Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2018

Incipient Female madness

she buy young man” which caused Antoinette to feel rejected and alone. Readers can interpret “the white cockroach” as a symbol of how unwelcoming the community was to Antoinette and her mother. Rhys simplified the complexity of Antoinette’s mental illness by drawing the readers’ attention towards Antoinette’s plea for a love potion from Christophine when she walked in on her husband with another woman, who was the maid. This had left her with feelings of betrayal, lack of love and loss of identity when she was called by another woman’s name, Bertha, and thought to herself “I don’t know what I am like now…What am I doing in this place and who am I?” Through the love potion, she was trying to fill the void in her heart from the lack of affection she received from her husband. These thoughts further show her growing disconnection not only from society but from her true self. The love potion was seen as a representation of an irrational or perhaps even crazy decision which reinforces the idea that Antoinette was growing mad and disconnected from society as the novel progressed. Later on, readers can see that Mr. Rochester used his authority to control Antoinette which made her feel worthless and adrift. He disregarded Antoinette’s feelings which caused her to become oppressed and tacitly stay in the attic that he had put her in. Mr. Rochester sees Antoinette not as his wife but as an unstable, dangerous woman with little to no intelligence and inferior to him. Just like any male back in the Victorian Era, Mr. Rochester abused his position and ignored Antoinette’s feelings and controlled her everyday life choices, which was normal in a patriarchal society.

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