At Lit Hub she tagged six notable re-tellings. One entry on the list:
Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea is a postcolonial response to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.Read about the other entries on the list.
Rhys’ 1966 novel concerns Mr. Rochester’s first wife, the notorious Madwoman in the Attic. Rather than that scrappy little orphan, this “landmark of feminist and postcolonial fiction” centers Antoinette, a Creole woman whose “madness” is situated in the context of a racist, patriarchal society.
When asked about her motivations for writing the book, Rhys said, “she seemed such a poor ghost, I thought I’d like to write her a life.”
Wide Sargasso Sea is among Jennifer Cody Epstein's five top books about badass madwomen, Sophie Ratcliffe's five top books inspired by classic novels, Jane Corry's ten heroines who kept their motives hidden, Siân Phillips's six favorite books, Richard Gwyn's top ten books in which things end badly, and Elise Valmorbida's top ten books on the migrant experience.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
