more complex psychological devastation and farther lunacy of Antoinette. As she claims at the beginning of the narrative, “ no 1 came near us. I got used to a lone life ” ( Rhys 18 ) . No 1 notices her and her household ; alternatively people betray her trust and hopes. Antoinette ‘s isolation in childhood forms her personality, negatively act uponing her grownup life and dealingss with people. This vulnerable and emotionally destroyed adult female lives in her ain created universe, and when Rochester, a individual whom she loves, alienates from her, she can no longer digest this isolation. Antoinette seeks love and attending, but her ain hubby fails to understand her.
Rhys reveals that Rochester ‘s isolation ca n’t be explained by his badness ; alternatively he is portrayed as a destroyed personality who is forced to get married a individual chosen by his household and who has to populate in a topographic point foreigner to him. Antoinette regards Rochester ‘s disaffection as his inability to accept something that is different from his well-ordered life and wonts. As a consequence of Rochester ‘s disaffection, his attitude to Antoinette is sometimes negative, and bit by bit, she is transformed into a huffy female, like her ain female parent, but Rhys opposes to the position that Antoinette inherits this lunacy from her female parent. Alternatively, throughout the narrative she stresses on the fact that isolation necessarily brings a adult female to this psychological upset. Antoinette ‘s head is split and she flees into the past, insulating herself non merely from the outside universe, but besides from her present life. Such isolation appears to be truly unsafe for such a sensitive adult female, and, as Coral Howells puts it, “ Antoinette ‘s minute of genuineness is besides the minute of her devastation ” ( 121 ) . In chase of get awaying this isolation, Antoinette commits a self-destruction.
Therefore, Antoinette fails to extinguish the negative emotions and feelings that are evoked by her solitariness and isolation. Although Jane Eyre besides experiences choler and scorn towards her relations, she manages to destruct these emotions. Unlike Antoinette, this immature adult female who feels isolation since childhood meets a individual who experiences the same solitariness, and falls in love with him. This powerful feeling saves her from desperation and eventually destroys her isolation, she no longer wants to estrange from people, and particularly from Rochester. The dealingss between Jane and Rochester differ from the dealingss between Rochester and Antoinette ; in the instance of Bronte ‘s narrative both characters destroy their isolation and happen necessary strength in each other, they are indistinguishable in many ways and are unable to populate apart. As Jane claims, “ I am mot speaking to you now through the medium of usage, conventionalities or even of mortal flesh ; – it is my spirit that addresses your spirit. equal, – as we are! ” ( Bronte 238 ) . Rochester ‘s married womans have truly traumatic yesteryear that is aggravated by their isolation, but they respond otherwise to it. Although Jane loses her parents and is invariably ignored by society, her isolation helps her to develop some accomplishments that provide her with necessary strength and let her to get the better of negative feelings. She becomes a mature immature adult female who possesses ain point of views and who is able to arouse powerful feelings in another individual. Jane expresses her dreams and solitariness in her beautiful drawings that allow her to successfully get by with her isolation. When Jane learns about Rochester ‘s married woman, she decides to insulate herself from him, but eventually she feels that he needs her and returns to him. Bing an orphan, Jane understands that she has cipher to trust on, and she learns to trust merely on herself. Contrary to Jane, Antoinette lives with her female parent at the beginning, but she is alienated from her, because her female parent is attached merely to her brother, and when she loses him, she is destroyed.
As a naAA?ve and lonely girl, Antoinette finds comfort in her isolation, but deep inside she strives for attending and love. When she marries Rochester, she believes and trusts him, sing that he is her closest individual. But when his attitude towards her alterations, she isolates herself from him, destructing their dealingss. Harmonizing to Schapiro, “ Both characters are ferocious at being unrealised by the other ” ( 99 ) . Unlike Jane who becomes mature in Lowood School, Antoinette remains a small kid who is greatly depended on other people and who is unable to move independently. In this respect, Antoinette ‘s lunacy aggravates disaffection of Rochester who isolates himself even more after his unsuccessful matrimony. Rochester finds it impossible to love a adult female who is imposed on him, and when he starts to call her “ Bertha ” , he reveals his isolation from her. When Rochester meets Jane, he is attracted to her from the really start, but he finds it hard to swear a adult female once more. He makes changeless efforts to estrange from her, but he is unable to get away his feelings. Therefore, Antoinette ‘s isolation from world and from close people somewhat differs from isolation of Jane and Rochester. Their isolation is of different nature, they are socially stray human existences. This particularly concerns Jane who is clearly alienated from society throughout the narrative. When she marries Rochester, a member of the upper category, she still distances herself from others. Contrary to Antoinette who sometimes applies to arousing behavior to pull attending of people towards her, Jane limits her dealingss to some close people. But unlike Antoinette, she does n’t insulate herself from world, seeking to get the better of the troubles with her powerful spirit and moral rules.
