The Madwoman in the Attic : Annette - Antoinette
Name - Himanshi Parmar
Semester - 3 (Three)
Roll Number - 8
Email. Id. - himanshiparmar3004@gmail.com
Enrollment number - 4069206420210025
Paper number - 203
Paper name - Postcolonial Studies
Subject Code - 22408
Meaning of Madwoman in the Attic
Attic means Cage. 'The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination' is a well known book by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar written in 1979. The Book examine Victorian literature from a feminist perspective.Title of this book taken from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, in which Rochester's wife (née Bertha Mason) is kept secretly locked in an attic apartment by her husband.
The book also examines female writers like Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson etc.According to Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar,Women writers of the 19th century were forced to portray female characters as either embodying the "angel" or the "monster”.Against this mentality , Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar point to Virginia Woolf , who said that,
“Women writers must "kill the aesthetic ideal through which they themselves have been ‘killed' into art ".
Susan and Sandra also wrote about ,"anxiety of authorship”, that nineteenth century women writers faced. Sandra M. Gilbert in his book 'The Madwoman in the Attic: The woman writer and The Nineteenth-Century literary imagination.' Mentioned one most prominent quote, here it is.
"A life of feminine submission , ‘Contemplative purity,' is a life of silence , a life that has no pen and no story, while a life of female rebellion, of 'significant action,' is a life that must be silenced, a life whose monstrous pen tells a terrible story."
About Wide Sargasso Sea
Wide Sargasso sea is the prequel of Charlotte Brontë's novel ‘Jane Eyre’.Wide Sargasso Sea is a well known novel by Dominican-British author Jean Rhys written in 1966. The novel was first published in October 1966 in the English language. The novel is about Mr. Rochester's marriage from the point-of-view of his wife Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress.Antoinette Cosway is Rhys's version of Brontë's devilish "madwoman in the attic". The novel Set in Jamaica, Dominica and Thornfield Hall, 1830s–40s. Genre of the novel is Postmodern novel. Major Characters of the novel are 1-Edward Rochester, 2- Antoinette Cosway, 3 -Christophine, 4- Annette Cosway 5 - Daniel Cosway etc.
Wide Sargasso Sea is a story of Antoinette Cosway, wife of a rich man named Mr. Rochester. The story starts from her youth in Jamaica, later leading to her unhappy marriage life with Mr. Rochester, an English Gentleman. Who later took her to England, and tortured her by implying fake identity of 'Bertha' on her. He isolated her in his mansion to her.Antoinette is caught in a patriarchal society in which she fully belongs neither to Europe nor to Jamaica. Major themes of the novel are race, Caribbean history, and assimilation, relationship between men and women etc.
The Madwoman in the Attic :
1- Annette Conwa
Annette Cosway is the mother of Antoinette Cosway. Our protagonist of the novel. She functions in the novel as an awful shadow of what's to come for her daughter. She was widowed and remarried to a rich man, Mr. Mason. After the death of her husband she gets financially unstable and she wanted financial stability in her life to raise their childrens. But she never got satisfaction in her married life. They always had quarrels and disagreements from each other. That affected her mentally. Creates trauma in her.
There was an attack on her home by black people and burned their house. In that incident she lost his dear son Pierre. Pierre died in a fire in their house. Also the favourite parrot of Annette Cosway burned in the fire. All these things are enough to make her mad. She got insane because of all this mental trauma and suffering. After losing her mental health she was attacked by her Husband and then her husband caged in his own Attic apartment. After the burning of her house, she has no good views about Black people. Here is one quote related to it.
"You have lived alone far too long, Annette. You imagine enmity which doesn’t exist. Always one extreme or the other. Didn’t you fly at me like a little wild cat when I said nigger. Not nigger, nor even negro. Black people I must say... they’re too damn lazy to be dangerous, I know that.’
‘They are more alive than you are, lazy or not, and they can be dangerous and cruel for reasons you wouldn’t understand."
(Annette to Mr. Mason)
She also got abused by her own caretaker black servant, of which Antoinette became a witness. She has been proven as a Madwoman in the Attic, And died in a very suspenseful way as it is not clearly mentioned in the novel what is the real reason of her death. Here, not just the house became Attic for her in which she was caged, but for an unhappy marriage life, society and financial problems are Attic, which caged her within the boundaries and made her insane.
2- Antoinette Cosway
Antoinette Cosway is the female protagonist of the novel. And daughter of Annette Cosway. The daughter of ex-slave owners and the story's principal character, based on the madwoman Bertha from Charlotte Brontë's gothic novel Jane Eyre. She was Happy, Jolly but Lonely girl in the beginning of the novel. Here is one quote indicating that,
"There is no looking glass here and I don't know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us—hard, cold and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?"
Since childhood she has had an unstable life. And that's the reason for her madness later on. She witnessed abuse of her mother in her teenage, that affected her little mind so strongly. She got married to a English gentleman named Mr. Rochester. She got forced to marry him because she has a large fortune from her mother and she needs someone who takes care of it. Because in the Victorian era people believed that women are not capable of handling fortune. They need men's support. Here we find patriarchy.
Beginning period of their marriage is considered as a Honeymoon period in the novel. They were happy in the beginning. But after that they got clashes. Mr. Rochester started doubting Antoinette. When he came to know that Antoinette's mother was insane from the brother of Antoinette. He started believing that she was also getting these symptoms of madness. Mr. Rochester and Antoinette both are totally different in their behavior, lifestyle, speaking tone and in everything. Antoinette are more fascinated with black people around them like Christophine, but Mr. Rochester has racism as he is from England, and has all the British habits. Antoinette's behavior time and again became intolerable for Mr. Rochester, and finally he concluded that she has symptoms of madness like her mother. He srated torturing her. Started calling her, 'Bertha'. She protests that Bertha is not her name but he continues calling her Bertha which is similar to making someone into someone else.
“Bertha is not my name. You are trying to make me into someone else, calling me by another name. I know, that’s obeah too.”
Antoinette wasn't mad, the madness was implied by Rochester. He abuse her sexually and mentally. Also he started ignoring her, his lack of attention broke Antoinette from within. Rochester also betrayed her by making physical relations with a black girl. Antoinette's loneliness led her towards hallucinations and madness. Mr. Rochester later on took Antoinette to England and locked her in his Attic apartment under the care of Grace Poole.Delusional and paranoid, Antoinette awakes from a vivid dream and sets out to burn down the house of Rochester.
“I will write my name in fire red, Antoinette Mason, née Cosway, Mount Calvary Convent, Spanish Town, Jamaica, 1839.”
Here, we find Antoinette wasn't mad since beginning but the madness was implied on her by her own husband. She also came here as a madwoman in the Attic. Now let us see other literary works in which we have characters like Annette and Antoinette, Madwomen in the Attic.
Literary relevance
1] Ophelia
Ophelia is the female protagonist of the well known drama Hamlet written by William Shakespeare. She has had a confused kind of personality since the beginning. She always relies on male around her. In the beginning her father, then her brother and at last Prince Hamlet, her lover. She is not capable of doing anything alone. This we came know by her dialogue to his father,
“I do not know, my lord, what I should think”
(Hamlet,Shakespeare).
After the death of her father by her own beloved Prince Hamlet she had a deep mental breakdown. She is also abandoned by her lover.Ophelia’s madness is driven by the loss of the male influences in her life. Heather Brown says that,
Ophelia “is Polonius' pawn, Laertes' chaste sister, and Hamlet's lover. Once these male influences are removed and these descriptions no longer define Ophelia, she loses her identity and becomes mad.”
2] Pecola
Pecola is Female Protagonist of the 'bluest Eye' a well known novel by Toni Morrison. Pecola is an eleven-year-old girl with black skin. She is black girl who believes that she is ugly and that having blue eyes would make her beautiful. Her madness was driven by an unhealthy family environment. Her mother and father have quarrels all the time. She also got abused by her own father and when her mother came to know about this she didn't believe her and beat her. Her mother often calls her “nasty little black bitch” by his mother.
She also has many problems. She was harassed by her trusted friend. And got pregnant by his own father. At last she lost her newborn child and that's enough to lead her to madness. Here for her Attic is her complexion, her family environment and the white society around her.
Conclusion
Thus to conclude we can say that Annette and Antoinette are just an example of Madwomen in the Attic. There are many other examples we have in literature like Pecola and Ophelia. We also have an example of Virginia Woolf who has also gone insane because of social pressure. So for her society became Attic. In current times also we find many examples and that's the reason why people started caring for their mental health. Not only people but health center and government are also care for one's mental health and feminism. Government made rules to protest women rights and mental health.
References
American Medical Association Diagnostic and Treatment Guideline on Domestic Violence. 1 Sept. 1992.
Brown ,Heather. “Gender and Identity in Hamlet.” Share and Discover Knowledge on SlideShare, Palindromo, 16 May 2014, https://www.slideshare.net/kimberlyprzybysz/gender-and-identity-in-hamlet.
Chapman, James, editor. Now Domestic Violence Will Include Metal Torment Too.
Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar. “The Madwoman in the Attic : Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, Rehab Shaban, 20 May 2013, https://archive.org/details/TheMadwomanInTheAttic.
Lopes, Sofia. “‘A Document in Madness’: A Study on the Insanity of Shakespeare's Ophelia.” ResearchGate, May 2020, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341200461_A_Document_in_Madness_A_study_on_the_insanity_of_Shakespeare's_Ophelia.
Rhys, Jean, and Brontë Charlotte. Wide Sargasso Sea. Norton, 2007.
Xiao-yan, WANG, and LIU Xi. “Causes of Pecola’s Tragedy in the Bluest Eye.” Journal of Literature and Art Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, 2014, pp. 85–89., https://doi.org/10.17265/2159-5836/2014.02.002.
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